Using the Inquiry Tool on AutoCAD Civil 3D

Most of the time, you’ll be the one providing the information for a drawing. Sometimes, however, you need your drawing to tell you something. That’s where the Inquiry Tool comes in. The Inquiry Tool is a separate window whose sole purpose is to give you information about things in the drawing. There is a long list of drawing items from which to choose, and beneath each item is a list of things that you can ask about (see figure).

The Inquiry Tool showing a partial list of available inquiry types.

To try the Inquiry Tool, follow these steps (you should haveUser Interface.dwg open from the previous exercise):

Quick Tips

You may need to zoom in to accurately pick the end of the line.

1. On the Analyze tab of the ribbon, click Inquiry Tool.

2. Under Select An Inquiry Type, select Point  »  Point Inverse.

3. When prompted to specify the first point, hold down the Shift key, right-click, and select Endpoint on the contextual menu that appears.

4. Click the southwestern endpoint of the line you drew earlier.

5. Use the Shift+right-click combination again to select Endpoint, and then click the opposite end of the line for the second point.

6. Scroll down to the Direction and Horizontal Distance values in the Inquiry Tool window.
Note that they show the same bearing and distance that you entered earlier.

Connecting Objects and Styles on AutoCAD Civil 3D

The word object is usually considered pretty generic, but in the world of Civil 3D it means something very specific. A Civil 3D object is an intelligent piece of your design model that stores information about itself and has the ability to interact with other objects in the drawing. Another characteristic of a Civil 3D object is that it is affected by a Civil 3D style. A Civil 3D style is a collection of settings that control the appearance and behavior of a Civil 3D object.

Recap of Important Definitions

A Civil 3D object is an intelligent piece of your design model that stores information about itself and has the ability to interact with other objects in the drawing.

A Civil 3D style is a collection of settings that control the appearance and behavior of a Civil 3D object.

The relationship between objects and styles is one of several key relationships that you must understand and be able to take advantage of when using Civil 3D. Here are a few examples of Civil 3D objects that you’ll encounter in this book as well as in a production environment:

Surface A 3D model typically used to represent the shape of the ground, either existing or proposed.

Alignment A series of 2D lines, arcs, and spirals typically used to represent a linear feature such as a road centerline.

Profile A series of lines and curves that represent changes in elevation along an alignment.

Parcel A closed shape typically used to represent a legal property boundary.

What Is Elevation?

Depending on where you are in your civil engineering or surveying learning experience, the term elevation may be foreign to you. One way to visualize this concept is to think of it in terms of a piece of grid paper laid out over an area of land with the horizontal lines running west to east and the vertical lines running south to north. Elevation would be coming straight up out of the paper. So, the top of a hill would have a greater elevation than the bottom of a ravine. Another way of thinking about this is in terms of an XYZ coordinate system. X and Y would be the lines on the grid paper and Z (elevation) would be coming out of it. Because Civil 3D combines general AutoCAD® software and civil engineering commands, elevation and the z-axis are the same.

One more thing — depending on where you live in the world, it may be appropriate to use the word level instead of elevation.

Each of the objects listed previously can be controlled by styles. For example, surface styles can be used to show a surface in many forms, including contour lines, a 3D grid, a series of arrows pointing downhill, shading representing different elevation ranges, and many more (see Figure 1). In addition to changing the overall appearance of an object, styles can control specific details that differ slightly between similar configurations. For example, in one case there may be surface contours that need to be shown on an existing layer, while in another case the same contours are shown on a proposed layer (see Figure 2). The configuration is the same (contours), but the way that configuration is displayed (which layer) is different between two different styles.

Figure 1.  The same surface is shown in four different configurations using four different styles ( from left to right ): using contours, elevation banding, TIN lines and contours, and slope arrows.

Figure 2.  The contours on the left are displayed using proposed layers that are typically darker and more prominent. The contours on the right are displayed using existing layers that are typically lighter, so they appear more as background information.

To use styles to change the appearance and behavior of Civil 3D objects, follow these steps:

Quick Tips

Notice that when you click a contour, the entire surface object is selected and all of the contours appear highlighted.

1. Open the drawing named Objects and Styles.dwg located in the Chapter 02 class data folder. The plan view of the surface in the left viewport should appear similar to the first image shown in Figure 1.

2. Click one of the contour lines in the drawing to select the surface object.

3. Click Properties on the Home tab of the ribbon.

4. In the Properties window, change the Style property to Elevation Banding (2D). The surface will display as colored bands, representing different ranges of elevations, similar to the second image in Figure 1.

5. Change the Style property to Contours & Triangles. The surface should now appear similar to the third image in Figure 1. The triangles are the fundamental framework of the surface and give it the shape that it has.

What Are Contours?

Contours are lines that are used to represent topography or changes in elevation across the ground. Most people experience contours in things like trail maps that cover a large area (square miles or square kilometers) in comparison to what we typically see in Civil 3D. By definition, contours are lines that connect points of equal elevation. If you took a giant horizontal blade and passed it through the ground at equal elevation intervals, you would get contour lines. In flat areas, the lines would be far apart, and in steep areas, the lines would be close together. With practice, you can look at a contour map and visualize the 3D shape of the land that the map represents.

6. Change the Style property to Contours 1' and 5' (Design) (0.5m and 2.5m (Design)). The surface should now resemble the left image in Figure 2.

7. Change the Style property to Contours 1' and 5' (Background) (0.5m and 2.5m (Background)). This is the style that was assigned to the surface when you first opened the drawing. Note that both of the last two styles displayed contours but on different layers.

Quick Tips

The Quick Access Toolbar just to the right of the AutoCAD Civil 3D icon is a handy subset of your most commonly used general-purpose tools. It can be customized to add more tools if you like.

8. With the surface still selected, click the Tin Surface: Existing Ground ribbon tab and then click Surface Properties  »  Edit Surface Style.

9. Click the Display tab, and then click the color column next to Major Contour.

10. Choose a noticeable color and click OK. Click OK again to return to the drawing. Some of the contours will change to the new color as a result of this change.

As you worked through the previous exercise, did you notice that no extra steps were required to update or redraw the surface when a new style was assigned or the style was edited? The effect was immediate—as soon as you modified the assigned style or assigned a different style, the appearance of the surface changed. This is because of a dynamic relationship between the object and its style, a relationship that is honored throughout the software.

Editing a Style vs. Assigning a Different Style

In steps 5 through 7 of the previous exercise, you changed the appearance of the surface by assigning a different style to it. This is the way to do it 99 percent of the time. In steps 8 through 10, you edited the style that was already assigned to the surface. Editing styles is typically the responsibility of a CAD manager. In fact, in many companies, end users are not permitted to modify or create styles. However, it is still important to understand that when a style is modified, any object using that style will change its appearance or behavior to honor the new version of the style.

Connecting Objects to Objects on AutoCAD Civil 3D

The most important type of relationship that you’ll see in this chapter is the one between objects. A typical land development project is a collection of dozens of mini-designs that often tie in to one another. For example, a road is designed first by drawing the 2D path of its centerline, then the proposed changes in elevation along that centerline, and finally the lanes, curbs, and sidewalks extending outward from that centerline. To provide drainage during a rainstorm, ditches must be installed along the sides of the road. The location and depth of these ditches can be traced back through the design process the entire way to the layout of the road centerline. If the layout of the centerline needs to change for some reason, that change must propagate downstream through the design process, ultimately changing the location and depth of one or more ditches.

In Civil 3D, these connections between elements of the design are present regardless of the tool that is used. Before Civil 3D, these connections had to be managed manually by engineers and designers, and every aspect affected by a design change had to be fixed manually. With Civil 3D, these connections can be built into the design by establishing relationships between the road centerline, the roadside ditches, and everything in between.

Quick Tips

<Osnap Off>
will prevent your cursor from locking on to objects in the drawing that are near to it.

To see how object relationships are leveraged to make design changes in a drawing, follow these steps:

1. Open Object Relationships.dwg located in the Chapter 02 class data folder.

2. Press the F3 key, and observe the command line. If it reports <Osnap On>, then press F3 again. If it reports <Osnap Off>, this is the correct condition needed for this exercise and you can move on to the next step.

Quick Tips

Be sure that your command line is docked at the bottom of your screen and that the background color is set to white before proceeding with these steps.

3. Click the top-right viewport, which shows a profile of the road design. The black lines represent the elevations along the centerline of the new road. The blue lines represent storm drains and pipes connecting them.

4. Click the black line representing the road profile. Zoom in until you can clearly see the triangular grip located at the intersection of two lines.

5. Click the triangular grip, and drag it upward to a location just below the top edge of the profile view grid, as shown in figure. Watch the profile view and 3D view carefully. Notice how the 3D view of the road updates in the bottom-right view, including the height of the drain labeled Inlet 2. In the profile view (top right), the top of the drain is elevated to match the change in the road elevation.

Grip editing the profile.

This simple exercise illustrates the power of relationships between objects. The ease with which you just updated the design may cause you to take the underlying processes for granted; however, there is a lot happening behind the scenes. The following is a general account of the events that took place when you changed the location of the triangular grip:

• The slopes of the lines leading into that triangular grip were changed to match the new location of the grip.
• The parabolic curve geometry at the location of the grip was updated automatically.
• The corridor object, which represents a 3D model of the road, was automatically rebuilt and updated to match the new profile geometry.
• A surface representing the pavement, concrete, and earthen embankment elevations of the corridor was automatically rebuilt.
• The storm drain updated its top elevation to match the surface in the previous step.
• The 3D representation of the storm drain was automatically updated (bottom-right view).
• The profile view representation of the storm drain was automatically updated (top-right view).

A simple grip edit triggered a chain of events that might have taken an hour or more to update manually. In addition to all of this, there were other changes that took place that did not affect the design of the storm drain. This is the power of the Civil 3D dynamic environment. You should know, however, that the existence of these relationships is not necessarily automatic. They have to be considered and at times consciously built into the design by the Civil 3D user.

Using Panorama on AutoCAD Civil 3D

Panorama is a multipurpose window that is used to show and/or modify many different types of information. It works by displaying a tab for the information that you or the program has called for. For example, the Events tab (also known as the Event Viewer) will show up when Civil 3D needs to tell you something about the drawing. In another example, if you launch the command to edit the geometric details of an alignment, the Alignment Entities tab will appear. As shown in Figure, while Panorama displays information for one task, it also displays tabs for other tasks that you can access with a single click. This enables you to multitask within the same window.

Panorama showing the Events and Alignment Entities tabs.

To get a feel for the Panorama window, follow these steps (you should still haveUser Interface.dwg open from the previous exercise):

1. On the Home tab of the ribbon, expand the Palettes panel and click the icon for Event Viewer.

2. Experiment with resizing, auto-hiding, and docking the Panorama window. You’ll find that it behaves much like other dockable windows in Civil 3D.

3. Press Esc to clear any selections in the drawing. Click one of the contour lines in the drawing to display the Tin Surface: Existing Ground ribbon tab, and then click Volumes Dashboard on the Analyze panel. Note the Volumes Dashboard tab that shows up next to the Events tab in Panorama.

4. Close Panorama, but keep this drawing open for the next exercise.

Using the Drawing Area on AutoCAD Civil 3D

The drawing area is where you can actually see and “touch” the design model you are creating. The design model is most often viewed from above, referred to as plan view, but it can be viewed from any perspective. For example, because Civil 3D specializes in representing designs as 3D models, you may want to display your model using a 3D view. Figure shows a model in both plan and 3D views.

The drawing area showing the same model in plan view on the left and 3D view on the right.

Using the Command Line on AutoCAD Civil 3D

Think of the command line (see figure) as a “chat window” where you talk with Civil 3D. Nearly everything you do is reported on the command line along with the response from Civil 3D. A response can be a request for more information, reporting of a result, or notification of a problem. It’s good to get into the habit of always watching the command line because it often tells you what to do next. You can also launch commands from the command line, but you will likely find it much easier to use the visual interface provided by the ribbon and other tools.

A view of the command line while a transparent command is used to draw a line. Notice how the command line reports that the LINE command has been started and then prompts for the first piece of information: the “first point.”

Using the Toolspace on AutoCAD Civil 3D

Think of the Toolspace as the Civil 3D “command center” where all Civil 3D data and settings are laid out in a nice, orderly arrangement. It has several main functions that are represented by the different tabs it can contain. Altogether, the Toolspace can house four tabs: Prospector, Settings, Survey, and Toolbox.

Quick Tips

You can open the Toolspace by clicking the Toolspace icon on the Home tab of the ribbon.

Prospector Tab

Prospector is arguably the most important part of the Civil 3D user interface. As you build your design, Prospector arranges the different components of your design in a tree structure (see figure). Why a tree structure and not just a list of items? Later in this book, you’ll study how Civil 3D creates relationships between different parts of your design. In some ways, this tree structure helps represent some of those relationships as a hierarchy. Another, more practical reason for a tree structure is that it’s an efficient way to show a long list of items in a relatively small area—the branches of the tree can be collapsed to make room to expand other branches.

The Prospector tab with a portion of the tree structure highlighted in red.

Another way to think about Prospector is that it arranges your design categorically rather than spatially. In other words, in your drawing area, you might see road centerlines crossing through parcels, which cross through contours, which cross through survey points. Everything is in the right place spatially, but from an organizational standpoint, it’s kind of a mess. Prospector sorts out this mess and puts all of the points in one place, all of the parcels in one place, and so on. Prospector also knows exactly where those objects are in the drawing. You can right-click an object in Prospector and use the Select command or Zoom To command to locate that object within the drawing.

To explore the Prospector tab, follow these steps (you should still have User Interface.dwg open):

Quick Tips

If the Prospector tab is not visible, click the Home tab of the ribbon and then click the Prospector icon on the Palettes panel.

1. If the Toolspace is not already open, click Toolspace on the Home tab of the ribbon.

2. Click the Prospector tab of the Toolspace to bring it to the forefront.

3. Explore the tree structure of Prospector by clicking the plus signs to expand the different branches.

4. Expand Alignments  »  Centerline Alignments  »  Main Road A  »  Profiles. This hierarchical arrangement provides effective organization and suggests a relationship between the alignment and its profiles.

5. Click within the left viewport to activate it. Then on the Prospector tab, right-click Side Road B, and select Zoom To. Notice how Prospector knows the location of the alignment named Side Road B, even if you don’t.

6. Keep this drawing open for the next exercise.

It’s important to point out that Prospector isn’t just a place for viewing your design; it’s also a place where you can change the appearance of your design, create new components for your design, edit your design, and so on. These types of functions are accessed through contextual menus such as the one used in step 5 of the previous exercise. A good rule of thumb when using Prospector is, “When in doubt, right-click it.”

Settings Tab

Civil 3D has a lot of settings that control nearly every aspect of how the software behaves. In fact, one of the things that makes Civil 3D so powerful is that you can customize its settings to accommodate nearly any type of design, company standard, or any other factor that defines the environment within which you use it. The Settings tab is where these settings are managed; however, you won’t be spending much time here in the early part of your Civil 3D career. This area is more often the territory of a CAD manager or Civil 3D guru.

To explore the Settings tab, follow these steps (you should still haveUser Interface.dwg open from the previous exercise):

Quick Tips

If the Settings tab is not visible, click the Home tab of the ribbon and then click the Settings icon on the Palettes panel.

1. Click the Settings tab of the Toolspace.

2. Expand Surface  »  Surface Styles, and take note of the list of styles shown there. These styles control the appearance of models that represent the shape of the ground.

3. Expand Surface  »  Label Styles  »  Contour, and take note of the list of styles shown there. These styles control a certain type of label that is used to annotate surface models.

4. Keep this drawing open for the next exercise.

Survey Tab

The Survey tab is specifically designed for working with survey data. You could call it “Prospector for surveyors” because it serves the same functions and works in much the same way as the Prospector tab. It displays survey data in a tree structure, and it allows you to launch commands through contextual menus.

Toolbox Tab

As if Civil 3D didn’t have enough stuff packed into it already, the Toolbox is a place where other add-ons can be plugged in. Your company may have some custom programming that is designed to run in Civil 3D, or some add-on modules provided by Autodesk. This is the place where you can load and run these additional enhancements to Civil 3D.