Autodesk User Group International

�in just a few steps. No more duplicating to show line work in your plans. This will be accomplished by manipulating and adding Code Styles for the corridor under the Settings tab (just below the Prospectortab).

First, we need to make two new styles so our corridor will display correctly. Under the Settings tab, expand Multipurpose Styles. You can expand Code Set Styles to see what is available, or simply right-click it and select new. This will bring up the Code Set Style - New Code Set Style dialog box.

Name the New Code Set Style _No Display. Using underscore when naming your custom styles will put them at the top of the list. (Making this your standard will ensure that your custom styles are always listed first.)

Select the Codes tab at the top of the Code Set Style dialog box and you will see that there are only default settings.

Click on the button at the bottom right and then select your corridor. You now have all the codes related to your specific corridor in your new style. Click OK to close the Code Set Style dialog box.

Next we need to create a new style under Link Styles. This is done again by right-clicking on Link Styles and selecting new, just like the previous steps. Again, we want to name it _No Display in the Link Style - New Link Style dialog box. Now we will select the Display tab and edit the settings. In the Component Display area, we want to turn off the display in View Direction 2D and 3D. This will assure that no matter how we are viewing the corridor, the Links will not be seen.

Autodesk was nice enough to create a _No Shading style under Shape Styles, and _No Markers style under Marker Styles out of the box. These are also set to have no display in 2D and 3D like our previous style. These four code styles-- Code Set Styles, Link Styles, Shape Styles, and Marker Styles-will be used to get the desired results from our corridors.

Creating the _No Display code set style allows us to leave All Styles set to default. This way we can see our corridors displayed as normal, modified, or both in the same drawing.

Let's go into the corridor properties (whichever way you prefer) and select the Codes tab at the top. The Code Set Style: box will be set to All Styles by default, so let's change that to the new _No Display style we created. You will be able to see the Link, Point, and Shape codes that are in the Code Set Style. We need to modify them, but cannot from here. To do this, we need to select the pull-down next to Code Set Style: pull-down and select Edit Current Selection

The Code Set Styles - _No Display dialog box will pop up. Under Name you will see Links at the top of the list. There is also Point and Shape in the list with each code listed in their respective category. Under the Style column you will see

the Pick Link Style button that looks like this: (it will probably say something other than Basic). Select the icon to the right of the name in the column. You will now be presented with the Pick Link Style dialog box. From the pull-down arrow, select the _No Display style you created.

The style column for all the Link codes needs to be changed. While you certainly can select each individually, I would recommend selecting the first on the list, scrolling to the bottom of the Link section, hold the Shift key and select the last in the list, this will select all in the Link category. Now when you select the icon, and then select _No Display, it will change the entire column at once.

This process needs to be repeated for Point and Shape codes. Points will be set to _No Markers, and Shape will be set to _No Shading. When you have done this, you can close the Code Set Style dialog by clicking Apply, then OK, or just click OK (the changes are applied when you select OK). Now you will notice that under the Codes tab in the Corridor Properties the styles are set to _No Display, etc. Selecting OK in the Corridor Properties dialog box will again apply the changes, and your corridor will now be showing only feature lines (CL, TBC, etc.). Your drawing should look similar to this:

You probably noticed that there are a few more lines than you may want to see. These are controlled by the Feature Lines tab in your corridor properties dialog, right next to the Codes tab. You will notice there are four columns: the Connect column is where you will turn on or off specific Feature Lines. Selecting the green check will remove that Feature Line from your corridor. You may have a tendency to get "click happy" here, since the check doesn't disappear immediately after you select it. It takes a couple of seconds, so please, be patient.

You may want to switch to an isometric view (View/3D Views/ _ Isometric) of your corridor so you can see what Feature Lines are being removed when you select them as some are sub-grade and directly under another line. After turning off the appropriate Feature Lines, your corridor model should look something like this:

You can also use the Feature Line Style tab to change the color/line type of your corridor Feature Lines. You will notice I have ETW lines that continue through the intersection. This is because I modeled the intersection to maintain the slope of the main travel lanes as they pass through the intersection. Had I modeled the intersection to meet at the high point, you would not see these ETW lines.

Note: Remember, this is just a display style and you can always revert back to the All Codes code style to view corridors the way Autodesk intended it.

I wanted to give a special thanks to Willy Campbell of U.S. CAD for his technical contribution to the content of this article.

(Discuss this Article! in the HotNews Discussion Forums.)

Submitted by Melanie Santer, an application engineer for U.S. CAD, Inc., a large western-region reseller and Autodesk Authorized Training Center (ATC). Melanie has more than five years experience in the civil engineering industry, more than two years of practical field survey experience, and more than two years of land development/design experience on large commercial and industrial sites. Since 2005, Melanie has taught hundreds of public and custom classes using AutoCAD, Land Development Desktop, and Civil 3D and has been recently hired as an instructor at a local university. She is currently assisting more than 40 firms in California implement Civil 3D into their production environment.