Friday, November 11, 2011

What's Missing In the World of Civil 3D Points? Not This!


Sure there are feature requests that we all have for Civil 3D points such as having full functionality of dynamic blocks within a point style, but this post is actually about what is no longer missing.


This morning I was asked how to find ranges of point numbers that were not currently being used in a drawing. In older versions of Civil 3D, one might have tried to look at the All Points point group properties for a list of points in that group. Well, now there's an easier way to get the answer.

Beginning with Civil 3D 2011, we were given this nifty new command:

LISTAVAILABLEPOINTNUMBERS

This command returns a list of point numbers that are not in use in the current drawing. Now you might be thinking that is a really long command name to remember but don't panic. Here's a how you can access the command:
  1. In Civil 3D 2011, at the command line, type LISTA then press tab then enter. Civil 3D will auto-complete the command for you.
  2. In Civil 3D 2012, at the command line, type LISTA then press enter (no tab key required). Civil 3D will auto-complete the command for you.
  3. In Civil 3D 2011 or 2012, select a Civil 3D point. On the COGO Point contextual ribbon tab, look for the COGO Point Tools panel . Left click on the bottom of that panel and a fly out will appear. Choose List Available Point Numbers from the list.


So now you know one thing that is no longer missing from the world of Civil 3D points.

3 comments:

Chris Munoz said...

I wish Civil 3D would create the ability to add Station Offset to control points. I have had to use third party software for this.

Unknown said...

That is a list of all available point numbers. It would be nice to see a list of unused points within a range.
If I list all unused point numbers my text window will not scroll back far enough to see the beginning of the list.
-G

Tom Richardson said...

You are correct, George. That would be a nice addition to the software. I posted your request on the Civil 3D Idea Station. Please follow the link and login with your AutodeskID to add kudos to the request.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-ideastation/list-available-point-numbers-in-a-range/idi-p/5831701

While you're there, search through the ideas you see and add kudos to the ones that would help you the most. Adding comments with your kudos is a great way of letting Autodesk know how you would use the feature in your every day work flow.