Discover how to create a table for segment labels using alignment tables in a civil 3D environment. The article covers the process from selecting alignment segments to establishing table and data properties, and finally, displaying the created table.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates the steps to create a table for segment labels in civil 3D, starting with the selection of alignment segments, through setting up table and data properties, before displaying the finished table.
- There are various options for the data that can be added to the table, including the length, tangent direction, start and end station, easting, and northing for each line component. For curves or spirals, additional information such as radius, length, and A-value can be included.
- The created table can be displayed in various ways based on user preferences, with options for borders, separators, fill areas, and text colors. The user can also choose to have the table update dynamically as alignments are updated, or stay static as a snapshot of the current state.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we're going to go ahead and create a table for the segment labels that we added to our dev branch alignment. So to do that, we're going to go ahead and go up to annotation.
We're going to come all the way down here to alignment tables, and then we're going to go ahead and do add alignment segments. We're going to go ahead and select this. You have the options for just doing lines, curves, or spirals, but I want to go ahead and use all of the segments that I have labels for.
So I'm going to go ahead and select add alignment segments, and then civil 3D pops up this window for alignment table creation. So inside of here, we have the table style that we can choose. And so if I go into my table style and I go to edit current selection, what we have in here is we have the information tab that controls the name description and who created it.
Then we have the data properties. Now this is important because this is all the data that's going to show up inside of our table. We have the table settings, what the text does wrap or not, maintain view orientation, repeat title in the split tables.
If a table splits because we have too much data in it, will you repeat the titles, repeat column headers and split tables? Same thing. Will we repeat the column headers over in the tables that have split? Then we have information on how we want to sort the data. So do we want to have it ascending or descending and then sorting the column order? We're going to go ahead and leave that unchecked so that we can not have to deal with ascending and descending and just leave it as is.
Learn Civil 3D
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
Then we have the text settings, the title, the header, and the data, what the heights are and what the styles of the text are going to be. Then we have the important information for what the actual structure of the table is going to look like. We have each individual row.
So what it's going to return for a line, a curve or a spiral, then the data that's going to return a number, a radius, a length, a line and chord, or a value, which is the A value for spiral. So for our lines, we're going to be returning length and line. For our curves, we're going to be returning radius, length and chord.
For our spirals, we're going to be returning radius, length and A value. So you can add additional data to these tables by hitting this plus to add a column. And then inside of here, you can go ahead and double click inside of these boxes to get the text component that you can add in.
So for our line component, we have the options for length, tangent direction, start station, start easting, start northing, end station, end easting, end northing. And then we have the line segment number, the name, the description, the length, the start station and the end station. So any of this data can be added to the table.
And depending on the entity, you'll have different data that's available to you. If I go ahead and go to curve, you'll notice that my curve has different information. So I have midordinate distance, chord length, direction.
These are all kind of the same information that we had that was returning in our segment label styles. When we looked at our curve segment labels or our bearing over distance line labels, this is the same data that we saw when we clicked on those ellipses under the components. So it's just basically saying, hey, we're turning our labels that we're displaying on our alignments into a tag.
And now we need that tag to read into a table. So whatever data you had in your labels and you want to produce to a table, you're going to find that here. You're going to import it over into a column into your table.
So I'm going to go ahead and hit cancel. I'm going to select this column. If I don't want it, I'm going to hit this red X for delete.
And so inside of here, then we have the options for display. So how do we display the table? You want to have borders. Do you want to have separators? Do you want to fill areas inside of your table? And then what colors you want to have your text.
And then again, we have a summary tab that kind of goes over what we had in the previous tabs here. So I'm going to go ahead and hit OK. Then we have the alignment that these labels are associated with.
We're going to go ahead and do by alignment. You could do select by label style. So you could select just any label style that shows up in the drawing and we're going to add to this table.
But because I want to have this all associated with just my dev branch, I'm going to go ahead and select by alignment. I'm going to go ahead and select my dev branch. If I wasn't sure I could click this button and then I could pick it on screen.
So from here, we have kind of the table settings. These ones we can get to pop up later. These ones kind of go away after we've selected.
OK, so it's important to get these selected. These ones we can bring up very easily. But if you want to set your table settings for how many rows you want to allow maximum tables per stack, how far you want to offset your tables from each other, and then how you want to orient your tables.
Do you want to have them across from each other or down from each other? And then how do you want your tables to behave? Do you want them to be a snapshot of what it currently looks like right now? Then you would select static. If you wanted to update as you update your alignments and you would want to select dynamic. I generally always select dynamic.
So I'm going to go ahead and leave these as they are and click OK. Now what Civil 3D is doing is it has created my table for me. It's asking me where to place it.
So I'm going to go ahead and place it. And once I place this, you're going to notice that the segment labels that I have are now different. They're the tag label style.
So I'm getting an L or a C for a line or a curve. So I'm going to go ahead and save this drawing and then I'll meet you in the next video.
