Learn how to create point groups in Civil 3D and define styles for the objects within these groups. This article provides a step-by-step guide on creating a new point group, defining the point style and point label style, and setting parameters for what points to include or exclude.
Key Insights
- In Civil 3D, point groups are lists of points by set definitions. You can create a new point group by navigating to point groups in the prospector tab and selecting new.
- You can define styles for the objects you’re working with inside of a point group, including the point style and the point label style associated with the points inside the group.
- You can set the parameters for what points to include or exclude in the group based on several factors like numbers matching, elevation matching, names matching, raw description matching, and full description matching. Overrides can be used to alter these parameters, which will be discussed in the subsequent article.
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In this video, we're going to discuss creating point groups inside of Civil 3D. What point groups is, is they are a list of points by a set of definitions.
So to create a point group, we're going to go ahead and navigate over the Toolspace inside of the Prospector tab. We're going to go to Point Groups and we're going to expand it. So inside of Civil 3D, whenever you have points, Civil 3D always creates an All Points group.
It's basically a list of all the points inside of Civil 3D. And those points are listed down below inside of this window. We're going to go ahead and create a new point group by right-clicking and selecting New.
So once we've done that, we get into the Point Group Properties window. We're going to go ahead and create a new point group called Ground Shot. And as we've seen before in other windows, you have the name, the description, and new to us.
If you create an object inside of Civil 3D, you can define styles for the object that you're working with. So inside of a point group, what we're going to do is we're going to define the point style and the point label style that's associated with the points inside of this group. So what I'm going to go ahead and do since we're dealing with ground shots is I am going to drop this down.
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I am going to choose spot, but I'm going to choose instead of description only like we currently have in the drawing, I am going to select point number, elevation, and description. Now from here, we can navigate to the Point Groups tab. So you can include points that are inside of specific point groups as part of your point group that you're creating.
Currently, we only have one point group and it is the All Points group. So it doesn't make sense for us to select this point group to add into our current point group. So next, you can move on to the Raw Description Matching tab.
So inside of the Raw Description Matching tab, we have all of our description keysets keys. So inside of here, we could select GS and that would include all of the ground shot points that are inside of our drawing. Now, you can also do the same thing inside of the next tab.
So I'm going to leave GS checked, but I'm going to go to the Include tab. So inside of the Include tab, you get to set the parameters for what points to include inside of this group. You can choose to include based on Number Matching, Elevation Matching, Name Matching, Raw Description Matching.
So as we see, when we checked our Raw Description Matching GS*, it showed up inside of here. We're going to go ahead and have with Raw Descriptions matching GS*. If I was to select EP as well, you'll notice it automatically places EP inside of this.
So I'm going to unselect EP*, and then I'm going to have GS and GS*. You can also include with Full Description Matching. So you can type in a full description inside of here, or you can include all points.
Next tab over is Exclude. So it's obviously the opposite of Include. These are the points that you would like to exclude from your drawing or from your points.
So you could say, I want to include all points, but exclude points with Number Matching, points with Elevation Matching, points with Name Matching, points with Raw Description Matching, or points with Full Description Matching. So pretty much exactly the same as Include, but we are excluding those. Then you have the Query Builder.
So you can create a query for what points to include. So right now we have raw description equals GS as one of our queries. And here you'll be able to see additional queries if you were to create them.
Then we have Overrides, which we'll discuss in the next video. And we have the Points list. So the list of all the points that we've included in this point group based on our parameters in previous tabs.
And then we have the Summary tab. We have our information, our general, our labeling, our coordinates, how we're displaying, and what our Overrides are. So to create this point group, I now have to click OK.
And what you'll notice is that my ground shots didn't change. And that's because we have a Description Keyset. If you wanted your point groups to govern rather than your Description Keysets, then your Description Keyset needs to be built slightly differently.
So I'm going to navigate to the Settings tab. I'm going to navigate to Points. I'm going to navigate to Description Keysets.
I'm going to open Survey by right-clicking and clicking Edit Keys. And I'm going to go find my GS. So currently I have it selected as spot and description only.
I'm going to go ahead and select spot. And I'm going to navigate down to the bottom under Default. Now, when you select Default, what Civil 3D does is it goes ahead and it looks to what the default settings are for that point.
And it applies them when the points are being brought into the drawing. Now, if you have a group, this group now will override that point because it doesn't have a Description Keyset defining how it's supposed to be displayed. So I'm going to go ahead and select.
I'm going to right-click, select Similar. I'm going to right-click again, and I'm going to Apply Description Keys. Now what we'll see is that the Default allows the Point Group settings to apply to our drawing.
So you'll see that we have our number, elevation, description, and we still have our spot point marker. Now, you might not want to have to modify your description keys after you've created them. There may be a reason for you to have your description keys the way they are.
And so for a way to create a Point Group and get that Point Group to display through that Description Keyset, when you have specific items defined inside that Description Keyset, you're going to have to use Overrides. And we'll discuss Overrides in the next video.
