texupport

In Civil 3D, several of the inquiry commands under the map menu don’t work:

Map-Inquiry-Line and Arc Information
Map-Inquiry-Angle Information
Map-Inquiry-Continuous Distance
Map-Inquiry-Add Distances
Map-Inquiry-List Slope

Workaround:
Use the equivalent Civil 3D commands as documented below.

MAP MENU           CIVIL 3D TOOL
COMMAND            COMMAND
mapcglist    ==>   cglist
mapcgang     ==>   cgang
mapcgcdist   ==>   cgcdist
mapcgadist   ==>   cgadist
mapcgslist   ==>   cgslist

Alternately, you can use the commands under the Map menu in Land Desktop or Land Enabled Map

First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 Sp2:  Still reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible

Submitted By: TommieR and Christian Billiot

1. Create a Curve Label Style with the following settings:
   • Allow Curved Text = true
   • Border Visibility = true
   • Background Mask = true
2. Before you OK the label style, you’ll notice that the border is not going to be correct.
3. Draw an arc.
4. Place the curve label style on arc and check the location of the border and the background mask.

The background mask matches the border, but neither matches the text.  It works fine if you don’t use “Allow Curved Text”.

Workarounds:
… add two spaces before the start of “L=….” in the Contents row.  This will take care of the border overlapping the “L”, but unfortunately, does not address the extra masking being added at the end of the text.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052813 
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007?
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible.

1. Create a new drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
2. Set the annotation scale to 1″=40′.
3. Place some points manually.
4. Drag the labels of the points so that the leader arrowhead is visible.
5. Create a new Point Label Style with the dragged state arrowhead set to origin indicator 2.
6. Change the Point Label Style of the manually placed points to the new Point Label style.
7. Save the drawing (Points-1.dwg).
8. Create a second drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
9. Save the drawing as (Sheet-1.dwg).
10. Set the annotation scale to 1″ = 40′.
11. Overlay the first drawing (Points-1.dwg) into the second drawing.
12. Zoom extents and view the arrowheads.

The arrowheads revert to closed filled when viewed in the xref drawing (Sheet-1.dwg), but are still origin indicator 2 in the original drawing (Points-1.dwg). 

Workaround:
The current work-around is to use the origin indicator 2 as the marker style but that leaves a gap between the end of the leader and the marker.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052864
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: (unknown)

1.  Take a computer with 4GB RAM.
2.  Start the OS with the /3GB switch enabled *
3.  Start Civil 3D 2008
4.  Map-Image-Insert
5.  Select a tiff with a world file attached, or a SID file
6.  Let the error messages begin…

Note – this behavior also takes place when using x64 Windows (which doesn’t require the /3GB switch) as noted on “Civil 3D for Beginners”

Workaround:
Either don’t use /3gb switch with the OS or use Raster Design to insert georeferenced raster files.  Alternately, you can try to use the Add Raster Image or Surface Connection from the Map Task Pane.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3608470203
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2008?
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still Reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

When using any version of AutoCAD with two monitors or a monitor and a projector, it’s possible to position any dialog box on the secondary monitor.  This works great until you have to go back to one monitor for whatever reason.  (It does happen, particularly after using a projector).  If you find yourself with missing dialog boxes, you can reposition them by editing their position in the Windows registry.

Workarounds:
Note that all of the standard windows registry warnings apply:  You can severaly damage your system if you edit the wrong system setting in the regitry.  Only people very comfortable with registry editing should attempt this workaround.

• Shut down AutoCAD
• Start the registry editor and navigate to hkcu\software\autodesk\autocad\rxx.x\acad-xxxx:xxx\profiles\youruserprofilename\dialogs
• Under the dialog tree, you’ll see a list of all of the AutoCAD dialog boxes.  Find the one that has disappeared from your screen and directly edit its location and/or size.

Numerous errors in user input are known to cause fatal errors in Civil 3D.  Most recently, I’ve noticed that incorrect grading criteria can cause an unhandled exception.

Steps to reproduce:* Create a grading criteria to grade to a relative elevation of +5′ at 0% grade.
* Grade from any feature line using this criterea.
* Wait several minutes.
* Watch C3D produce a fatal error

Admittedly, this is an error in user input, but Civil 3D should do standard error checking to catch user error.  For comparison, enter =5/0 in a cell in excel, and it will immediately return #DIV/0! without crashing.

Workaround:
Never make mistakes.

First Appeared: This was first reported to me in Civil 3D 2008 SP2, but I suspect it has been around since the beginning.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: (unknown)

Steps to Reproduce the issue:
1.  Create a viewport in a layout that is zoomed into a certain area in model space.
2.  Lock the viewport.
3.  Change to model space within that layout.
4.  LandXML import or data shortcut create reference an object into the drawing.

What is the problem?
The locked viewport “zooms to extents” of the object imported.  You have to unlock the viewport, fix it, then lock it again.

What were the expected results?
Create the object without zooming extents or switch to model tab before importing object.  Adding a warning about switching to Model tab with cancel option would be even better.

Submitted By: TommieR
Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052751
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2008
Status as of 2008 SP2: Still reproducible
Status as of 2009: Still reproducible