Datasheet

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CHAPTER 1 GETTING DIRTY: THE BASICS OF CIVIL 3D
The Override column shows if the current setting is overriding something higher up. Since we
are at the Drawing Settings level, these are all clear. However, the Child Override column has a
down arrow symbol, indicating that one of the objects in the drawing has overridden this setting.
After a little investigation through the objects, we find the override is in the Edit Feature Settings
of the Profile View, shown in Figure 1.9.
Notice that in this dialog, the box is checked in the Override column! This indicates that we’re
overriding the settings from earlier, and it’s a good alert that things have changed from the general
Drawing Settings to this Object Level setting.
But what if we don’t want to allow those changes? In each settings dialog, there’s one more col-
umn we haven’t discussed: the Lock column. At any level, you can lock a setting, graying it out for
any lower levels. This can be handy for keeping users from changing settings at the lower level that
perhaps should be changed at a drawing level, such as sign or rounding methods.
Figure 1.9
Profile Elevation Set-
tings and the Override
indicator
Object Settings
If you have clicked the expand button next to the drawing name, you’ll see the full array of objects
that Civil 3D uses to build its design model. Each of these has some special features unique to the
object being described, but there are some common features as well. Additionally, there’s a General
collection for settings and styles that are applied to various objects across the entire product. Let’s
look at those now.
The General collection serves as the catchall for the styles that apply to multiple objects and to
the settings that apply to no objects. For instance, the Civil 3D General Note object doesn’t really
belong with the Surface or Pipe collections. It can be used to relate information about those objects,
but since it can also relate to something like “Don’t Dig Here!” it falls into the general category. The
General collection has three components (or branches), and we’ll look at each.
Multipurpose Styles These styles are used in many objects to control the display of compo-
nent objects. The Marker Styles and Link Styles collections are typically used in cross-section
views, whereas the Feature Line Styles collection is used in grading and other commands. Fig-
ure 1.10 shows the full collection of Multipurpose Styles and some of the Marker Styles that ship
with the product.
67403.book Page 12 Friday, August 31, 2007 2:12 PM