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CHAPTER 1 GettinG Dirty: the Basics of civil 3D
The Component Draw Order button lets you shuffle components up and down within the label.
This feature is especially important when you’re using masks or borders as part of the label.
You can work your way down the component properties and adjust them as needed for a label:
Name is self-explanatory. It’s the name used in the Component drop-down menu and
when selecting other components. When you’re building complicated labels, a little name
description goes a long way.
Visibility set to True means this component shows on screen. Invisible components can
be invaluable when you’re creating complicated labels, as you’ll see in later chapters.
Anchor Component and Anchor Point are straightforward, but many users have issues
when first using these options. Every component of the label has an anchor component,
anchor point, and attachment. The Anchor Component is how you tell Civil 3D where
you want to hang the label component. This component is bounded by a box with nine
anchor points, as shown in Figure 1.18. In this illustration, the nine possible anchor points
are represented with Xs and the nine possible attachments with Os.
Now let’s continue with the exercise and add a reference text component to this label.
5. Click the arrow on the right side of the component drop-down menu and select Reference
Text to open the Select Type dialog as shown in Figure 1.19.
6. Select Surface as the type of reference object, and then click the OK button to exit the dialog.
7. The name of the text component is Reference Text.1 by default. Change the name to
Reference Text: Proposed Surface and click the Apply button in the lower-right of the dia-
log. The middle portion of the dialog changes depending on the type of component, but the
concepts are similar. In the case shown here, the middle portion is the Text property. Under
Text, the first option is Contents, which determines the actual content of the text:
Figure 1.18
Anchor and attach-
ment points
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