Datasheet

The inTerface

After you decide how to approach these settings, get to work. The settings are either drop-

down menus or text boxes (in the case of numeric entries). Many of them are self-explanatory and

common to land-development design. Let’s look at these settings in more detail (see Figure 1.7).

Plotted Unit Display Type Remember, Civil 3D knows you want to plot at the end of

the day. In this case, it’s asking you how you would like your plotted units measured.

For example, would you like that bit of text to be 0.25″ tall or ¼″ high? Most engineers

are comfortable with the Leroy method of text heights (L80, L100, L140, and so on), so the

decimal option is the default.

Set AutoCAD Units This displays whether or not Civil 3D should attempt to match

AutoCAD drawing units, as speciﬁed on the Units And Zone tab.

Save Command Changes To Settings This setting is incredibly powerful but a secret to

almost everyone. By setting it to Yes, your changes to commands will be remembered from

use to use. This means if you make changes to a command during use, the next time you call

that Civil 3D command, you won’t have to make the same changes. It’s frustrating to do work

over because you forgot to change one out of the ﬁve things that needed changing, so this

setting is invaluable.

Show Event Viewer Event Viewer is Civil 3D’s main feedback mechanism, especially when

things go wrong. It can get annoying, however, and it takes up valuable screen real estate

(especially if you’re stuck with one monitor!), so many people turn Show Event Viewer off.

We recommend leaving it on and pushing it to the side if needed.

Show Tooltips One of the cool features that people remark on when they ﬁrst use Civil 3D

is the small pop-up that displays relevant design information when the cursor is paused on

the screen. This includes things such as Station-Offset information, Surface Elevation, Section

information, and so on. Once a drawing contains numerous bits of information, this display

can be overwhelming; therefore, Civil 3D offers the option to turn off these tooltips univer-

sally with this setting. A better approach is to control the tooltips at the object type by editing

the individual feature settings. You can also control the tooltips by pulling up the properties

for any individual object and looking at the Information tab.

Imperial To Metric Conversion This displays the conversion method speciﬁed on the Units

And Zone tab. The two options currently available are US Survey Foot and International Foot.

New Entity Tooltip State You can also control tooltips on an individual object level. For

instance, you might want tooltip feedback on your proposed surface but not on the existing

surface. This setting controls whether the tooltip is turned on at the object level for new Civil

3D objects.

Driving Direction This speciﬁes the side of the road that forward-moving vehicles use for

travel. This setting is important in terms of curb returns and intersection design.

Drawing Unit, Drawing Scale, and Scale Inserted Objects These settings were speciﬁed

on the Units And Zone tab but are displayed here for reference and so that you can lock them

if desired.

Independent Layer On This is the same control that was set on the Object Layers tab.

016817c01.indd 11 5/24/11 10:17:42 AM