In this exercise you’ll learn how to prepare an existing drawing template for use with plan production tools before using your own custom templates for plan production you must set the layout viewport type to either plan or profile by default most of the templates provided with Autodesk civil 3D have the viewport type properly set to undefined however the plan production templates that are included have viewports that are already configured to the appropriate viewport type plan or profile so let’s examine the viewport properties in an existing template let’s begin by going up to your quick access toolbar and clicking open you can access your local template files by clicking on the file type and selecting drawing template next go into your plan production folder and open your civil 3D Imperial plan and profile
you can see that our template file contains two viewports
select the top viewport you can examine the different settings within the properties palette including the size and position of this particular viewport let’s check out the viewport categories double-click the viewport type
you can see that the drop down displays the configuration options for the viewport the current top viewport is set to plan while the bottom viewport is set to profile these settings specify that when you use this template in the plan production process the plan view of the alignment will appear in the top viewport and the corresponding profile will appear in the bottom viewport by default all templates that are not contained in the local template plan production folder have the viewport type set to undefined to configure your own custom templates for use with the plan production process you must change the appropriate viewport setting so that’s how you go about configuring viewports in civil 3D in this exercise you’ll use the create view frames wizard to quickly create viewframes along an alignment viewframes are rectangular areas along an alignment that represent what’s displayed in the associated viewports on the layouts to be created before you create viewframes you must have a desired alignment already in your drawing depending on the type of sheets you want to produce whether it’s plan or profile you’ll also need to have a profile already created if you’re creating plan sheets only then you do not need to have a profile in the drawing this exercise continues from configuring viewports so let’s go ahead and start by creating viewframes go ahead and open up your plan production viewframe create drawing in your tutorial folder now note that in the select file dialog box ensure that the file type is set to drawing rather than drawing template go ahead over to the output tab next go to plan production and then select create viewframes
in the create viewframes wizard on the alignment page specify the following parameters we’re going to leave the alignment on Maple Road
and the station range we’re going to leave this on automatic this setting selects the entire Maple Road alignment go ahead and click next
on the sheets page under the sheet settings go ahead and leave the setting on plan and profile this setting creates sheets that display both plan and profile views for each frame now go under template for plan and profile sheet and click this button right here then click this button here then under your template folder go into plan production select civil 3D Imperial plan and profile that will be our template click open we’re going to leave our sheets at 40 scale so click ok for viewframe placement go ahead and leave it on its default of along the alignment this setting aligns the viewframes along the alignment as shown in the graphic in the Wizard right here go ahead and check the box to set the first viewframe before the start of an alignment we’re going to change this to 50.
this option sets the distance that the first viewframe is placed before the start of the alignment entering a distance here provides the specified amount of space before the alignment starting station this distance ensures that the alignment start location does not coincide with the start of the viewframe if this checkbox is not selected then the first viewframe is placed at the start of the alignment go ahead and click next now we’re in the viewframe group page viewframe groups are created automatically this page lets you specify the object creation criteria for the viewframe group object you can go ahead and examine this page but accept the default settings for this exercise go ahead and click next now we’re on the match lines page match lines are straight lines that are drawn across an alignment and plan view to create where the corresponding sheet for the alignment begins and ends match lines typically include labels that can identify the previous and next sheet along the alignment examine the settings that are available on this page but accept the default settings for this exercise go ahead and click next on the profile views page specify the following parameters under profile view Style select major grids and then under band set
select stations only now we can go ahead and create our viewframes
you can see now that the viewframes which are these blue rectangles are displayed along this alignment
the match lines are also displayed as annotated lines between the viewframes in the tool space under the prospector tab expand the viewframe groups
notice that within all of these collections they contain the same components you created during the viewframe group creation process now go ahead and right click on one of the viewframes notice that you can go ahead and zoom to that viewframe and then you’ll also notice that you can create a sheet based off that viewframe in the upcoming exercises you’ll create sheets for all of the viewframes so that’s how you go about creating viewframes in civil 3D in this exercise you’ll create plan and profile sheets from the viewframes you created in the earlier exercise after you’ve used the create viewframes wizard to create viewframes you’ll create sheets using the create sheets wizard the sheets that are created represent the layouts that are used for construction documents let’s start by specifying the sheet creation settings go ahead and open up your plan production plan profile sheets Dash create drawing in your tutorials folder the current drawing must be saved before you create section sheets to prevent this tutorial drawing from being overwritten save it to an alternate location such as your desktop now go ahead and go up to your output tab and then over to the plan production panel click create sheets note that on any page of this wizard you may click create sheets to create the sheets using the default choices on the wizard pages which is located right here if there are criteria that have not been supplied then the create sheets button is not available
on a viewframe group we’re going to leave it on the default of Maple Road notice that you may select all of the viewframes in the group or a selection of viewframes within the currently selected viewframe group next under layout creation we want to select the number of layouts to include with a new drawing and we’re going to leave that at the default of one this option creates a drawing for each layout if you enter a value greater than 1 say 3 for example three layouts are created in each drawing the total number of sheets and drawings would depend on the length of the alignment selected and other criteria such as size and scale of the viewports in the reference template you can only enter in an integer that’s between 0 and 256. now for the layout name leave this at its default now choose the north Arrow block to align in layouts we’re going to leave that at its default of North this option orients A North Arrow block that’s defined in the template this list is populated with all the blocks that are present in the current drawing notice that there is a nun selection that’s available if you don’t wish to include a North Arrow block go ahead and select next on the sheet set page under sheet set new sheet set this option specifies that a new sheet set will be created to organize the new sheets a sheet set allows you to manage and publish a series of sheets as a unit in the following steps you’ll specify a location for the individual sheets and the sheet set data which is commonly referred to as the DST file for best results store the sheet set data file and its Associated sheet files in the same location for more information about working with sheets and sheet sets see the AutoCAD help now let’s determine our sheet set storage location go ahead and select this button right here select your tutorial data folder click open now for the sheet file storage location we’re going to select this button right here and you’ll see that we’re currently in the right folder go ahead and click open now let’s click next now one thing to note is that if the viewframes do not include any profile views then the profile views page in the create sheet set wizard will be skipped the data reference page will instead be displayed next for right now on the profile views page under other profile view options select choose settings another thing to note is that you specified the profile view settings during the create viewframes exercise let’s click the profile view wizard
in the create multiple profile views wizard use the links along the left side or the back and next buttons to examine the available settings we can go ahead and do that for right now
many of the settings are not available because they are already defined by the currently selected viewframe group for more information and see the creating multiple profile views tutorial let’s go ahead and click finish
in the create sheets wizard under align views select align profile and plan View at start this option aligns the alignment starting station in plan view with the profile starting station and profile view the profile view shifts to the right to accommodate the exact alignment starting station let’s select next
on the data references page you can select or omit the objects for which you want references included in your sheets notice that the Maple Road alignment and profiles are selected by default go ahead and scroll down until we get to our pipe Networks and check the box next to pipe Networks after that we’re ready to create our sheets so go ahead and select that button when you come to this prompt to complete this process your current drawing will be saved go ahead and select ok
go ahead and check the box to dismiss this event we’re now being prompted to select the profile view origin we’re going to go ahead and pan to a clear area within our drawing select this point right here after your sheets are created the sheet set manager is displayed showing the newly created sheets for more information on the sheet set manager see the sheet set manager help topics in the AutoCAD help if the sheet set manager does not open enter sheet set on the command line these sheets are contained within a DST file the way that you find your DST file is you select open and navigate to your my civil tutorial folder and then select that DST file and click open select one of your sheets right click and click open
we’ll move this off to the side
and then pan over to our sheet
the sheet opens as a brand new drawing note that you can publish your sheets by selecting the set right clicking and go into the publish settings or you can share them by using the e-transmit feature so that’s how you go about creating plan and profile sheets in civil 3D in this exercise you’ll create sheets from section views now note to create section views see the creating section views tutorial this exercise continues from creating plan and profile sheets let’s start by opening up our plan production Dash section sheets Dash create drawing in our tutorials folder the current drawing must be saved before you can create section sheets to prevent the tutorial drawing from being overwritten save it to an alternate location let’s do that by going over to our Big C select save as and then navigate to your my civil tutorial data folder and then click save
now let’s create some section sheets go ahead and go up to your output tab and then over to your plan production panel select create section sheets
now within the create section sheets dialog box specify the following parameters for the select alignment we’re going to leave it at Center Line for the sample line group name we’re going to leave it at its default here and then under the section View group we’re going to leave that at its default next under layout settings select this button right here
you can use the name template dialog box to specify a default name for each of the layouts in this exercise you will accept the default layout name template go ahead and select cancel now under sheet set we’re going to leave it on our default of new sheet set however for the sheet set storage location we’re going to set a different location we’re going to set this under our my civil tutorial data folder go ahead and click open
now we can go ahead and create our sheets
when you’re notified that the drawing will be saved go ahead and click ok
note if the select layout as sheet template dialog box is displayed go ahead and click this button right here
then navigate to plant production and then select civil 3D Imperial section this will be our drawing template go ahead and click open then you can select a layout from the list I’m going to go ahead and select the 40 scale and click ok
so let’s go ahead and save our drawing go to The Big C and select save
let’s go ahead and examine the section sheets when the sheets are generated they are displayed in the sheet set manager window in the sheet set manager window under Section View group dash 1 go ahead and select the first section sheet
select the rectangular section view border right click and select properties in the properties window under miscellaneous notice the standard scale property this value should match the drawing scale of the source drawing go ahead and close the properties window
at the bottom of the drawing select the model tab now we’re going to modify a section View let’s zoom into the first section View on the left hand side of the section view select the offset and elevation label
click the group and drag the grip up and to the right
and place the label then repeat those steps for the right label
at the bottom of the drawing select section sheet Dash 1. and then go ahead and zoom into your section View
the label changes have been applied to this section View so the model is dynamically linked to the section view sheets so that’s how you go about creating section sheets in civil 3D
