In “Leveraging a Dynamic Environment”, you learned about the importance of relationships in Civil 3D and saw firsthand how Civil 3D makes use of interactions between different object types. When you’re dealing with survey data, these relationships are managed in a survey database. The raw data is linked with the screen representation of the points in the survey database, which is linked with the linework generated by connecting those points, and so on. The survey database is unique within Civil 3D in that it is stored outside of the drawing file.Creating and configuring a survey database is relatively simple. Follow these steps to see for yourself:
- Open Civil 3D and click New on the application menu. When prompted for a template, browse to the Exercise_03 class data folder and open Essentials.dwt or (Essentials.dwt (METRIC)).
- Click the Survey tab of the Toolspace.
Tips:If the Toolspace is not visible, you can click Toolspace on the Home tab of the ribbon. If the Survey tab is not visible, click the Survey icon to the right of the Toolspace icon.
- Right-click Survey Databases, and select Set Working Folder.
- Browse to and select the Exercise_03 class data folder and click OK.
Tips:On Prospector, you will see a series of Essentials survey databases that you will use in upcoming exercises.
- Right-click Survey Databases, and click New Local Survey Database.
- Type Essentials as the new database name and click OK.
- The Essentials database is now shown on the Survey tab. Note the components of the survey database, such as Import Events, Networks, Figures, and Survey Points (see Figure). The survey database establishes and manages relationships between these different components.
The Essentials survey database shown in Prospector after the completion of step 7
The Survey Working Folder
The working folder is simply the location where survey databases will be stored.In this exercise, you will create a survey database named Essentials. This will create a folder within Exercise_03 named Essentials.
