Projecting Blocks and Points

Objects that indicate location—such as AutoCAD points, Civil 3D points, and blocks—are handled a bit differently than linear objects. They are represented with markers or as a projected version of the way that they are drawn in plan view. This can lead to a distorted view of such objects because of the common practice of applying a vertical exaggeration to the profile view. The options for assigning elevations to these types of projections are the same as the options for linear objects with one addition: the ability to provide an elevation manually. This allows you to specify the elevation graphically or numerically; independent of a surface, a profile, or even the actual elevation of the object you’ve selected.

To project blocks and Civil 3D points to a profile view, follow these steps. (You should still have Object Projection.dwg open from the previous exercise.)

The Exercise File can be downloaded at the end of the article  

1. Select the profile view grid for Jordan Court, and click Project Objects To Profile View on the ribbon.
2. Click three of the points labeled BORE that appear along the Jordan Court alignment. Press Enter.
3. In the Project Objects To Profile View dialog box, verify that Test Bore is selected as Style and Use Object is selected as Elevation Option for all three points.

   Tips :The type of style referred to here is a Civil 3D point style. A few steps later, you will use a different type of style for a block.

4. Click OK and view the projected points in the profile view. As you can see, they are inserted with a marker and a label that indicates the station and ground surface elevation of the test boring (see Figure 8.12).

   Figure 8.12  A Civil 3D point projected to the Jordan Court profile view

5. Press Esc to clear the previous selection. Zoom in near the midpoint of Logan Court, and note the red test boring symbol shown there. This is an AutoCAD block, not a Civil 3D point.

6. Click the profile view for Logan Court, and then click Project Objects To Profile View on the ribbon.
7. Click the red test boring symbol and press Enter. Verify that Style is set to Basic, and change Elevation Options to SurfaceEG.

   Tips :Feature lines and Civil 3D points have projection built into their styles, but for AutoCAD entities like this block, an object projection style is used.

8. Click OK and examine the new projection added to the profile view. It looks similar to the projected Civil 3D points, even though the source object in this case is a block with no elevation assigned to it.

Projecting Objects to Profile Views

• Projecting Linear Objects
• Projecting Blocks and Points

Download Exercise File :

• Object Projection - Metric     --- ( 1016.07 KB )
• Object Projection - Imperial  --- ( 940.09 KB )