Settings Tab

The Settings tab of Toolspace provides the tools to manage the way Civil 3D objects display in the drawing and define the default behavior of the commands associated with the creation of these objects. Any annotation or text that is placed by Civil 3D is controlled by Label styles. Object styles control the way the features of the Civil 3D objects are displayed within the drawing. So if you take, for example, an alignment, the dynamic annotation of the stationing, offsets, and the like is controlled by its Label styles, while its graphic representation is controlled by the Object styles.

These settings and styles are defined and contained within the drawing itself; therefore, the need for a good template that defines these items before you begin working is obvious. When you have a standard defined for your Civil 3D drawings, these settings and styles will already be set so that you can go ahead and start your design.

Drawing Settings

As with the Prospector tab, at the top of the Settings tab you will see the name of the drawing. When using Civil 3D, it is a common startup practice to make sure that your drawing settings match the requirements of the project. To access the overall settings for the current drawing, from the Toolspace Settings tab, right-click its name and select Edit Drawing Settings from the displayed list, to access the Drawing Settings dialog.

Figure 1: Accessing the Drawing Settings dialog.

Each tab in this dialog focuses on the management of specific settings for the drawing. If the settings for the Object Layers, Abbreviations, and Ambient Settings tabs are usually the same over all your projects, you can define them from a company-wide template. Because that does not usually apply for the drawing scale and coordinate information settings, which are project specific based on the desired output or its geographic location, you are likely to visit this tab at least once for each design file.

The Units And Zone Tab

On the Units And Zone tab, you have the option to define the default measurement system by selecting the default drawing units from the drop-down menu. In the same place you also have the option to define how the Imperial-to-metric conversion is handled. For the base template that ships with Civil 3D, by default the conversion takes the International Foot. If no coordinate system is assigned to the drawing, as in the case of the stock template, then by default your drawing will have assigned a No Datum, No Projection coordinate system. As soon as a coordinate system is selected from the Zone portion of the dialog, the Imperial To Metric Conversion option becomes grayed out. This happens because by assigning a coordinate system to the drawing, the coordinate system will take care of the conversion for you.

This tab also includes the options Scale Objects Inserted From Other Drawings and Set AutoCAD Variables To Match. The Set AutoCAD Variables To Match option sets the base AutoCAD angular units, linear units, block insertion units, hatch pattern, and linetype units to match the values set in this dialog. As shown in the Figure below, even though these settings are enabled in the figure, the base template has them disabled in order to avoid issues that might arise based on work environments. So, feel free to experiment with them and see how they affect your data.

Figure 2: Before placing any project-specific information in a drawing, set the coordinate system in the Units And Zone tab of the Drawing Settings dialog.

The scale that you see on the right side of the Units And Zone tab is the same as your annotation scale. You can change it here, or you can change it by selecting the desired scale from the annotation scale list in the bottom-right corner of the drawing window. Note that this scale is available only in modelspace.

In the Zone area of the Units And Zone dialog, if you choose to work with the default No Datum, No Projection option, then you will work using an assumed coordinate system. However, since most projects today are developed within a spatial reference, it is advisable to set the coordinate system to the one that is local to the area of your project. If your drawing file does not require the use and management of space-referenced data, then you can leave the coordinate system set to No Datum, No Projection.

Civil 3D has an extensive database of coordinate systems that can be assigned. This database is common to and shared across multiple Autodesk products. The first step in assigning the coordinate system is to select the category that your coordinate system resides in. The categories are based on geographic location. Since Civil 3D is used worldwide, its coordinate system’s database contains most of the standard coordinate systems (including the obsolete ones). Once the category is selected, the collection of coordinate systems that are available within that category will be listed in the Available Coordinate Systems drop-down.

As soon as a coordinate system is selected, you will notice that the Selected Coordinate System Code, Description, Projection, and Datum areas will be filled with the specific data that defines that coordinate system. If you use a coordinate system often, a quick way to select that system is by inputting its code in the Selected Coordinate System Code section of the dialog.

Try the following quick exercise to practice setting a drawing coordinate system:

Open the drawing 0101_TemplateStart.dwg or (0101_TemplateStart_METRIC.dwg).
Switch from Toolspace’s Prospector tab to the Settings tab.
Right-click the filename and select Edit Drawing Settings.
Switch to the Units And Zone tab to display the options shown previously in Figure 2.
Select USA, Texas from the Categories drop-down menu on the Units And Zone tab.
Select NAD83 Texas State Planes, Central Zone, US Foot (NAD83 Texas State Planes, Central, Meter) from the Available Coordinate Systems drop-down menu.
You could have also typed TX83-CF (TX83-C) in the Selected Coordinate System Code box.
Click OK and Save the drawing for use in an upcoming exercise.

Notice that once you have set the coordinate system, the Geolocation tab becomes active in the ribbon, and you can use the tools that are available under this tab.

By default, the mapstatusbar variable is now set to Show, which displays the name of the coordinate system on the status bar. If you do not want the coordinate system name displayed in the bottom bar, run the mapstatusbar command and change its status from the default of Show to Hide.

The Transformation Tab

Most survey-grade global positioning system (GPS) equipment takes care of the transformation to local grid coordinates for you. In the United States, state plane coordinate systems already have regional projections taken into account. In the rare case that surveyors need to manually transform local observations from geoid to ellipsoid and ellipsoid to grid, the Transformation tab enables access to enter transformation factors.

With a base coordinate system selected, you can do any further refinement you’d like using the Transformation tab. The coordinate systems on the Units And Zone tab can be refined to meet local ordinances, tie in with historical data, complete a grid-to-ground transformation, or account for minor changes in coordinate system methodology.

Figure 3: The Transformation tab.

These changes can be made with the following options:

Apply Sea Level Scale Factor: This value is known in some circles as elevation factor or orthometric height scale. The sea level scale factor takes into account the mean elevation of the site and the spheroid radius that is currently being applied as a function of the selected zone ellipsoid.
Grid Scale Factor: At any given point on a projected map, there is a distortion between the “flat” measurement and the measurement on the ellipsoid. In the Grid Scale Factor area, you are presented with four options. When your selection is set to Unity, the grid factor is assumed to be 1, which basically disables the grid scale factor. In the case of User-Defined, which is the most-used option, you will provide a scale factor.

When you use this option, the Civil 3D Northing and Easting values define the localized or project coordinates, while the Grid Northing and Grid Easting values define an approximation of the grid coordinates for the point. If you choose Reference Point, Civil 3D will determine a scale factor that is based on a selected reference point. The last option is Prismoidal Formula, where Civil 3D defines a different grid scale factor for each point in the drawing.
Reference Point: To apply the grid scale factor and the sea level factor correctly, you need to tell Civil 3D where you are on Earth. You can use Reference Point to set a transformation value for a singular point in the drawing field via the pick button or the Point Number. The pick button and point number options both populate the Local Northing and Local Easting values. The Grid Northing and Grid Easting values must be entered manually.
Rotation Point: Rotation Point can be used to set the reference point for rotation via the same methods as for the reference point. The pick button and point number options both populate the Local Northing and Local Easting values. The Grid Northing and Grid Easting values must be entered manually.
Specify Grid Rotation Angle: Some people may know this as the convergence angle. This is the angle between Grid North and True North. Enter an amount or set a line to north by picking an angle or deflection in the drawing. You can use this same method to set the azimuth if desired. You can assign a rotation point or a grid rotation angle, but not both at the same time.

It should be noted that this is not the place to transform assumed coordinates to a predefined coordinate system.

The Object Layers Tab

When you think about AutoCAD, you imagine lines, polylines, circles, and so on. Civil 3D adds its own specific entities, including points, surfaces, alignments, corridors, and others. All Civil 3D objects at the basic level comprise basic-level AutoCAD entities, but Civil 3D objects are dynamic elements.

Civil 3D is built on top of AutoCAD; therefore, all the objects reside on layers. When you define a basic AutoCAD object, you know the object will be created and placed in the current layer. When Civil 3D objects are created, they are placed on a predetermined object layer set up in your Civil 3D template.

Layers are found in several areas of the Civil 3D template. The first location you will examine is the Drawing Settings dialog ➢ Object Layer tab. The layers listed here represent overall layers where the objects will be created. For those of you who are familiar with AutoCAD blocks, it is useful to think of these layers in the same way as a block’s insertion layer. In the Object Layers tab, every Civil 3D object must have a layer set. It is a common practice to not have any of the object layers set to 0. An optional modifier can be added to the beginning (prefix) or end (suffix) of the layer name to further separate items of the same type.

Figure 4: For each Civil 3D object type in the list, a placement layer is defined for the new objects.

A common practice is to add wildcard suffixes to corridor, surface, pipe, and structure layers to make it easier to manipulate them separately. For example, if the layer for a corridor is specified to be C-ROAD-CORR and a suffix of -* (dash asterisk) is added as the modifier value, a new layer will automatically be created when a new corridor is created. The resulting layer will take on the name of the corridor in place of the asterisk. If the corridor is called Congress Ave, the new layer name will be C-ROAD-CORR-Congress Ave. This new layer is created once and is not dynamically linked to the object name. In other words, if you find out that you got the name of the street wrong and need to change it, you can’t just change the name of the Civil 3D object.

If the layer name that you chose to use for an object does not exist in the drawing, you can create it as you work through the Object Layers dialog. To access the mentioned dialog and be able to create a new layer if needed, double-click the layer name assigned to the object within the Layer column, and if the layer is not within the list, click the New button and set up the layer as needed, including color, lineweight, linetype, and so forth.

Figure 5: After you click New, you can set up a new layer.

Make sure you have the Immediate And Independent Layer On/Off Control Of Display Components setting checked. As mentioned earlier, the layers listed here are the ones the objects will reside on. However, even though the objects reside in those layers, their display components can be configured to other layers as defined by the Object styles. Having this option selected means that when you turn off the layer in which an object resides, its graphic display of its components will act independently of the object. When this option is cleared, by turning off the layer the object layer resides on, all its components will be turned off, with no regard to what layer they reside on.

In the following exercise, you will set object layers in a template:

Continue working in the drawing that you saved in the previous exercise, 0101_TemplateStart.dwg.
From the Settings tab of Toolspace, right-click the name of the drawing and select Edit Drawing Settings.
Switch to the Object Layers tab
Double-click the Layer field next to Alignment and click New to create a new layer in theLayer Selection dialog box (see Figure 5).
Create a new layer called C-ROAD-ALIN. Leave other layer settings at the defaults. Click OK.
Select the newly created layer as the layer for the Alignment object in the Layer Selection dialog and click OK.
Set the layer for Building Site to A-BLDG-SITE. Since the layer is already present in thedrawing, you can just select it from the Layer Selection dialog’s Layers list.
Set the layer for Catchment-Labeling to C-HYDR-CTCH-TEXT.
For the Corridor layer, keep the main layer as C-ROAD-CORR.
- Set the modifier to Suffix by clicking the Modifier field and selecting Suffix from the drop-down list.
- Set the modifier value to -* by clicking and typing it in the Value column field for the object.
The asterisk acts as a wildcard that will add the corridor name as part of a unique layer for each corridor, as previously described.
Scroll down to locate the Pipe in the Object list.
Create several new layers and add suffix information.
- For Pipe, create a layer called C-NTWK-PIPE with a modifier of Suffix and a value of -*.
- For Pipe-Labeling, create a new layer called C-NTWK-PIPE-TEXT.
- For Pipe And Structure Table, set the layer to C-NTWK-PIPE-TABL.
- For Pipe Network Section, create a new layer called C-NTWK-SECT.
- For Pipe Or Structure Profile, create a new layer called C-NTWK-PROF.
Scroll down a bit further and create a new layer for Structure called C-NTWK-STRC.
Add a modifier of Suffix and a value of -*.
For Structure-Labeling, create a new layer called C-NTWK-STRC-TEXT.
Add a modifier of Suffix to the Tin Surface object layer and a value of -*.
Your layers and suffixes should now resemble.
Figure 6: Examples of the completed layer names in the Object Layers tab.
Click to place a check mark next to Immediate And Independent Layer On/Off Control Of Display Components.
As described previously, this setting will allow you to use the On/Off toggle in the layer manager to work with Civil 3D objects.
Click Apply and then OK.
Save the drawings.

You can check your finished drawings against the completed file. The file you will be looking for is 0101_TemplateStart_FINISHED.dwg or (0101_TemplateStart_METRIC_FINISHED.dwg).

The Abbreviations Tab

When you add labels to certain objects, Civil 3D automatically uses the abbreviations assigned in this tab to indicate geometry features. For example, left is L, and right is R. The Figure below shows a sampling of customizable abbreviations.

Figure 7: Features are customizable down to the letter on the Abbreviations tab.

Civil 3D uses industry-standard abbreviations wherever they are found. If necessary, you can easily change VPI to PVI for Point of Vertical Intersection. In most cases, changing an abbreviation is as simple as clicking in the Value field and typing a new one. You might notice that most of the abbreviations are simply defined, but some of them are defined by using macros, as in the case of the Alignment Geometry Point Entity Data. You will find that these macros are widely used in the naming conventions for the Civil 3D objects.

The Ambient Settings Tab

Examine the settings in the Ambient Settings tab to see what can be set here. The main options you’ll want to adjust are in the General category, and the display precision settings are in the subsequent categories. You will also want to visit the Angle and Direction categories to verify the format of the angles.

The level of precision that you see in this dialog does not change the precision in labels. What you see here is the number of decimal places reported to you in various dialog boxes. Becoming familiar with the way this tab works will help you further down the line because almost every other settings dialog box in the program works like the one.

Figure 8: Ambient Settings at the main drawing level.

You can set the following options in the General category:

Plotted Unit Display Type: Civil 3D knows you want to plot at the end of the day. In this case, it’s asking how you would like your plotted units measured. For example, would you like that bit of text to have a height of 0.25” or ¼”? In the civil engineering world there is mostly a consensus on the use of decimal units. For example, many people who used Land Desktop before Civil 3D are comfortable with the Leroy method of text heights (L80, L100, L140, and so on), so the decimal option is an obvious choice.
Set AutoCAD Units: This option specifies whether Civil 3D should attempt to match AutoCAD drawing units, as specified on the Units And Zone tab. This setting is specified on the Units And Zone tab but is displayed here for reference so you can lock it if desired.
Save Command Changes To Settings: Set this to Yes. This setting is incredibly powerful but a secret to almost everyone. By setting it to Yes, you ensure that 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. By setting it to Yes, you will save yourself the frustration of setting it over and over again.
Show Event Viewer: Event Viewer is the main Civil 3D feedback mechanism, especially when things go wrong. Event Viewer uses the Panorama interface to display warnings such as when a surface contains crossing breaklines. Event Viewer will pop up with informational messages as well. If you have multiple monitors, it is a good idea to leave Panorama on but set aside for review.
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. If the cursor is paused over an object, it will display some basic properties about that object. If it is paused in a blank space on the screen, depending on the Civil 3D objects present in the drawing, it can provide horizontal and/or vertical data of the position of the cursor relative to those objects or within the definition area of the object. For example, for alignments it can provide name, station, and offsets of the cursor relative to all the alignments in the drawing as long as the cursor position from the alignments is perpendicular; for a surface, it can provide the name and the elevation of the point the cursor is placed over.
Once a drawing gets complex, the amount of data displayed in the tooltip can be overwhelming; therefore, Civil 3D offers the option to turn off these tooltips universally with this setting. If you want to micromanage these tooltips, then you have the option to toggle the tooltip display for each Civil 3D object individually by accessing the toggle found in the Information tab of the Properties dialog for those objects.
Imperial To Metric Conversion: This setting displays the conversion method specified on the Units And Zone tab. The two options are US Survey Foot and International Foot. This setting is specified on the Units And Zone tab but is displayed here for reference so you can lock it if desired.
New Entity Tooltip State: This setting controls whether the tooltip is turned on at the object level for new Civil 3D objects. If you change this setting to Off partway through a project, the tooltip will not be displayed for any Civil 3D objects created after the change. Of course, you can go back to each of the objects and enable the tooltip if necessary.
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 are 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 is set on the Object Layers tab. Yes is the recommended setting, as described previously.

Moving down to the Direction category, you have the following choices:

Unit: Degree, Radian, and Grad.
Precision: 0 through 8 decimal places.
Rounding: Round Normal, Round Up, and Truncate.
Format: Decimal, DDºMM' SS.SS", DDºMM'SS.SS" (Spaced) and DD.MMSSSS (decimal dms).
In most cases, people want to display DDºMM'SS.SS". Also, this setting controls how directions are entered at the command line.
Direction: Short Name (spaced or unspaced) and Long Name (spaced or unspaced).
Capitalization: You can preserve case or force uppercase, lowercase, or title caps.
Sign: Gives you a choice of how negative numbers are displayed. You can use a minus sign to denote negative numbers only, use a set of parentheses to denote a negative, or use a sign regardless of value. The latter option will show a plus for positive values and a minus for negative values.
Measurement Type: Bearings, North Azimuth, and South Azimuth.
Bearing Quadrant: This should be left at the industry standard: 1 – NE, 2 – SE, 3 – SW, 4 – NW.

When you’re using the Bearing Distance transparent command, for example, these settings control how you input your quadrant, your bearing, and the number of decimal places in your distance.

Besides the Direction category, you can explore the other categories, such as Angle, Lat Long, and Coordinate, and customize the settings to how you work.

At the bottom of the Ambient Settings tab is a Transparent Commands category. These settings control how (or if) you’re prompted for the following information:

Prompt For 3D Points: Controls whether you’re asked to provide a z elevation after x and y have been located.
Prompt For Y Before X: For transparent commands that require x and y values, this setting controls whether you’re prompted for the y-coordinate before the x-coordinate. Most users prefer this value set to False so they’re prompted for an x-coordinate and then a y-coordinate.
Prompt For Easting Then Northing: For transparent commands that require Northing and Easting values, this setting controls whether you’re prompted for Easting first and Northing second. Most users prefer this value set to False so they’re prompted for Northing first and then Easting.
Prompt For Longitude Then Latitude: For transparent commands that require Longitude and Latitude values, this setting controls whether you’re prompted for Longitude first and Latitude second. Most users prefer this value set to False so they’re prompted for Latitude and then Longitude.

The settings that are applied here can be changed both at the drawing level and at the object level. For example, you may typically want elevation to be shown to two decimal places, but when looking at surface elevations, you might want just one. The Override and Child Override columns give you feedback about these types of changes.

Figure 9: The Child Override indicator in the Time, Distance, and Elevation values.

The Override column shows whether the current setting is overriding something higher up. Because you’re at the Drawing Settings level, these are clear. However, the Child Override column displays a down arrow, indicating that one of the objects in the drawing has overridden this setting. You can check child overrides by accessing the Feature Settings of an object such as a surface (see Figure 10-left) and looking for a fi lled Override check box (see Figure 10-right).


Figure 10: The Surface Edit Feature Settings and the Override indicator.

Notice that in this dialog, the box for the Precision setting is checked in the Override column. This indicates that you’re overriding the settings mentioned earlier, and it’s a good alert that things have changed from the general drawing settings to this object-level setting.

But what if you don’t want to allow those changes? Each settings dialog includes one more column: Lock. At any level, you can lock a setting, graying it out for lower levels. This can be handy for keeping users from changing settings at the lower level that perhaps should be changed at a drawing level, such as sign or rounding methods.

Toolspace Tab