Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
12.
Zoom in to the drawing, and examine what you see (see Figure 3.3).
◀
You may need to exe-
cute the Zoom Extents
command to bring
the points into view.
To do this, type
ZE
at
the command line and
press Enter.
FiGuRE 3.3
So far, importing data shows only a bunch
of relatively meaningless
x
markers in the drawing.
13.
Save and close the drawing.
You can view the results of successfully completing this exercise by opening
Import Survey Data - Complete.dwg
. The survey database named
Essentials 2
is provided for the next exercise and matches what you should have at the end of
this exercise. It contains the same points you just imported.
Automating Field-to-Finish
The term
field-to-finish
refers to the process of transforming raw survey field
data into a finished drawing. Before computers, the point data collected in the
field was plotted on paper by hand, and draftspeople skillfully connected the dots
and employed other methods to create the desired topographic map. The process
was manual in the truest sense of the word. Next came the first CAD programs,
in which points could be plotted on a computer screen and the dots connected
using primitive entities such as lines, arcs, polylines, and blocks. This is what
many would now refer to as a “manual” process.
As you might guess, the process of making a drawing out of point data is quite
tedious and presents an opportunity for automation. Imagine using the result
from the steps in the previous section (see Figure 3.3) to create a map of the land.
With no information accompanying the points, it would be nearly impossible. In
the following sections, you'll see how to use several Civil 3D features to automate
this process, resulting in a drawing that is 80 to 90 percent complete immediately
after you import the raw field data. However, as is usually the case, the more
automation you want, the more setup you're required to perform. Automation is
another way of saying that you're going to make a bunch of decisions ahead of
time and ask the computer to carry out those decisions when needed.
◀
A
topographic map
can
be thought of as a
3D map: the 2D outlines
of surface features
combined with contour
lines representing the
third dimension.
