I have been using a program called CMI Tools by CadMasters for the last few years, and it has been great for the use with Land Desktop, but now that Civil 3D is finally getting all of the ‘bugs’ out, things are becoming more dynamic. One of the commands in CMI Tools that I use a lot labels the station and elevation at a lot line based upon your proposed finished grade profile. Now that there are all of these cool dynamic label styles in Civil 3D, I wanted to find something that would allow me to label lots in the same way, but using dynamic styles at the same time.
This took a little playing around to figure out, but it is an example of how you could create dynamic lot line labels. For an example of what the labels are going to look like when we are done, please see LotSta_Figure1. Before I begin on telling you how to create this style, please be aware that you will need a surface and alignment predefined in order for these labels to work.
First thing to do is bring up your Civil 3D Toolspace and set the Setting tab current, and also verify that you are in the Master View. Expand the choices available as shown in LotSta_Figure2, and create a new style under the line label folder. For this tutorial we are going to call the style Lot_STATC. For the style description, we can enter the following: Lot Line Station & TC Label.
Now move on to the General tab of the Label Style Composer Window, and enter all of the information you want for your text styles. Once you are done with that, move on to the Layout tab. Remove all of the components that may exist so we are starting from scratch. The first component that we are going to add will be a Reference Text Component. So add the reference component, and select Alignment from the Select Type window (LotSta_Figure3). Now we need to edit the General properties and give the reference component a name, and properly format the component. We want to start off by changing the Name from Reference Text.1 to Station. Set the Visibility to true, Anchor Component to <Feature>, and Anchor Point to Anchor Segment. We now move on to the Text properties, the first thing here is to change the contents to show the actual station. Click to change the contents, delete everything in the text box to the right. Select Station Value from the Properties drop down, and format the precision and other options to your needs, when done click the button with the blue arrow to place the code in the text box. Click ok, and then you are brought back to the Label Style Composer Window.
The next component that we will add will also be a Reference Text Component. So add the reference component, and select Surface from the Select Type window (LotSta_Figure4). Change the Name from Reference Text.1 to Elevation. Set the Visibility to true, Anchor Component to <Feature>, and Anchor Point to Anchor Segment. Click to change the contents, delete everything in the text box to the right. Select Surface Elevation from the Properties drop down, and format the precision and other options to your needs, when done click the button with the blue arrow to place the code in the text box. Click ok twice, and we are done and ready to add some labels to the drawing.
To add the labels, just go the General menu and go down to Add Labels. Change the Feature to Line and Curve, set the Label Type to Single Segment, and finally change the Line Label Style to Lot_STATC. And go ahead and add them to some lines. Now I won’t go and say this is the best way to do this, as there are a few downfalls to it. If you drag the label along a line, you will notice that it changes in elevation and station, so be sure to adjust the offsets as you may need and then make sure you have the labels dragged to the end of your lot line. Another down fall is that the label reads in a proper direction that matches the line it is associated with. So say you have two alignments adjacent to a parcel and it has one lot line that touches both right-of-ways one tag will be correct and one will be in the wrong direction (LotSta_Figure5). Compare the figures to see these issues.
One of the main reasons I like this style though, is the fact that if you change your surface or the alignment stationing, all of your lots update right away. It is also good if you have to move one end of a lot line. Hope this helps.
