CAD Output (Make AutoCAD Objects)

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Introduction

In order to improve drawing speed and automatic display updates as design changes are made, Advanced Road Design makes use of 'quick draw' functionality (proxy graphics) available in AutoCAD/BricsCAD.  Most notably, surface display components (such as triangles and contours) and design plan linework utilises 'quick draw' technology for drawing representation.

By default, non Advanced Road Design users will not be able to view any of the 'quick draw' graphics.

This command exports the graphic results into the AutoCAD drawing as polylines and AutoCAD objects, for plotting and viewing by non Advanced Road Design users.

Note: Whilst Contour labels are displayed as AutoCAD text, their position is determined by the display of contours for the surface object.  Until the CAD Output command is run, editing the surface or contour interval will result in the relocation of the contour labels.

Details

Upon selecting the command the following form is displayed:


 
Create in Drawing This what data to output to the drawing, and whether to output 2D and/or 3D information.
  Surfaces Surface Output Controls
    Radio Buttons Surface Selection Output all surfaces into the drawing (All Surfaces), or only those set to display in the drawing (Currently Displayed)
    Output Tick on what to output:
  • Triangles: output 3D face objects describing the triangulation of the surface
  • Contours as 2D polylines: output 2D polyliines representing the surface contours
  • Contours as 3D polylines: output 3D polyliines representing the surface contours
  • Height Shading as solids
  • Direction Shading as solids
  • Slope Shading as solids
  • Slope arrows as lines (3 lines describing an arrow shape)
  Models Controls output of the plan drafting linework
    Radio Buttons Model Selection Output plan drafting linework for all Models (All Models) or only those set to display (Currently Displayed)
    Output Tick on what to output:
  • Lines as 2D polylines: output 2D polyliines representing the surface contours
  • Lines as 3D polylines: output 3D polyliines representing the surface contours
Disassociate Objects By default, each object created by the software is identified as having come from this export via the inclusion of extra data (xdata) on the object.  This can cause problems when users want to manually edit the object, because the software uses this data to identify the object as coming from this output process and will delete and replace the object based on the current model/s whenever this command is run.

Tick on Disassociate Objects to remove this association - objects are not deleted and replaced when this command is run, if this is ticked on during export.
Toggle On/Off Click to set the display status for surfaces and/or models.  Refer Toggle On/Off for information on this form.
Layers This enables user control over the colours and layers for the different cross section Codes used for each String object.  The opens the Assign Layers command.
  LandXML Output This exports out the Surface and Alignment data into a LandXML file suitable to importing into AutoCAD Civil 3D and other civil engineering design packages. 
Note: By default, separate XML files are output for the alignments and DTM's and are saved to the location of the Data folder, in a folder named XMLExchangeFiles.
  XML Surfaces Tick on to output the surfaces to a LandXML file
  XML Alignments Tick on to output the alignments to a LandXML file
OK Apply and exit.
Cancel Exit the form without deleting any data.