Trimble Business Center

We have noticed that line strings created in cutting plane can't be edited outside the cutting plane they were created in.  For a CAD program this seems very buggy or odd.

Example, When drafting through the crown of a road from a point cloud using the Plane Manager, From Linear Path, with Subplanes, then drafting to the point cloud in the Cutting View from one subplane station to the next subplane station to the next, etc., it is then discovered while in 3d View, or Plan view, when reviewing the line string that is created, that in a few places you missed the crown and would like to tune up the selected nodes that don't hit crown to your satisfaction, you aren't able to edit this line string in 3d view (or Plan View for that matter).  Your only option is to go back to the Cutting View, find the location of the "misses" and edit them in that Cutting View subplane.  When you try to edit the line string in anything other than the Cutting View it was created in you get the Ghostbuster symbol, a red circle with a diagonal line.

For a 3d drafting program this is extremely limiting and not typical to what is found in other similar software.  Because of this I feel we must be using the tool incorrectly, or just aren't aware of the correct process.  But alas, I can't find the solution.

Further, the line strings that are created in the Cutting View have some really bizzarre coordinate geometry when viewing in the properties dialogue box or when looking at them with the profile viewer.  I have min and max elevations being shown as being in the millions on for a line string drafted with Cutting View, that are from a point cloud and project with elevations less than 1,000 feet.  When you look at the profile viewer for the same line string, they appear near vertical in the profile, being a closer display of what the plan view of the line string is than anything like the correct profile.  I think this is all related.  Somehow the cutting view is confusing the way TBC thinks about the coordinate geometry of the line strings that are created when using it (Cutting View).  But when exported to .dxf and brought into Civil 3d or other CAD program, they are spatially correct with the correct coordinate geometry for all facets, northing, easting and elevation.

Any help would surely be appreciated.  We really have learned to enjoy the power behind the cutting view as related to point cloud mapping, but this is a bizarre hurdle and makes small editing correction very time consuming.  We are currently leaving the line strings as is with errors.  Then at the location of the error drafting corrected smaller line strings, then exporting all of this via dxf and inserting into a Civil 3d CAD model and correcting the errors there in any 3d view of our choice.  Civil 3d doesn't care, you can create in section, 3d view, plan, etc. and edit the same created object in any of those views without problem.  (Also, don't get me started, Civil 3d has its hang ups too).

Thank you for you responses.  I look forward to them.

The Cutting Plane view sets up a UCS on the cutting plane so things you draw in the cutting plane are not coordinated to the world coordinate system of the project directly - this is so that you can keep going back to the cutting plane if needed. However if when you are done with the cutting plane view, you drop back to Plan or 3D views, while you can see and review the properties of the object, you cannot use the standard editing tools like Join (lines with and without a UCS together) or some of the other editing tools, because these objects while you see them in the world coordinate system of the project are actually defined in their own UCS. So the trick here is to break that, which is why we added the ability to do that in the Convert To Linestring Command. If you run that you can remove the UCS and re-compute the objects in the project Coordinate System and then the lines become fully usable in a normal sense.

When you draw in the Cutting Plane View - if you use a Polyline, it draws directly on the cutting plane (because it is really a 2D object and cannot have variable Z). If you use a Linestring, because a linestring is a 3D object and can have a variable Z the linestring can snap to objects within the cutting plane Depth field and as a result will not be in the plane itself (or may not be). If you use the Change Elevation command in the Cutting Plane View, the Elevation field is perpendicular to the Cutting Plane, not a real world Z value, this can be really helpful in some situations and a royal pain in others. In the Plan View when you change the elevation it is of course always vertically Up or down.

So the secret to Cutting Plane is use it to create objects and then use Convert to Linestring to remove the UCS to make the data usable once you have finished doing what you want to achieve in the cutting plane view

This UCS issue is the same as the issue when you import CAD data from AutoCAD or Microstation these days. Because they cannot draw a 2D Geometry and then give it variable height that works on curves, they draw the curves in a UCS so that the arc is on a tilted plane, but then the Arc is not a true arc in the plan view - it will be distorted based on the tilt of the plane and Autodesk and Bentley fudge this by adjusting the radius of the curve to make it fit - so when we remove the UCS we have to recompute the geometry to make it real in the Plan View and adjust the radius back to the original intended values (as drawn by the engineer in 2D before the UCS was applied. These UCS Objects have to be converted if we want to combine the objects with other real coordinate objects in TBC (Join, create Surface etc.,) ad again the Convert To Linestring takes care of this for you.

You can search a project for Objects of Multiple Types that have the property "Has UCS" using Advanced Select and then mass convert them using the Convert to Linestring command.

I hope that this helps

Alan.

Thank you Alan for the prompt and helpful reply.  This worked and solved our problem.  I appreciate the help.

Thank you Alan.  That was wonderful help.

Clayton Bradshaw PLS 8298, PE65864

Director of Surveying

WALLACE GROUP<http://www.wallacegroup.us/> | DEDICATION TO SERVICE®

T  805 544-4011

612 Clarion Ct, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401