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This question came in yesterday, and I thought I would share a video of the work process required - as with all these things and with CAD Files in general, there are always issues that you have to work out and you also have to understand the data and what could be going wrong. 

The issue was that the customer imported a DWG File of CAD Cross Sections and an alignment (drawn as a CAD line), and they wanted to use the Convert CAD Cross Sections to Stored Cross Sections process, yet when they tried it it failed to work for them - the question is then "Why Does It Not Work" and "How Do I Solve This Type Of Issue".

The answer follows ...

My experience with CAD Cross Sections is that it is all about "Data Prep" making sure that you get the data clean and set up on layers so that you set yourself up for success. Hoping that the CAD Data straight after import is clean enough to just work is wishful thinking in 80% of cases. In this example there were a few issues that dictate which method of conversion to use. As with many data sets, they highlight some kind of "corner case" that makes me run to development to discuss the issue, however in order to get you going as users, we try to find a work around to the issue so that at least you can get your job done. So there is a "corner case" in this example that we are still looking at, however here is the work process to use to convert the data.

In this example the CAD Cross Sections Look Like This

If you look closer at some of the sections they look like this

And some look like this

The difference is in the Offset Axis - note the lower of the two has a pair of offset labels, yet the first doesn't. This is the main challenge in this particular example. In the second section we could determine Horizontal Scale but in the first section there is no indicator of scale (and that is also the first section type we see - so we would use the values of 36 as the offsets (as they are close to the Grid lines (within the tolerance specified) and because there are no other labels we would select those incorrectly - this would make the sections 72 meters wide and not 20m wide as per the design.

The second issue is all of the little Tick Marks - if selected as Grid Lines - they would duplicate in some cases and in others create new but very short grid lines - this can also be an issue in some cases

The third issue is that when you looked at the 0 offset label, they were all duplicated on the same layer - duplicate data - whether it be labels, grids, station labels etc all create a degree of ambiguity in the process, so spend time cleaning that up. Same for the section profiles - make sure that they are joined correctly and that they have only one instance of each profile.

Spend time getting the data clean and on layers that you know and understand. You will need the following sorted out by layer to make this easy

1. Grid Lines you want to use
2. Grid Labels you want to use
3. Station Labels you want to use
4. Each Surface Type Section Collection that you want to Convert

You will also want Target Layers for the Stored Cross Sections that you are going to create. This could be the same as the source layer for each of the surface section profiles.

In this example I elected to set the cross sections up as follows for conversion

Because there was no Horizontal Scale I chose this method of setup, and then in execution of the conversion I used the No Grid Method (which requires entry of a Horizontal and Vertical Scale parameter), and requires at least a Datum Line and a 0 offset grid line to work with. This approach works well for No scale or limited scale sections.

The following video shows how to do each surface profile as a set and as individual elements.

Hope that this helps you to better understand the nuances of converting CAD Cross Sections.

Alan

Gooh explanation @Alan Sharp

But is there no sound to the video?

Thanks

My incompetence at play here Joe - early mornings without coffee - forgot to turn my headset on and did not check that it was recording - Busted!

Anyhow - just for you, now in glorious Technicolor and Surround Sound - I re-captured the video and added some "Bonus Content" - Happy watching and thanks for showing me up here Buddy .... Appreciate it    

Alan

Hello again @Alan Sharp, I didn't mean to put you on the spot haha.

Great video and explaining step by step, for clarification of the cross sections colors.

Green= Original ground

Cyan= Finished design

Black/ditch section= A utility trench

Magenta= Overexcavation

This is a smaller part of a much bigger project and in this particular area the ground has some very poor bearing capacity therefor we have to - first excavate to the "cyan surface" - after that fill in order to excavate the utility trench.

After watching your video I managed to get it to work meaning generate stored cross sections, I've sent you a follow up.

Hi.

Thanks for this video, it explains a lot. But i cant get it to work. If you look at this video, do you see something i do wrong? 

XS Trouble - YouTube 

Hej tjena Fredrik. Allt väl i GBG?

To your question, I think I see what’s not completely correct. I think it’s the location of your station text and grid height text, the station text is not above the grid line but you’re telling the software that it is and the same for the grid height text. Try moving the text  in one cross section and see if it gets processed if it does then you have a nice evening of therapy redo work haha, I hope that will make it work for you. What do you think about my theory @Alan Sharp?

Sounds good Joe - thanks for stepping up here - appreciate the help.

Long time no hear! You been snowed up in the Arctic North?

Alan

Sent from my iPhone

Yes @Alan Sharp it’s been a minute since we last caught up. Been hectic over here with lots of work. And yes maybe I’ve been snowed up in the Arctic North looking for a PUG session for us in the Nordic region to attend..wink wink..time for you to head over don’t you think??

By the way did you catch the match yesterday?

I did see the match - it was cool!

Alan

Hej! 

Bara fint, äntligen lite vår i luften här.

Sorry but that does not work for me. XS-2 - YouTube 

Can you share the file Fred and I will get it going for you and then show

you how

Alan

On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 12:16 PM fredrik@fredriksmarktjanst.nu <

Here is the folder.  Dropbox - GC Brokindsleden - Simplify your life 

Thanks! This is killing me, i really really HATE when i dont get it to work.  

And the worst thing is that it is only 1 time of 1000 its a bug or something, its always because i do it the wrong way. 

I just posted a video for you on the Forum

Here is the project File in v5.02 Format

Alan

On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 12:27 PM fredrik@fredriksmarktjanst.nu <

Did you send me the file? 

Bra här i Sthlm är det kallt.

I think you should have picked station text below instead of above because you moved the text below the section and you should lower the “search window” to something more narrow 12 meters is a big search window for the software to know which text it should pick.

The height text you should try to move to the side of grid line middle justified if that makes sense.

Anyways now that Alan is in the picture I think everything will be sorted 

So Fredrik

The video below covers all for this file I hope - I will send you a VCL / VCE Project Shortly so you can see the end results and see what I did first hand. The key issues were as follows

1) Project Settings - Units - Station there is a setting that allows you to change the US style formatting character for Stations (+ i.e. 10+00) to the Swedish Style character / (10/00) - and because your station labels are formatted this way - without this small change you would never have got this to work. Change this in your Prototype if you haven't already if working in Sweden.

2) Get all your data Clean and on easy to use layers. Make sure that your surface profiles (Top, Bottom, Finish, Subgrade, Drainage etc are created as you need them as continuous lines (Join etc.)

3) I found that your Existing Terrain lines extended beyond the limits of the Grid Lines - these I had to Trim back to the ends of the Grid Lines or Extend The grid Lines to the maximum width of Existing Ground to make this work - that is a corner case we had not covered and I have development fixing that for the next release (as we find corner cases we address them making this command better and better

4) Once I did the above - the data processed fine (I used the next release and I know we fixed a couple of other issues that I found working with Joseph Torres (also in Sweden) - so cannot guarantee that with 5.02 you will get exactly the same results - but it should be close - if not let me know (I just don't have time today to go over this again in 5.02 but it should be similar

The video walks you through all of this

Alan