Civil 3D – What I Learned Today – Sample Lines

I’ve been involved with Civil 3D ever since the preview version came out with LDT 2004 and I know a lot about this program but, I’m constantly learning new things. I’ve decided to start a new series called, “What I Learned Today”. There are so many times I’ve been on the forums, or watching a webcast, or even in class when I see something and think to myself, “I didn’t know that!” Whenever that happens from here on out, I’ll do a quick blog post to share it with everyone.

So, what did I learn today? Well, if you have a sample line that is skewed (sample lines are used to create your cross sections along your alignment if you didn’t know), select the sample line, and choose, “Make Orthogonal”. This will move the ends of the sample line to match the station of the sample line.

You can select multiple sample lines to apply this to. In the following image, you can see the before and after comparison of making these two sample lines orthogonal:

As you can see, it doesn’t work on every sample line. The very jagged sample line on the left was created from a polyline and the command doesn’t work on it. The sample line on the right however was created by the Range of Stations command (I’m sure it would be the same if I had used the At a Station command) and lines everything up for you.

Let me know what you think of this series idea in the comments here and if you have any ideas for What I Learned Today, let me know!