With many things in Civil3D, it’s not readily apparent what you need to do.  Here is a step by step procedure on how to import FLT fault files.  These files are ASCII files you can drag/drop into a notepad and you will see “#AdCADD DTM 12.00 User defined fault file” followed by numerous lines of coordinates.

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A Civil3D forum user recently stated they have “been supplied ~500 .tiff files from a DEM which contain elevation data” and the prospect of repeating the built in Create Surface from DEM tool 500 times did not appeal to them (only to have 500 separate surfaces).  So we set out to create a tool to help.

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Most ESRI Shapefiles of contours are defined as flat polylines (at 0.0 elev) in the SHP file, and the user is expected to elevate the polylines using data defined in the accompanying DBF file.  Here is a complete procedure using MapWorks to import these files with the polylines properly elevated.

Users of MapWorks/C3DTools 7.0 or higher see revision note below.

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Some dialogs (like the AutoCAD INSERT command) can show a tiny preview image.  These are not always created or updated by the CAD engine.  To create/update these, you need to manually use the BLOCKICON command.   Following the command is a prompt allowing matching names.  If you have a large collection you may want to use this, otherwise simply take the default <*>.

Be very careful when using the ALIGN command if your destination points contain varying elevations (Z values).  The ALIGN command is a 3D command!  If your destination points vary only slightly you won’t see the distortion but when you list your results, it will have a “Extrusion direction relative to UCS:”

You can work around the problem with point filters.  When prompted for destination points, enter .XY, then use your object snap, then CAD will prompt for a Z, enter 0.0.  This way you will get the alignment without the extrusion problem.

When you receive a drawing containing survey points from outside sources, many times they are not ready for use in your system.  They are many times simple blocks with varying attributes (if you’re lucky) but almost always require some reworking.  While there are times when you can use CAD block export to create a CSV file for import, your results will vary and it usually requires jumping through hoops.

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A lot of old drawings (and some new ones created by CAD beginners) can contain text objects (along with other geometry) to represent points.  The text is often the elevation but it can be the point number or description.  Because the position of the text is NOT the desired position, putting the objects together manually (by picking and typing) could easily burn a day’s time that should not be justified as billable time.

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