By David Lewis
Introduction
When creating pipe networks in Civil 3D, users are given the opportunity to define both an object style and a label style. The label style controls what text / information will be displayed about a particular object i.e. Name only, Name cover and Part Type etc.
Label styles are a very useful function as not only do they save a lot of valuable time by allowing users to avoid having to annotate the drawing separately, but they are also dynamic and therefore ensure the correct information is assigned to each object, thus reducing the risk of mislabelling or forgetting to update important drawing annotation.
The Problem
When numbering parts the program is set up to continue from the last number input, even if that object and its associated label no longer exists in the drawing.
If we look at the manholes in Fig 1, they have automatically been numbered MH3, MH4, MH5. In this example MH1 and MH2 were on a different network that was deleted prior to this new network being created.
Ideally MH3 should become MH1 and the rest should follow sequentially (MH1, MH2, MH3 …).
Solution
Civil 3D provides users with a useful tool to quickly make changes to labels across the entire drawing – Rename Parts!
The Rename Parts tool can be accessed using the contextual ribbon and is used to change 1 object or multiple depending on the requirement and selection inclusion.
In this example it will be used to change all MH structure labels in the network shown in Fig 1.
- Select the object you wish to change then use the right click menu and ‘select similar.’
- Having selected all the relevant parts in the network you wish to change, navigate to the ribbon and expand the modify draw below Pipe properties and select Rename Parts. The Rename Pipe Network Parts dialogue box will open (Fig 2).
- Proceed to change the information as required to produce your desired results (Fig 3).
In this example Rename structures was ticked and the structures starting number was changed to 1 to produce results show in Fig 3.