LDD3 and basic AUTOCAD 2002

[BB]

I dislike drawing in LDD and I choose to use ACADMAP with all the menus and icons simulating basic ACAD. Sometimes when I go back and forth from LDD to ACAD, LDD seems to override my ACAD settings. i.e., I open a drawing that was saved as a basic ACAD dwg, and LDD takes over and tries to assign a project to it! Also, every time I turn on my computer, I have to go to TOOLS, OPTIONS, PROFILES, and set the profile to ACAD 2002 or else I can only open one drawing at a time. I have re-installed the program and no change.

I wish AUTODESK would enable basic ACAD to import survey points! It seems rediculous that you need all three MAP, LDD, ACAD just to simply import survey points from an excel file. Does ACAD 2005 do this without add-ons?

Thanks

[CarLB]

Well you can create "points" from info in an excel file, but to create "inserts" that have point number, elev, description as attributes, you need to find one of several lisp routines out there that will do this. You could create an excel spreadsheet to do most of the work instead. It would combine your survey information into command format, so you could just copy from a column in Excel, paste into AutoCAD's command line, and your points would be created. The cell in Excel to insert a point block would be something like:

-insert blockname easting,northing s scale 0.0 PtNumber Elev Description

I have made a lisp routine to enter points; haven't tested this Excel approach.

[BB]

This is exactly what I mean, kind of crazy that Basic ACAD will not import simple survey points to their correct x,y,z with a description. A great old stand alone program called Quicksurf was a great old tool simple and to the point.

I will print out your suggestion and see where it takes me.

Thanks.....

Anyone else have any ideas?

[VERYCIVILDRAFTER]

The reason for your frustrations with LDD is that it is a very different program than Map... Map is merely AutoCAD with one more pull down menu called Map (obviously), and while there are some very handy functions, it still pales in the abilities that LDD has.

Some back ground; LDD was originally not even made by AutoDesk but by Soft Desk. LDD is, at its core, an in depth database management tool that is designed to organize and access data for everything you would need to put together a Grading Plan. It juggles TIN data, alignments, cross sections, points, and Plat Data.

Therefore the reason it asks for a Project upon opening a drawing is that it need you to tell it where it should store or retrieve all of the above information. Also, unlike AutoCAD, LDD has NEVER been able to open more than one drawing at a time, because (once again) it has to shuffle so much data that opening multiple drawing can cause database corruption. The reason for the involved Points tools is that the points are stored in a (I’m a broken record) database that has very powerful tools (nothing that AutoCAD could handle) for editing and organizing them. If I had more time I could explain to you why, in the end, it’s better to modify points in LDD than basic AutoCAD. I’d suggest some getting some in depth training on LDD so that you don’t miss out on some fantastic tools for your trade.

An every day working tip; experienced LDD users typically only spend about ten percent of their time in LDD and the rest of their time in MAP. Modify points, alignments, TIN, and labels in LDD, do general drawing editing (like line work, block editing, and dimensions) in AutoCAD.


Good Luck :wink:

[BB]

Yeah, VERYCIVILDRAFTER, I spend only a fraction of my time in LDD as well. It is good to hear that other users do the same. Currently I only use LDD to import points. I have also successfully used it to generate contours many times. The real power that I wish to harness is the volumetrics. It is, in my opinion, a very difficult task and the results I get are different all the time. I would appreciate if you programming wizards out there would design a tool that you could select the contour lines of a pond with a crossing window and push the "VOLUME" button and it will spit out a value in gallons.

I still would like to hear a solution for my problem with having to go set my ACAD profile every time I turn on the machine.

BB