Cross Section sheet composition

One thing I do to make this work is draw clip borders in my Rdxsrd view. Create a rectangle on ClipBorder_dp. If you have a lot of sections, create on that will fit most of your sections and array it across all the sections. Then you can go through and modify the rectangle based on the need of the individual sections and you will always know what is going to show up in your sheets. 

Keep in mind you really only need to worry about the vertical limits of this rectangle as the width of sheet is going to determine the horizontal.

Then, when you are cutting your sheets, the only level you need to search for is that ClipBorder_dp. That will ensure you have everything showing on the sheets. 

Now you can play around with the margins to get everything the way you like it. I usually go with .8 from the bottom, about .5 between sections and .2 from the top. You can shrink the distance between sections if you want to try and cram more on a sheet. 

Again if you have a lot of sections, only do a small station range so you can experiment with the margins until you get something that you like. 

Also, if you have new utilities that come in later that show up outside of your border, you can go into the sheet view and edit the clip border of the sections you need to modify.

Hope that helps.

This recommendation will work, however it's not one I would recommend for every situation.  I'd like to add a little more information.  

The margin settings available in the dialog do not have any affect on the clip border generated for each cross section.  The Maximum Vertical Size under the Margins and Spacing section of the dialog can come into play when the cross sections are larger than the Maximum Vertical Size value.  The XS Search Criteria is used by the tool to create the clip border for the cross sections. The tool searches for all the elements that fit the search and then create a clip border to include all of those elements. When parts of the cross sections get clipped off the sheet, the levels of those elements should be added to the XS Search Criteria section in the dialog.  This is often the case with drainage, utility, and geotech information is included on cross sections.

Adding a clip border when there are a small number of cross sections may be a viable option.  However I recommend adding the level names to the XS Search Criteria.  Adding a clip border to a large cross section file can be time consuming and not necessary when the dialog is set up with the correct information.

Denise,

Yes I see when using the clip border in a run and then your explination of the xs search criteria I have a better understanding of the composition pallet, Basically what ever is in that criteria and its subsequent elevation is the determining factor for the clip border depth in the Rdxsec_sht view. The issue i have is that at the moment, I only have the tin for the existing, so only features in my crossection are the xsec cell and the existing ground. So in my initial run, the clip depth was shallow, as I only had the existing ground in the search criteria and not the xsec cell, I added a set depth block to each of the xsections and saw that depth in the next run widen. Now i understand that if i had placed the cell in the search criteria, it would have widened the clip depth to include that.

thanks for the further help and explanation :)

I want to say this is the reason I began using the clip border thing in the first place. It came from having to recreate XS sheets many times as we add things to the sections. With the clip border, I know in my rdxsrd view exactly the area that is going to show up in the sheet view once I recut the sheets. It does take a little time to set up, but it helps keep the size of my clips to a minimum when I can move text around to fit inside my clip if needed.

Probably a little quirky on my part, but it has been working out for me for a while.

Good thing is now you have a couple different ways of doing it and you can figure out which way works best for you.

Good luck.

ZBillin,

yes, I know i will be cutting these again as we have new information, ie design tin , drainage structures, etc. So your clip border worked well. I just made my colums at 5 and copied the clip (I used non-plotting level and can then use select by attribute to delete these) to each section in a column, then used select by attribute to grab the 5 clips and used the cell insertion point to copy them to each column thereafter. My P.E. wants the cross sections to ge at a major grid line / elevation 10, so im looking to manipulate the settings to account for this. Thanks again for your great help :)

Karen

Cool, I have them on ClipBorder_dp and then just use my pen table to make that level not plot. Nonplotting works just as well, I just seem to use that level a lot when working on the cross sections, especially if I have to do some things manually.

Cool, I have them on ClipBorder_dp and then just use my pen table to make that level not plot. Nonplotting works just as well, I just seem to use that level a lot when working on the cross sections, especially if I have to do some things manually.