[OpenRoads SS3] Civil AccuDraw set origin

I think what you are seeing is a misinterpretation of either the function of Civil Accudraw or the feedback from the commands.

In the examples you listed, Civil Accudraw is not even in play because it is not relevant to the described tasks. Civil Accudraw does ONLY one thing. It feeds point information to other commands.

So, when you measure area using the points method the measure area command needs a series of points which CA can feed. Likewise the flood method needs a point which CA can feed. But the other methods of measure area are picking elements not feeding points. If, CA was running in floating dialog mode then you would never even see it because no points are being prompted. I assume you must be in fixed dialog mode or triggered the origin input from the CA toolbox

So, is CA dependent on what the tool can accept? Yes. It is only used when the tool is needing a point input.

Unknown said:

In the examples you listed, Civil Accudraw is not even in play because it is not relevant to the described tasks. Civil Accudraw does ONLY one thing. It feeds point information to other commands.

This response boggles the mind. Yes, you're right: CA does only one thing. It feeds point information to other commands. But I'm not talking about what CA reports as much as I'm talking about how you set the origin baseline. In my view, however, it shouldn't matter what tool I'm working with. When setting the origin, I should be able to select any element that could be selected if any other tool had been selected. The selection of the CA baseline should be 100% independent of any tool that you're currently working with. 

Allow me to present my workflow more concisely:

1. The next task I was set to do is to measure areas for estimated quantities, so I selected the Measure Area tool.
2. After measuring one of several areas, I realized that I needed the station at the beginning of the area and at the end of the area, so I opened Civil AccuDraw, and since the baseline hadn't been selected already.
3. I clicked to set the origin, and I attempted to select the appropriate chain. When I clicked it, it gave me some bogus information that wasn't going to be useful.
4. At this point it became clear to me that I could (would have to) switch to the Selection tool or many other tools and set the origin baseline.

Try these steps on any file and I'm confident you'll see the same. I don't believe this workflow is especially out of the ordinary. In fact, I go through similar steps all the time when I'm at quantities stage.

Perhaps you should send a video clip. Civil Accudraw will not even be active when Measure Area by Element is active.

Unknown said:

Perhaps you should send a video clip. Civil Accudraw will not even be active when Measure Area by Element is active.

The HUD won't be rendered, sure, but it does work if you use the hard display. (And by the way, I think this is a very important drawback to the HUD: this is just one reason that a user might need station and offset coordinates when not actively constructing new linework. Hence, I have little interest in the HUD and would rather have a setting available that would either disable it altogether or have it so that as soon as I open CA, the hard window comes up.)

A couple notes but you may need to schedule some time with one of our support team to walk thru the process.  Or you can contact me directly Robert.Garrett@bentley.com.

• The HUD can be recorded but this is a function of the recording software, most of which are configured by default to ignore overlays.
• The fixed window ("hard window") can be set as default in the preferences and should then startup that way every time 
• As for the workflow you are showing in the video, Civil Accudraw is not doing anything here because the measure command is not needing any point data.  The fixed dialog sort of gives you an indication that it wants to do something but that is an illusion. Here's why:
  • The Microstation measure command has no capability to compute based on an element plus station limits.
  • In other words, there is no way to input a start here and end there parameter to the command
  • Thus, there is nothing for CA to do

I see the goal you want to reach, but the measure area command would not accomplish what you want with or without CA.  You could draw in some construction elements of course and thus make a new area for a shape or flood fill but the wiring for Civil Accudraw to feed start and stop is just not there.  At the risk of beating a dead horse, Civil Accudraw (also Microstation Accudraw) feed points to other commands. XY, DXDY, StationOffset, Distance-Distance are all point functions thus when a command needs an area or volume there is no role for Accudraw to play.  

Unknown said:

the measure area command would not accomplish what you want with or without CA.

I'm hopelessly confused at this remark, and I'm quite sure my thoughts aren't coming through, but I don't know how to express myself any other way.

Yes, I get that Measure Area itself would not get me all the answers I'm looking for in one click. I'm not trying to do that. As cool as that would be, I was never expecting that result. However, in case that was ever going to be implemented, it could be presented as a report just like the alignment reports.

In the interest of being more clear about my position, let's take a couple steps back, here. (And feel free to let me know how I should have started this thread to have been more clear from the get-go.)

At the end of the video you can see that I got what I needed: the begin station for the area I measured. The steps I took was always how I expected to get the station. (I never expected to get it from Measure Area.) I always knew I needed to open CA and then set the baseline for CA, but I remembered too late to notice that it hadn't been set since I opened the file and started measuring areas. That means I was already using a tool that would accept only area elements. 

Now, to remedy the problem where CA had no baseline for my S-O coordinates, I clicked to set the origin. I expected that the next input should be able to receive a linear element. Because, you know, I was trying to set the baseline alignment for CA. Instead, I had to select a different tool before I could set the baseline. And then, of course, after setting the baseline I had to go back to the Measure Area tool.

My whole point here is that the tool that is active (and what elements are eligible for that tool's input) should have exactly no influence on what CA will accept as its origin baseline. This was always my primary point in this thread.

A secondary point was that when using various measure tools, the baseline that is finally received by CA is strange.

EDIT: I find that in addition to the various measure tools, when using Modify Element, I can't set the baseline for CA.

So...are there any plans to modify the behavior of CA to permit it to select *any* valid element that CA could select, no matter what tool is selected? Could this functionality be listed as a request for future enhancement?

So...are there any plans to modify the behavior of CA to permit it to select *any* valid element that CA could select, no matter what tool is selected? Could this functionality be listed as a request for future enhancement?

Derek,

I'm a little confused as to how you are using Civil Accudraw in conjunction with the Measure Area command. Like Robert said, since the Measure Area command isn't looking for a point, Civil Accudraw would not come into play. Are you just using Civil Accudraw for the purpose of tracking?

Yes. To identify the area on the left side from Sta. 350+00 to Sta. 354+00, for example. I don't want my estimate record to simply say "An area of 450 square yards that could be anywhere on the project." That was always the only reason to use CA. I would snap to a point at or near the beginning of the range and at or near the end of the range and record that.

You might want to take a look at the inverse points tool we added in SS4 (under reporting tasks) as I believe it deals with this use case.

Regards
Ian

It's conceivable that this other tool would help me execute this task, but I'm not using SS4 yet.

And of course that is irrelevant when I'm talking about setting the origin of Civil AccuDraw while I'm using a tool that expects an area element. This is the issue here.

So...are there any plans to modify the behavior of CA to permit it to select *any* valid element that CA could select, no matter what tool is selected? Could this functionality be listed as a request for future enhancement?

Scenario:

Say I'm editing a text element, and I've already written quite a bit. I realize I need a station along an alignment. 

Civil Accudraw is reporting station and offset on one baseline but I need the station and offset from a different baseline. I click the button to set a new origin baseline. I move the cursor over the alignment I want to use. It won't accept it. It says "Element not valid for tool" in the tooltip. 

I'd rather not click in space to commit the changes, because there's a lot of text in the text element I was working in, and when I do finally have the station and offset, I have to relocate where I need to enter the text. (Yes, there are clever solutions to make this easier. I shouldn't need a clever solution to avoid this issue that is so obviously a bug.) But it looks like I have to. So I click in space to commit the changes to the text element's contents.

I click to set the origin. I attempt the same thing. Same issue. So obviously it's a tool thing. 

So now I have to do the selection tool, or a line-drawing tool, or some other tool (I don't have a complete list of what works and what doesn't). Then I click to set the origin, then click the very same alignment that I'd tried to click before. It works fine. 

And now I have to go back to the text edit tool, find where I was editing before, and then snap to whatever I need the address for.

Civil Accudraw should be tool agnostic. So can this be listed as a bug?