In Civil 3D, there seems to be a relationship between the points file and the points within a drawing. In fact, there is an option to reload from the points file. Is that possible in ORD? The follow up to that question would be, does it overwrite the points in the drawing?
The context for this is we have a six-column points file - Point Name, Northering, Eastering, Elevation, Code, and Note. That last column, Note, may sometimes contain text that gets put into the drawing (e.g. a symbol for a utility pole may also contain text for the pole number, and that number is pulled from the Note column). Somehow the sixth column was left off, needs to be added to the points files, then reloaded/update the points within the drawing.
Does that make sense?
Mark, I was completely expecting ORD Survey to have that "Update from Source File" capability like other areas of ORD. But in my experience, it doesn't. And after working with ORD Survey for as long as I have, I've gotten over it. As someone who has been using the Bentley (Intergraph) Survey since it was first released in the early 90's we've never had that 'update from source' capability so my work processes never included it. As an old dog I sometimes don't care about learning new 'tricks'.
But I hear what you saying loud and clear, and poked around inside ORD and can't find any tool that would add a Description to a collection of points (in bulk). But, if push came to shove, and hopefully it would only relate to Point Features like Power Poles. You can very easily select that particular Code in the Explorer and delete those from the Survey Details. Then (here's the pain in the a$$ part) create a file from the original survey data with the missed or added Descriptions, and just import that file only. If the shots are Fixed Points (NEZ) then that could work. If it's Observational data ... Hmmm... Not sure... depending on the set-ups.
Hey, Mark!
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
While on the one hand I am suitably impressed by OpenRoads, and I see a lot of basic ideas in both ORD and C3D, when you come across stuff like this it's a little disappointing. Now, that said, I'm guessing there's a lot of "undocumented ORD" lying about, it's out job to figure it out!.
One possibility is to try to see if you can import through the same Field book. I just imported an SS2 alignment which added a second road. The second road came in, but the first was: a)untouched, and b)there wasn't a second set of geometry added.
The other option is to see if I can copy a column from Excel and paste into the Details window.
I'll let you know what happens!
Update:
It seems when you try and (re)import the file, it wants to make a new one, which we don't.
I tried to copy the column from the Excel spreadsheet, it decided to ignore the first 13 blank lines, and instead started the text at cell one. So I guess I'm left with cut-n-paste between spreadsheet and file.
Seems the hard way though...