About Working With Projected Objects in Profile Views

Visualize the location of an object in relation to a surface profile or section.

Projected objects can display their station location and elevation.

Tip: Before projecting an object into a view, ensure that the elevation of the object has been specified. If the object has a default elevation of 0, the view will be vertically expanded to include the 0 elevation if the Elevation Range of the view is set to Automatic Height.

The following object types can be projected:

• AutoCAD Civil 3D objects: Points, feature lines, and survey figures
• AutoCAD objects: Points, blocks, MView blocks, 3D solids, and 3D polylines

Pipe networks have a separate procedure for projection into profile views. See To Display Pipe Networks in Profile Views and To Display Pipe Networks in Section Views.

Editing Projected Objects

The station location of a projected object always reflects the location of the source object, so it can only be changed by moving the source object.

The style and elevation of projected objects can be edited on the Projections tab of the Profile View Properties or the Section View Properties dialog boxes.

The elevation of a projected object can be set to Use Object. This is a dynamic setting that ensures the elevation of the projected object and the source object are the same. If the source object is edited, the projected object reflects any changes. Elevations can also be set to match a specific surface or profile.

The elevation of some projected objects can be edited using grips. The exceptions are three object types in profile views:

• Survey figures
• Feature lines embedded in a corridor
• Feature lines dynamic to an alignment

Grip editing the vertices of feature lines or 3D polylines in a profile view also changes the elevations of the source objects in plan view. This behavior is useful for editing feature lines in relation to profiles. Grips appear on 3D polylines only if the elevation is set to Use Object.

Grip editing point or block objects in profile or section views does not affect the elevations of source objects, but it does break the dynamic link to the source object elevation. The Elevation Options setting changes to Manual. At any time you can change this setting to Use Object, or to match a specific surface or profile.

The object and label styles of a projected object are independent of the styles used by the source object in plan view. You can edit the styles of a projected object without affecting the source object.

Displaying Projected Objects

The display of a multi-view block in section or profile depends on the projection style. A projection style contains multiple display representations, which control how the multi-view block is represented in different contexts. Each display representation contains a set of view blocks that represent the object at different view directions. Each view block has a flag that indicates whether it will be drawn in any of the view directions.

When a multi-view block is drawn in AutoCAD Civil 3D, the following process is performed:

1. The appropriate view direction and display representation are obtained from the projection style.
2. The applicable view blocks for the display representation are obtained.
3. The view blocks are checked against the specified view direction, and the visible blocks are collected.
4. The visible view blocks are rotated and vertically exaggerated as needed.
5. The visible view blocks are drawn in section or profile view.