Naming Objects in Civil 3D

There are a lot of things that you can do to “automate” Civil 3D.  One of the hallmarks of Civil 3D is to take the mundane tasks off the user’s plate and let the program handle them.  This increases productivity since the user no longer has to manage these little repetitious functions.  One of the things that a lot of users overlook is the naming conventions that are possible.  If your standards include the naming of layers and objects, or you just want something that is appropriate and quick, you have some options.

Let’s look at object layers first.  Any template file that you are using should have an array of layers to begin with.  If you intend someone with base AutoCAD (or some other platform) to use your design file after you are done with it they will need layers to control which objects are visible.  Object layer modifiers can set a prefix/suffix for a layer to create unique named layers for objects.  In the Drawing Settings there is an Object Layers tab where objects receive their default layer assignments.  There is a “Modifier” column which allows for either a prefix or a suffix to be added to an object.  My example would be that of an alignment.  I like to suffix my alignments with “-*” (drop the quotes) which adds the alignment’s name in place of the asterisk.  This, in turn, creates a layer as soon as you create an alignment with this naming convention.  You don’t want to do this for every object or you would be drowning in layers before you know what happened.  But for alignments and surfaces, and maybe a couple of other objects, it could be very useful.

Another way that you can standardize objects is to tweak the naming template.  You can set this in the Object Settings for those objects, or for some it is assigned in the object’s commands.  Depending on the object, you may have more than one name you can set (like alignments, you have centerline alignment types and offset alignment types), and you may have more than one option in the naming convention.  Like in the alignment I can add just a counter, but profiles I can add several aspects besides the counter (like alignment name or profile type among others).

Its important to note that these defaults are just that; defaults.  The user can change these names at the time of creation or afterwards through the object’s properties.  But most of the time you need a certain naming convention to happen, then most of the time you can have it ready to go for the user.