Written by:  Bob Mecham

Did you know that with Civil AccuDraw you can work both in the plan view and profile view while placing a geometry element.  In this example, we will show you how to place a profile starting at a culvert location used in the plan view.

Start by opening a profile view and setting Civil Accudraw Profile to station/profile offset.

Keep the profile view active, but TENTATIVE snap to something in the plan view (for this example the center of a culvert). Hit the Enter key and the station will be locked.

There is also a rule created to the element that you snapped. By tentative snap and then lock the station, you get more than a station rule. You get a snapped rule such that if the plan element moves, the profile updates. This is not terribly intuitive to discover, but pretty powerful once you know it.

Move your cursor back into the Profile View and the station will be locked. Tab down to the profile offset field and enter a value. In this example we keyed in -4.