In this Blog I wanted to share a couple different ways of coping an alignment in Autodesk Civil 3D. I always new I could use the AutoCAD Copy command within Civil 3D and I would always make sure to let people know that if you have a profile and a profile created graphically, that it will be copied also. This could lead to problems later if you didn’t notice this at the time of making the copy.
Example:
Within Civil 3D, zoom in to where you can see both the Alignment and Profile at the same time and select an Alignment to copy. Move the copied Alignment so it is offset such that you can see it graphically. By doing this, you will see that the Profile is also copied and offset by the same amount. If you didn’t realize that you had a copy of your Profile on top of the original profile it could lead to confusion and problems later.
In this example, you can see in the Prospector that the Alignment “Jefferies Ranch Rd” was copied and if you look under the Alignment collection, you will also see that the Profile was copied too.
If you’re ONLY interested in copying the Alignment itself, there is a better command to use that doesn’t copy the Profile with it.
Try using the “Create Alignment from Existing Alignment” command. This will allow you to name and assign a style to the copied Alignment with no worries of having to deal with an unwanted copied Profile. This command is located under the Home tab under the Create Design palette under the Alignment commands.
Name and Set the Style for the copied alignment.
The “Create Alignment from Existing Alignment” command will save you time and confusion by not having the profile copied. This is a great tool and easy to use.
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