Conforming Annotation Lines

Design lines often import from CAD files as annotation. These annotation lines can be converted into three-dimensional data lines by using the Conform Annotate command. This command can quickly change a large number of annotation lines by conforming them to the current design data lines.

Parking Islands

Let’s say that a CAD file was imported which contains a large parking lot with many parking islands. The top of curb elevations around the perimeter of the parking lot have elevation labels and snapping the elevations to the locations makes converting the curb to three-dimensional data lines a quick task. The bottom of curb lines can be entered using offset lines to subgrade elevations. The remaining parking islands are annotation and have not yet been converted to data lines.

The Conform Annotate command can convert the annotation lines to data lines.

In Edit Mode, pick the bottom of curb annotation line using the Enter/Left Mouse button.
Select Conform Annotate command from the Utility Menu.

The selected annotation lines assume the elevation of the subgrade.

Select all the bottom of curb lines again and press the Offset Line button.
Enter an offset distance of 0.1 and the Elevation Difference of the difference between the top and bottom of curb. Press the View button to see how the lines will appear.
Press the Apply button to add the offset lines to the job.
The next step is to delete the data lines snapped across the parking lot where they cross the parking islands. Pick each bottom of curb line and use the Trim Line command located under the Utility Menu to break the lines along the edges of the parking islands.
Pick each of the line segments in the parking islands and delete them using the Delete Key or Edit>Delete from the menu. When competed, the screen should resemble the one below.