XREFS in Civil 3D

00:05

For the external references in Civil 3D, as I said, you can have the different types.

00:09

You have the DWG.

00:11

You have the image and design from [INAUDIBLE], PDF, and cloud.

00:15

With that you can also fade or clip the XREF.

00:18

You can extract some feature line to create your surfaces.

00:22

And you can add labels to your external references.

00:26

So, there's different way to insert an external reference.

00:29

We have the attachment and the overlay.

00:31

Let's admit, you want to attach a file, and this file has also an external reference.

00:37

If you want to attach everything, it's better to use the options attachment.

00:41

If you only want to attach one file without its external reference, it's better to choose overlay.

00:49

Most of the time, to avoid any nesting reference and circular references, it's better to use the overlay.

00:57

So, now I'm going to do a live demo.

01:00

In this file, it's a total virgin file. I have nothing here.

01:04

Now, I will just choose an XREF, an external reference.

01:12

I select the right external reference.

01:16

As I said, you have different types.

01:17

Me, in order to avoid any circular reference, I will always take this option.

01:24

Because my data are geolocated, I don't insert my point manually.

01:30

So, I press "OK".

01:36

And I have my XREF here.

01:39

Obviously, this is ref to a certain layer.

01:42

In this layer, so this is a layer zero.

01:45

And if I go to my lawyer properties, obviously, I can play with the transparency.

01:56

The thing here also, as it is an XREF, so it's not an object inside my file, it's just a reference, but I'm still able to add data into that label.

02:06

And the purpose of it is, you don't need to add all the data in one file.

02:10

But you can just call references to keep your file light.

02:14

So here I go, for example, to annotate.

02:17

I go to Label.

02:19

And I can click "Surface" because my external reference represents a surface.

02:23

And I can take, for example, this one.

02:26

And I can see, for example, here.

02:28

This is my elevation.

02:29

I can annotate something else, such as a slope.

02:37

I select the option I want.

02:38

So, me, I want to define two points in here.

02:46

I have my slope.

02:49

So again, this is just a basic example to show you that you don't have to implement or insert all your data in one file.

02:56

You can call references.

02:58

In the external references, however, with this common REFEDIT, you can edit, modify the external references directly in your host file.

03:08

It's still possible.