AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks: Image Edit and Frames

More AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Help!

I get more questions about AutoCAD Civil 3D than I do on any other subject. The complexity of the program coupled with the myriad of settings required to make it a useful piece of surveying and design software results in it being very tricky to set up and use.

I’ve begun preparing training and educational videos, with my first video being “AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 Video for Land Surveyors: Coordinate Systems” which I recently posted on YouTube and on this site. The post has a little written background, too, that you might find an interesting read. While videos and post allow for some in-depth exploration of any subject, I thought that a weekly feature with Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks about using AutoCAD Civil 3D would be useful, too. So here we go!

AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks

Last week I was working on updating a project drawing, using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010, and I needed to move an image in my drawing. Simple enough, right? Well wait a minute, the image frames where turned off so there was nothing to select. What to do?

I knew how to turn back on the image frames in prior AutoCAD Civil 3D releases, but I’m still getting used to the new menus (or lack thereof-which may be next weeks tip), workspaces and, of course, the ribbon. I did find the image settings and turned the image frames on by:

  1. Switching to the “Tool-Based Geospatial” or “Task-Based Geospatial “ workspace.
  2. Select the “Insert” tab on the Ribbon and click on the southeasterly facing small arrow right next to the “Image” portion of this Ribbon panel. This opens the “Raster Extension Options” dialogue box.
  3. Select the “General” tab and under the “Display Preferences” options turn the “Image Frame:” form “Frames off” to either “Frame drawn below image” or “Frame drawn above image”, as you like. All image frames are now turned on globally within your drawing.

Knowing this, and I’m sure there’s more than a dozen ways to skin this cat, you can also type in the “_mapioptions” command at the command line. No quotes, of course. And, if you can’t see your command line, simply type the command (again omit the quotation marks) “commandline” to get the command line to join the party. Hey, now that’s two more AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks.

After making your image edits remember to repeat the above steps reverting back to the option settings that you began with. I’m sure image frames where off for a good reason.

Hold Down Shift Key and Click on Image Turning on Image Grips and Allowing Image Edits
Hold Down Shift Key and Click on Image Turning on Image Grips and Allowing Image Edits

That’s a lot of work, isn’t it?

So here’s the AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks this week:

To edit the properties, move, rotate, or select an image when the image frames are off, just hold down the “Shift” key and simultaneously “click” on the image with your mouse and curser.

This will activate, momentarily, the frames (and grips) allowing you to edit the image as necessary.

Comments

2 responses to “AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks: Image Edit and Frames”

  1. […] Land Surveyor – AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks: Image Edit and Frames Go to Source: Eric D. Colburn, Professional Land Surveyor Tagged with: [ AutoCAD, Civil, D Surveying, design software, Eric D. Colburn, Land, myriad, […]

  2. ROBERT Avatar
    ROBERT

    Thank you sir for the tips on image frames on/off !! I have spent a ridiculous amount of time fishing through my on-screen toolboxes, pallettes, ribbons and vistas in AUTCOAD C3D trying to find the frames off tool. But your explanation solved my problem instantly. What a relief ! I have years of experience with Autocad, but this new C3D is a huge leap from the 2002 version I was used to. It would seem they (the acad programmers) purposely have “hidden” the very tools I am most frequently needing to use.