Civil 3D Label Node Input

Civil 3D
1

Hello All!

I am trying to use the label nodes in 2025.2, but I don’t see any nodes that allow me to pass labels as input to the nodes. Is anyone able to point me in the right direction?

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2

Hi @DevinLJackson,

You will need to select some existing labels first so that you can get information about them. Consider one of these nodes:

  • Select Object
  • Select Objects
  • All Objects of Type
  • All Objects on Layer
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3

Thanks @zachri.jensen! I see my issue now, I was trying to select an alignment label for stationing (which is an alignment station label group), but it only works with the types of labels currently listed in the Labels category.

Thanks for the quick reply! Is there somewhere I could request that feature?

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Interesting. This seems like an oversight on our part. We will improve this so that it works with any type of label.

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Thanks Zach, that would be awesome! Is support for contour labels on the horizon as well?
Another feature that would be awesome to have is the ability to select and label Civil 3D entities through external references as well.

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Not at the moment. Do you have ideas for how you envision this working?

Good idea. We’ll investigate.

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Along side the current support other types of labels have, it would be great to be able to place, read, export / import labels both contour and slope labels.

Place: be able to place individual labels by point, or at distances along a contour, similar to the current Civil 3D commands. Being able to specify the different label styles, as well whether or not they are displayed would be great.

Export: Being able to read a surface and get all the labels assocated with it, and their associated details (start / end points, label styles, on/off) and export that to a file.

Import: Being able to read that file and apply those labels to a surface either in the drawing or an external reference.

Use case: Being to automatically place contour labels on a surface, and slope labels on surface manually. Then being able to apply those labels to other surfaces in a drawing set, either directly in a drawing or in a sheet through an xref. This would make it really efficient to setup and maintain files that have the same data displayed.

What I like to do is setup labeling in an xref for my surfaces, so that there is always some labeling setup for them. You can’t always use the labels in the xref for various reasons, so in that case I will freeze them off and then place the labels in the sheet through the xref. Being able to export and import labels would make this a more efficient process.

Also, part of what I am using Dynamo for is drawing maintenance, so as entity names change I can update the layer they are on to keep in accordance with our standards. It has been incredibly helpful for when we relink data shortcuts, and the reason I was investigating the label nodes in the first place. Currently surface and alignment labels are the only ones (I think maybe profile labels as well) that we can’t read the associated parent entity and place on layer based on the parent name.

Edit: Sorry for the massive edits, I’m on mobile.

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Thanks for the details, they will be helpful when we look into contour labels.

Regarding the ability to label through an xref, we can certainly investigate, although it might be awhile before we make any movement. I know you probably have processes in place at your company for how drawings are organized, but perhaps it’s an option to use data shortcuts for the surfaces instead of xrefs. Then you can use the label nodes as-is today.

We’ve actually already improved this since you brought it up. So in the next version you’ll be able to use the nodes in the Label category with other types of labels, even if they aren’t in the library.

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Thanks Zach! I totally understand, all of those things are just a wish list. We appreciate all the effort you and the team put into the development of the nodes. The easiest thing for us to do in the mean time is to reference in the surface, (currently) use a 3rd party to tool to place labels, and then move them onto the surface in the xref.

:hearts: Thanks! That will be super helpful moving forward. I saw that that a beta just dropped, is it part of that update?

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Yes! If you’re able, please give it a test and let us know if it meets your needs.

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I will certainly do so! Thanks again!

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Hi @zachri.jensen,

I’ve been testing the new label nodes and they work with pretty much all labels now! Thanks for updating them, it is has been very helpful with our labeling workflows. I know the team has a lot going on, but would it be possible to request updating the nodes to work with Label Groups as well (alignment / surface contour labels)? This seems to be the last type of labels that can’t be touched with out of the box nodes.

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The Label nodes won’t work with label groups because a label group is ultimately not the same as a label. What types of things are you wanting to do with label groups?

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That would make sense I guess :smiley:

The initial use I was hoping to accomplish was to find out what the labels belonged to (alignment name / surface name) so I could create some graphs to update the layers on which the labels reside to be on our standard layers that includes the owning objects name. I was also hoping to get the existing layer they reside on too so I can check to see if they are frozen in any viewports and freeze the new ones as well (or just rename the layer).

I tried the Get Parameter node in the Civil Nodes package, but the surface / alignment isn’t included in the information that it pulls. I’m thinking I can take a look at python and use the API to find that information, but having label group nodes in the future would be handy too.

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Did you try just using the Object.Layer node for this?

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I did not, that definitely works tho :smiley: Thanks for pointing me in the right direction on that.

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