Zoom into a design with coordinates that were shifted

All,

I am getting started with Dynamo and Civil 3D integration. I am working on being able to create guardrail posts (solids) along a corridor featureline.

The major problem I keep running into is that when I import the corridor featurelines and make geometry from it, I have that geometry all the way out by x = 2600000 and y = 1600000. I have noticed that the geometry looks really goofy when I try to keep the geometry that far away from 0,0,0. So I have started to shift the geometry via coordinatesystem translates. This causes another headache as I have to create some kind of geometry in original coordinates that when I try and see my geometry (points, curves, etc) the original geometry and the shifted geometry are so far apart that i can’t zoom in to make sure what my script is doing, is doing it correctly.

Does anyone have any guidance for this? I am using Dynamo Civil 3D 2.4.1.2161 and I am using Civil 3D 2020.2.

Thanks

Sean

Hello, you should translate the geometry near 0,0,0 once you transform cad geometry into dynamo geometry, but with geometry.translation node and a vector. In that position you can operate and generate all the modifications. Afterwards translate the result into your project coordinates with the geometry.translation node applying the invers vector.

Ok, well how do I translate the geometry? I don’t have any geometry to begin with until I bring in the Civil 3D data, so I will still have two instances of the geometry that makes it hard to zoom in and out of.

Hello Sean. There is a node geometry.translate.

  1. select /choose the entity in autoCad/Civil3D
  2. transform it in a dynamo’s geometry. It would be in original coordinates.
  3. apply geometry.translate node, this dynamo geometry will transform near the origin( choose a negative vector it depends of your project!!!)
  4. geometry now is near 0,0,0 and it has a realistic visibility, work on it and transform the translation once you obtain the result you want.