AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 New Feature: Label Between Two Points

By now, we all know that Civil 3D is not a new version of Land Desktop and that almost all we could do with Land Desktop we could do in Civil 3D, but lot quicker and in my opinion much more elegant. There are still a (very) few things that Land Desktop users asked to have but were unable to find in Civil 3D. One of those was the ability to label bearing and distance (or anything available, really) by selecting two spots on the screen. These spots do not necessary need to be two COGO points. The functionality added to Civil 3D 2013 is  called “Add line between two points label” and it’s found in Annotate ribbon, Add Labels > Line and Curve> Add Line Between Two Points Label

 

As the command states, with this feature user could just pick any start and end points and the label will be drawn for you right between those spots. If you get something like this then you did it right!

One other thing, worth mentioning – Even though the line connecting those two spots on the screen is invisible, it does exist as a temporary line allowing user to see where it starts and ends, which may be useful in very busy drawings. As you may notice in the image below, it also updates dynamically any time you move it up and down.

 

Finally, you may notice two kinds of grips if you select the label. The diamond shaped one allows you to move your label along the “invisible” (well, it’s hard to call something invisible if you can see it) and selecting little squares will give you the options to Stretch the line (all directions) or Lengthen to shrink or lengthen the line.

 

Stay tuned for more!