They say that sequels are never as good as the original. In this case, I’m going to disagree. :)
Have you ever wanted to add road labels to your InfraWorks models? I know; so have I.
Several months ago, I created a post showing one strategy to do this by exporting exploded text from Civil 3D as a GIS file and then importing it back into InfraWorks. This worked pretty well but still had an equal number of “Cons” to go along with the “Pros”. The biggest “Con” (for me anyway) was the fact that the labels could not be placed at the road centerlines. (InfraWorks Roads trump coverage areas)
In that same time frame, I created another post showing how images could be draped over an InfraWorks Terrain. They also have the benefit of being able to be displayed on top of InfraWorks Roads.
I began thinking, what if…. I exported my road labels from Civil 3D as an image that could be draped over my InfraWorks model. It could be much simpler (fewer InfraWorks objects) and could also be displayed on top of the InfraWorks Roads. (Terrain Overlays trump InfraWorks Roads) At the same time, I was concerned about how hard the workflow might be and if the display resolution would be acceptable.
I finally got around to testing it and it worked better than I thought. In short, I believe it is a viable option for creating Labels in InfraWorks models. (At least until a work around is no longer necessary :) )
Check out the video below to see Terrain Overlay II.
-Jerry
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