Automating Plan Sheet creation

With our Site Plan Sheets.dwg file currently open, let’s begin familiarizing ourselves with the Map Task Pane tools available to us within Civil 3D. The Map Task Pane tools create, manage, display and publish maps, and can be accessed from the Palettes pulldown in our Home ribbon and by selecting the Map Task Pane tools as shown in Figure 14.3.

Figure 14.3 – Activating Civil 3D’s Map Task Pane tools

Once activated, you’ll receive a prompt at the Command Line asking you whether you’d like the task pane On or Off, at which point we’ll select (or type) On and hit the Enter key on our keyboard.

Using the following steps, we’ll be able to automate the creation of our Plan sheets to be included in our construction drawing set (also displayed in Figure 14.4):

1. When the Map Task Pane appears, let’s go ahead and select the Map Book tab.
2. Next, we’ll select New...