Custom Seattle Tools Plugin Help

The City of Seattle provides plugins and other content for Autodesk applications available to download upon request. After you install these plugins, the buttons will appear in the Seattle Tools ribbon tab of AutoCAD or Civil 3D.

Information About Available Plugins

The Seattle Tools unified plugin installs custom tools that help you follow City of Seattle standards more easily. All the tools are combined into one package, so everything can be installed at once. You may submit a request to download custom Seattle Tools application plugins provided by the City of Seattle.

The Main Seattle Tools Ribbon

Once the custom Seattle Tools ribbon is installed onto your system, the Seattle Tools ribbon appears within Civil 3D in a compact form that incorporates custom expandable icons that expose tools related to that icon. The fully collapsed ribbon looks like this:

Fully collapsed view of the Seattle Tools Ribbon

Any icon that displays a small triangular arrow indicator in the upper right, such as with the Curb Table, Layer Standards and Lineworker icon are expandable icons. Click on one of these icons and it exposes the tools for that plugin. The arrow indicator will change directions, indicating you can collapse the tab. Examples are below.

Create Point Table

CPPT

This tool creates a table from COGO points:

The user is prompted to select a set of COGO points, then select an insertion point for the table. The table is then created on the C-ANNO-NODE-TABL layer.
The table will contain Point Number, Elevation, Station/Offset, and Description

Note: The point table uses a text style called "Proposed - COS". It will be added to the drawing if it is not already present.

Convert Block to COGO

CBTC

This command prompts you to select blocks to convert to COGO points. When you are done selecting, press ENTER.

The points will be created on a '-NODE' layer based on the layer of the block. For instance, 'C-ROAD' will cause 'C-NODE-ROAD' to be used.
If the block is on layer '0' or 'DefPoints' the layer C-Node will be used.
Initially, the elevation for a new COGO point will be empty -- therefore the elevation should display as blank (or NaN, meaning "not a number").

Note: If there are surfaces that are defined to use all points, then you may see warning from the surface rebuild because of the lack of an elevation.

Curb Table

The Curb Table tools automate the process of creating curb return tables in Civil 3D. The Curb Table panel in the Seattle Tools Ribbon tab expands to offer several different methods for creating curb return tables.

Curb table expanded ribbon menu

The available curb table methods are:

ICON	TYPE	Command	Description
	Single	CRBS	A single curb return is a smooth, continuous arc of constant radius that connects two tangent curb lines at an intersection.
	Reverse	CRBR	A Reverse curb return consists of a pair of smoothly connected arcs with opposing curvature.
	Single-Straight-Reverse	CRBSSR	A Single-Straight-Reverse curb return consists of three segments: A constant-radius arc (Single), a short tangent line (Straight), and a second arc curving in the opposite direction (Reverse).
	Reverse-Straight-Single	CRBRSS	A Reverse-Straight-Single curb return begins with a curved segment that bends away from the intersection (Reverse), followed by a short tangent segment (Straight), and ends with a constant-radius arc turning into the adjacent roadway (Single)
	Curb-Continuous-Reverse	CRBCCR	A Curb-Continuous-Reverse curb return begins with a curb-aligned segment following the edge of the adjacent road or bulb-out (Curb), transitions into a smoothly varying curve with no fixed radius (Continuous) and finishes with an arc that bends in the opposite direction (Reverse).
	Curb-Reverse-Continuous	CRBCRC	A Curb–Reverse–Continuous curb return begins with a straight segment aligned to the adjacent curb face (Curb), enters a curve that bends away from the intersection (Reverse), and then flows into a smooth, non-constant-radius transition (Continuous) that guides the path back toward the adjoining curb line.
	Curb-Continuous-Curb	CRBCCC	A Curb-Continuous-Curb curb return connects two straight curb-aligned segments with a smooth, flowing curve of varying radius (Continuous) between them. The Continuous segment blends tangentially into both curbs without distinct arc or line breaks, creating a seamless, organic transition.

Flatten Drawing

CBTC

This command flattens a drawing.

This Drawing Flattener plugin will handle all objects, Civil 3D or AutoCAD. Existing flatten commands don’t capture all the expected objects, i.e. regular AutoCAD objects not particular to Civil 3D resulting in a base map that is not actually flat.

NCS Layer Standards

The NCS Layer Standards provides tools for checking and maintaining the integrity of drawings according to City of Seattle (COS) CADD Layer Standards 2025, which is based on the National CAD Standards (NCS) v6 layer standards.

These functions are available in the expanding Layer Standards panel of the Seattle Tools ribbon tab.

Expanded NCS Layer Standards ribbon for Seattle Tools

Command overview:

ICON	Command	Description
	LSABT	Displays layer standards information, including the plugin version and more.
	VUELS	The Layer Standards Viewer displays the contents of the City of Seattle Layer Standards. It provides filtering and sorting capability. It also allows the user to create layers in the current drawing though the right-click context menu.
	LYCHK	The Layer Checker scans the layers in the current drawing to verify that they meet the City of Seattle CADD Layer standards.
	LYTRN	Processes all the layers in the current drawing, translating non-standard layer names to standard names, adding a standard description if no description is set already, and setting the layer color to the Standard Color Palette.
	LYWIZ	Brings up Layer Standard Wizard which steps the user through the process of creating a well-formed standard layer.
	EZYCO	Swaps the colors of City of Seattle standard layers to the Easy Color Palette. These colors are typically bright.
	STDCO	Swaps the colors of City of Seattle standard layers to the Standard Palette. These colors are typically dull.
	EXLSS	Export the Layer Standards in CSV format.
	EXLND	Export the Layer Name Dictionaries in CSV format.

Lineworker

Lineworker provides utility commands for converting survey figures and feature lines to polylines. It also provides commands for updating classified object data and converting Trimble linework point files.

These functions are available in the expanding Lineworker panel of the Seattle Tools ribbon tab.

Expanded Lineworker ribbon for Seattle Tools

Command overview:

ICON	Command	Description
	CTRLW	This command provides a way to convert Trimble Business Center (TBC) format points files, PNEZD (comma delimited), into a form that Civil 3D can use to generate linework.
	CFIFL	This command prompts the user to select one or more Survey Figures and then converts those to Feature Lines.
	CFIPL	This command prompts the user to select one or more Survey Figures and then converts those directly to Polylines.
	CFLPL	This command prompts the user to select one or more Feature Lines and then converts those directly to Polylines.