Dan Philbrick and Dave Simeone add their colorful and insightful views, opinions, and expertise on Autodesk Civil 3D and the civil engineering marketplace. http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:49:42 -0700 FeedCreator 1.7.2 en http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/9134/ Civil 3D Wish List where AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) members can submit and vote on improvements that they feel will make Civil 3D a better product? The first Civil 3D Wish List and was presented to our team by AUGI at this past fall's Autodesk University and we’ve been able to use it validate and, in some cases, adjust our product plans to better reflect your priorities.

AUGI Members can access the Civil 3D Wish List at the following URL:

http://www.augi.com/civil3d

Note that there is no charge to join AUGI so join now and get us your feedback on where you think we should focus our development resources. Fel free to nominiate big ticket items that change the way you work or small enhancements that make a specific command that much easier to use. The nice thing is that the broad AUGI civil community will help us rank the most important things.

Thanks in advance
Dave S

Beloiw is a screen shot of the Wish List ranking...



]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/9134/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/9022/ student design competition for engineering students. This is part of our global effort to help energize students about civil engineering as a profession and to do our part in getting them ready to enter the work force. This contest is part of a larger initiative of integrating AutoCAD Civil 3D into the civil engineering curriculum at universities and schools from around the world. The Autodesk Student Community portal is in its second year and it continues to pick up momentum. Since last September we’ve averaged close to 11,000 student downloads of Civil 3D per month. This is a student version of product that students are now using as part of their Civil 3D-based course curriculum! Yup... this means we should start seeing the first wave of Civil 3D trained graduates entering the workforce this spring.

Anyway – here’s information on the Student Design Challenge. Anything that you can do to help get the word out would be greatly appreciated. It’s in your best interest as it’s these folks who’ll eventually be joining your organizations. For me, I’m in a hyper competitive mode since the Patriots lost and I want to see more civil entries in the competition than Architecture, Mechanical or any of the other categories in the competition! That’ll give me at least a little joy.

Autodesk Student Design Challenge

"You are the designers of the future — here is your chance to get your designs in front of an international panel of industry experts. Find out more about the great prizes and how to submit your work to the Civil Engineering and Sustainable Design categories today!"

URL: www.autodesk.com/buildsomething





]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/9022/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/8220/
Some things that I’m particularly excited about…

• The term BIM is being used in the civil industry
• Civil 3D adoption has skyrocketed worldwide
• We’ve acquired an incredible Storm water design solution
• I finished off the inside of my garage (sort of, anyway)
• Civil 3D downloads from the student community site have increased dramatically (15K+ in Oct!)
• We had more than 1700 Autodesk University attendees in the Civil/Survey track

I want to discuss a number of these changes over the next couple of weeks… Today, however, I’ll talk about BIM in the Civil market. One of the things that we’ve been discussing internally (and to a lesser degree externally) is how we talk about dynamic modeling in the civil industry. The term BIM is well established in the world of building development, but less so with us civil folks. It’s that dang “building” word. Frankly, I was skeptical that we in the civil space would be willing to latch onto the term, but the more people we talk to, the more people are open to the idea. Rather than the B in BIM meaning “a building”, people are thinking of it as “building something like a road or site”.
I got my issue of CE News the other day and they’ve got a nice article that explains what BIM is all about and how the approach is moving quickly into the Civil space. It also confirms that a pretty good chunk of the folks in our industry are acceptant of the term. It’s a quick read…

Civil Engineering News - BIM and civil engineering

Key takeaway… I get to meet with all types of folks. The concepts that are discussed in BIM – single centralized model that persists through the life of a project, integrated project delivery, parallel work process, etc – is something that comes up in EVERY executive briefing I sit in. Your management team is actively thinking about how to move into this new way of working. My suggestion is that you learn as much as you can as quickly as you can and become an active participant in driving this change.
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/8220/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/7631/ Nick posted a link to a new version of the Survey Extension for Civil 3D. I would also encourage you to download this updated version.

A few months ago I posted some information on the CIP program. This program allows us to track command usage for the purpose of understand how Civil 3D features are used. Another metric which the CIP program gives us is information regarding clean exits from the software. We also carefully monitor the CER reports (Customer Error reports). In analyzing the data from CIP and CER, we found that many customers were running into a crash or program exception during shutdown, after the drawing had been saved. Nick solicited input on the newsgroup and this was very helpful. In the end, we have found and fixed several situations which could result in this error. One problem was in the Survey Extension, the other resolved cases will have to wait for the AutoCAD Civil 3D SP2.

Speaking of the Civil 3D SP2...It will not be long.

Dan



]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/7631/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6652/
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/index?siteID=123112&id=2334435&linkID=9240698

Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6652/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6301/ View/Edit Corridor Sections – The “CSV”

Internally, we refer to the command Corridor -> View/Edit Corridor Section as the “CSV”. In its first incarnation, it was a viewer, and the editing came in a later release. The original tool was called the “CSV” and we continue to use that name internally. This feature was invented and developed Kumud Vaidya who is our Corridor UI guru. Early on in Civil 3D, he came up with a concept of a Corridor Section Viewer. As the feature matured, editing capability was added. Recently, we have been reviewing this tool and are defining additional requirements for a future release. If you have specific functionality that you would like to see implemented in the “CSV”, please send me an email.

One topic that I would like to discuss is the concept of overrides when editing the corridor. When you build a corridor, you can use the CSV to modify the geometry at specific stations. There are 2 types of edits which can be done. The first is a “Geometric Edit”. In this case you are specifically manipulating the geometry via a graphical grip edit. The second type of edit is called a “Parameter” override. This type of edit involves changing one of the input parameters of the subassembly at a particular station. These edits can be propagated down the corridor using the CSV Toolbar. Once you have overrides on the corridor, you can clear the overrides via the Corridor properties and clearing the overrides on the following dialog.



The CSV is a very useful way of making design changes at at specific stations!

Dan


]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6301/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6196/
For review a quick review of Part 1, there are two ways to model borehole data in Civil 3D. The first method is done through User Defined Property Fields and I covered that in Part 1 of this series. The second way of handling borehole data is via an External Point Database. This is the method which I will discuss today. In this method, you override the point elevation based on the values in an external database. To demonstrate this, I have first created an Access database with fields for PNO (Point Number), BH_1 (Borehole Elevation 1), and BH_2 (Borehole Elevation 2).



In this example, we have a database which has 2 elevation values for each point number. Next we are going to override the elevations by creating an External Data Reference which will point to a field in the Access database. The External Data References are created by going to the setting manager, right clicking on the External Data References node, and selection New. The following dialog will appear.



On this dialog, you need to select the external database, and then map the fields in the database to the External Data Reference to be used for the elevations in the drawing. In the previous dialog you can see that I mapped the Point Number (PNO) and the Borehole Elevation value (BH_2 in this example).

Now you need to override the elevations of the points with the elevations defined in the External database. This is done by creating a point group and selecting the “Overrides Tab” . For the elevations, you want to override the elevation and select one of the external data references you created. The following dialog shows the Point Group override for the BH_2 external data reference.



That completes the steps. Now you have a point group where the elevations are being overridden and they are being established from the value in an external database. The key difference between this method and the User Defined Properties is that the External Data Reference data is external to the drawing. When you use User Defined Properties, you need to import the data into the drawing and populate the Property fields.

Using either method, you now can create a surface based on the overridden elevations. Therefore, you can have one point number that has an arbitrary number of elevations assigned to that point. The last step is the create a surface based on the appropriated point group which represents the borehole strata of interest.

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6196/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6012/ Customer Involvement Program... You will need to select "Yes" on the following dialog:



You can read more on this program by selecting the following link.

This program is going to provide us with very useful data regarding how you use Civil 3D. Have you ever wondered what is the most commonly used command in Civil 3D? We now have some preliminary data. I cannot share that with you at this point, but we can start a contest to see who can guess the most frequently used command!

Dan

]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6012/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6006/
Before I get back to describing the second method for managing Borehole data, I wanted to share a diagnostic tool that you may find useful at some point. During Friday's webcast someone asked about a message ” *Warning* Multiply owned object, handle "XXXX". Himanshu Gohel (Software Engineer, Civil 3D - I am sure you have seen him on the Civil 3D Newsgroup) suggested that we use the tool called “DbView” which is an arx utility that lets you type in an object handle and find out what the entity is. Shaan Hurley posted this utility on his blog. This utility will give you some guidance as to the type of object that is reporting a warning.

We were able to narrow down the search to some of the label styles. I have seen that other users are running into this on the news group so we’ll continue to research and determine the root cause of this warning.

Just wanted to repost a link to this utility – at some point you may find it useful.

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/6006/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5990/
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8777904#section8

This document presents detailed advice on how to configure AutoCAD Civil 3D and your drawing templates for greatest efficiency in large projects, and also how to most effectively manage the project data.

There is also a section in the document on enabling the "3 GB Switch". By default, the Windows operating system limits the amount of physical memory available to applications to 2 GB. It reserves the remaining memory for the operating system itself. However, if you have more than 3 GB of physical memory, it is possible to increase the amount of memory available to Civil 3D to 3 GB.

The following link takes you to a detailed solution on how to enable the 3 GB Switch:

http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS1071001

We have done some prelimary testing of our large benchmarking datasets and we have found improvements by using this option.

To complement the sections of data managment, there’s an updated version of the Civil 3D 2008 Project Management Using Autodesk Vault white paper available here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8777438

The Best Practices for Working with Large Datasets paper was written by member of the Civil 3D Project Team. On behalf of the Civil Development team, we hope that you find this material useful.

Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5990/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5937/
If you have started using Civil 3D 2008 you will notice that there is an Alignments node in the Prospector tree. In the previous release, the Alignments are located within a named Site. The following image shows the Prospector tree with the Alignment collection in Civil 3D 2008.



When you create alignments in ‘08, every alignment creation dialog lets you select "None" for the Site:



We made this change because we found that many users put all the alignments in the default Site 1. This sometimes resulted in undesirable behavior such as parcels being created when the Alignments formed closed areas.

In 2008, this behavior can be avoided by putting the alignments in the "None" Site. If you then need have interaction between Parcels and Alignments, you can select "Move to Site" to move the Alignment object into a Named Site. You can also "Move" alignments to the "None" Site.

If you have an existing drawing with a number of alignments in a named site, you will find a hidden command called RemoveAlignmentsFromSite which will take all the Alignments in a Named Site and Move them to the "None" Site. If you run this command, you will see the following dialog.



This is an unsupported command, but we did want to make it available in case you had a drawing with a number of alignments in a Name Site. Make sure to make a copy of your drawing before running this command!

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5937/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5935/
There are 2 ways setup borehole data in Civil 3D – User Defined Properties and External Data References. Both methods allow you to have more than one elevation per point object. The first method I’ll discuss is via User-Defined Properties. To use this method, you first need to create a User-Defined Property Classification and then create the User-Defined Properties in that classification. The following dialog shows the creation of a user-defined property for a borehole elevation.



Now that you have User-Defined Properties representing Borehole data, the next step is to import data into those fields. We’ll do this by importing from a TXT file with a format of Point Number, BoreHole Elevation 1, BoreHole Elevation 2 (tab delimited). A snippet of this file looks like the following:



Next you need to create a custom Point File Format which will import the data into the User-Defined Properties. You do this by going to the settings tree and creating a Point File Format. The following dialog shows this dialog with the Properties of Point Number, BH_1 and BH_2 for the properties.




The last step is to Load the data in from the TXT file. Go to the menu and select Points->Import/Export Points->Import Points. Importing the Point file (with the format created above) will populate the User-defined Property fields with the Elevations defined in the TXT file.

The hard work is now done. The last step is to create a Point Group and define the elevations based on the Borehole data. The key part of this is to create the point group and assign an elevation override on the “Overrides” tab of the Point Group Properties. This is shown in the following dialog.



Now that we have a Point Group a surface can easily be created. In the next post, I go through the process of modeling Borehole data using External Data references.

Back to the hockey game – Ottawa is up 4-3, this series is not so boring anymore!

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5935/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5893/ Grading Best Practices".

There are 2 versions of the document. The CHM version contains a number of links to 3D DWF files which I think you will find very useful in visualizing some of the concepts in the paper.

This paper was writing by members of the Civil 3D project team so you are getting the information right from the source. On behalf of the Civil Development team, we hope that you find this material useful. We have another paper in the works which I think you will also find beneficial. Please stay tuned for more information in the near future.

Dan




]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5893/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5791/ link will take you to the Civil 3D Services ∓ Support page where you will find a service pack which will allow you to connect to the ADMS 2008 server from Civil 3D 2007.

Please refer to the readme for details about this support.

Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5791/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5425/ Jack Strongitharm had a good summary of the EMEA Tech Camp - check it out! You may also be wondering why we have our laptops open on a nice sunny afternoon at the conclusion of the training event. If you could see the screen, you would see the topo of a fine set of mountains in the town of Kaprun, Austria. In fact, here is a 3D DWF file of that region viewed in the Autodesk Freewheel Viewer (Click here for more information).



The highest peak is called Kitzsteinhorn (3203 m). Yes, we are geeks and we were using the Google Earth data to generate this terrain model. There was a rumor that snow could still be found lurking high in the hills. I was trying to convince my Tech Camp friends that they should stay one more day and we would go see if we could find some snow. We were in the process of cutting some profiles down the slopes! That is when Jack got scared.

Jack claimed that he had a Giant Rabbit that he had to get home to feed. Now I have heard a lot of excuses but a Giant Rabbit? He even sent me a picture of his Giant Rabbit. That rabbit does not look that big to me - some water and a dish of food and we would have been off to Kitzsteinhorn.

Onto more important topics...

Sectioning the Corridor through an Xref!!

The new plan production feature is a great tool for generating plan sheets. There is another related gem in the Civil 3D 2008 release and that the ability to section a corridor through an Xref. This allows you to keep your Corridor Section plan production drawings separate from the Corridor Model drawings. As a result, edits to the corridor are not impacted by the display of the sections. Let's take a look at how this works.

The first step is to create a Corridor. Next you are going to need a Shortcut to the Alignment so that you can create sample lines. You can do this via Vault or by using the Data Shortcut UI.

Now comes the fun part. Create a new drawing and Xref in the Corridor drawing. Next create a Data Reference to the Alignment. Now invoke the create sample line toolbar and you will see that you are given the option to sample the Corridor and Surfaces which reside in the Xref drawing. Be aware that you will see surfaces listed from both the Xref drawing and the drawing you are working in.

The final step is to plot the Multiple Section Views. For this step, you get all the same options for styles and labels that you have had in the past. This has also been improved by allowing you to change the styles or labels for a group of sections. This is available by selecting one of the Section Views, right click, and select Section View Group Properties. This dialog will let you change style or labeling properties for the entire group of Section Views.

The key benefit of this feature is the Corridor and the Corridor Sections can be distributed between multiple drawings. If the Corridor changes, the Sections View drawings will be notified via standard Xref notification. Once the Xref is reloaded, the Corridor Sections will be up-to-date.

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5425/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5425/ Jack Strongitharm had a good summary of the EMEA Tech Camp - check it out! You may also be wondering why we have our laptops open on a nice sunny afternoon at the conclusion of the training event. If you could see the screen, you would see the topo of a fine set of mountains in the town of Kaprun, Austria. In fact, here is a 3D DWF file of that region viewed in the Autodesk Freewheel Viewer (Click here for more information).



The highest peak is called Kitzsteinhorn (3203 m). Yes, we are geeks and we were using the Google Earth data to generate this terrain model. There was a rumor that snow could still be found lurking high in the hills. I was trying to convince my Tech Camp friends that they should stay one more day and we would go see if we could find some snow. We were in the process of cutting some profiles down the slopes! That is when Jack got scared.

Jack claimed that he had a Giant Rabbit that he had to get home to feed. Now I have heard a lot of excuses but a Giant Rabbit? He even sent me a picture of his Giant Rabbit. That rabbit does not look that big to me - some water and a dish of food and we would have been off to Kitzsteinhorn.

Onto more important topics...

Sectioning the Corridor through an Xref!!

The new plan production feature is a great tool for generating plan sheets. There is another related gem in the Civil 3D 2008 release and that the ability to section a corridor through an Xref. This allows you to keep your Corridor Section plan production drawings separate from the Corridor Model drawings. As a result, edits to the corridor are not impacted by the display of the sections. Let's take a look at how this works.

The first step is to create a Corridor. Next you are going to need a Shortcut to the Alignment so that you can create sample lines. You can do this via Vault or by using the Data Shortcut UI.

Now comes the fun part. Create a new drawing and Xref in the Corridor drawing. Next create a Data Reference to the Alignment. Now invoke the create sample line toolbar and you will see that you are given the option to sample the Corridor and Surfaces which reside in the Xref drawing. Be aware that you will see surfaces listed from both the Xref drawing and the drawing you are working in.

The final step is to plot the Multiple Section Views. For this step, you get all the same options for styles and labels that you have had in the past. This has also been improved by allowing you to change the styles or labels for a group of sections. This is available by selecting one of the Section Views, right click, and select Section View Group Properties. This dialog will let you change style or labeling properties for the entire group of Section Views.

The key benefit of this feature is the Corridor and the Corridor Sections can be distributed between multiple drawings. If the Corridor changes, the Sections View drawings will be notified via standard Xref notification. Once the Xref is reloaded, the Corridor Sections will be up-to-date.

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5425/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5426/
The feature is still there, it is just not documented. We still have more work to do to refine the behavior, but we still wanted to release the functionality in ’08. Here are some details on the commands.

When a tool tip for a horizontal alignment can be computed, and one or more profile views for the same horizontal alignment are in the drawing, a temporary line is drawn in each profile view at the station defined by the orthogonal projection of the cursor onto the horizontal alignment. The temporary line is drawn to the full height of the profile view, and moves as the cursor moves.

When the cursor is within a profile view, a temporary line is drawn orthogonal to the horizontal alignment at the cursor’s station. As the cursor’s position changes in the profile view, the temporary line’s position is redrawn at the new station location.

When the cursor is within a cross-section view, a temporary line is drawn orthogonal to the horizontal alignment at the station of the cross-section view. Additionally, a vertical line is drawn in each profile view that is a child of the horizontal alignment. The vertical line is drawn at the station of the cross-section view.

There are three new commands that control this feature:

HideDrawingTips – turns the feature completely off
ShowDrawingTips – turns the feature on for the current view port only
ShowDrawingTipsFull – turns the feature on for all view ports

This is a per drawing setting, so one drawing can have them turned off, and another can have them active.

You will notice a flicker in the frame of the windows if you use the ShowDrawingTipsFull command. This is something that we are aware of and would like to resolve before making it an “official command”. If you have feedback on this functionality, please let me know.

Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5426/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5184/
Anyway, onto more important topics. I want to point out some of the key changes with Civil 3D 2008 and the Vault functionality.

Civil 3D 2007 included the Autodesk Data Management Server (ADMS) 5. Civil 3D 2008 now includes the ADMS 2008 version. ADMS 5 and the ADMS 2008 cannot be installed side-by-side on the same machine. Therefore, you have 2 options when working with Civil 3D 2007 and Civil 3D 2008 in the same office.

First, you can setup a separate server for 2008 based projects and connect to the appropriate server from either Civil 3D 2007 or Civil 3D 2008. As an alternative, we are going to release a patch for Civil 3D 2007 which will allow you to connect to the ADMS 2008 from Civil 3D 2007. This will allow you to upgrade to the new version of the server independently from your upgrade to Civil 3D 2008. This patch is planned for late May. If you later decide that you need to continue to use ADMS 5, you can uninstall the patch and then connect to the ADMS 5 from Civil 3D 2007.

Vault and Civil 3D 2008 - what is new?

Have you ever wanted to be able directly browse from Civil 3D to the Vault to attach an Xref? You can now do that in Civil 3D 2008. There is a new option on the Xref dialog that allows you to directly browse to the Vault for your Xref.

Have you had ever had a user checkout a file, make some changes, and then go home for the weekend without checking the file back in? We now prompt (i.e. remind) the user that they have changed the file but have not checked it back into the Vault. A little enhancement but it can make a difference.

Have you ever wanted to turn off the publishing of the DWF file when you check files into Vault? You can now do that. Civil 3D 2008 uses a setting in Vault Explorer for controlling this option. This option is in Vault Explorer under Tools->Options->Define DWF Attachment Options.

In 2007, you could not create a Profile from a Reference Alignment and then publish that Profile for other users of the project data. This restriction has been lifted in Civil 3D 2008. This means that you can now share Alignments and Profiles independently, while maintaining the relationship between them. This is very useful in a collaborative project.

If you have started using the new Plan Production feature, you should now be familiar with the View Frame. The View Frame is a new shareable object in the Project environment.

Dave and I will be covering these topics in our webcast next Friday.

See you then.

Dan


]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5184/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5037/ Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building rating system and its impact on the architectural world. It’s pretty clear – reduce the amount of energy used in a building for lighting, heating/cooling, water/wastewater, etc so you can reduce the building’s impact on the environment (while also saving money in long term building operation).

Even though I come from the Civil world, I understand that buildings are fairly important parts of most projects. Yes, there are times where they clutter up a beautiful land development project, but I guess people need places to work, shop, sleep, eat, buy rough-sawn lumber, etc.

Anyway… how does this whole LEED thing impact the professionals who are designing the subdivisions, sites, transportation, and water retention systems, etc?

LEED for Neighborhood Development

This new initiative (looks like it’s just started up) is an attempt to define a rating system similar to the LEED Green Building rating system that is in place now (aka, LEED Certified building). From what I can tell, the goal is to have a similar rating system for how a neighborhood is configured by 2009.

There is a preliminary (“Pilot”) for the LEED-ND rating system on the LEED website that’ll give you a pretty good understanding of the effort.

Actions:

If you aren’t aware of this initiative, seems like it’ll be something you’ll want to begin tracking. I wouldn’t be surprised if real estate developers begin asking you to create LEED-ND submittals as part of your scope of work at some point in the future. The U.S. Building Council website is the place to go for information on all of this.

If you are actively tracking this initiative, I’d love to know a bit more about how you feel it’ll impact your business (for better or worse). Post info here on the blog if it’s something that will benefit everyone else.

Thanks
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/5037/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4471/


View image

Also - this was my first attempt (without Anthony G helping) at putting images in my blog. ]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4471/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4470/
Autodesk University 2007:

When: November 27–30, 2007
Where: The Venetian Resort Hotel

Important: The deadline for proposal submissions is April 30, 2007.

Go to the AU 2007 website for guidelines and resources to assist you in preparing your submission.

Am I a potential instructor?

Those of you who’ve taught classes in the past should have already received a note requesting class proposals. Those of you have not taught before but have thought about teaching should submit a class proposal.

Here’s what we’re looking for in the presenters…

1. People who are comfortable in front of a LOT of people. Depending on schedule and numbers of class registrants, you may have 400-500 people in the room.
2. People who are energetic – the shortest lectures are 90 minutes and we frown on snoring in the audience.
3. People who can (and will) share real-world best practices and guidance that will help others successfully adopt Civil 3D in production. Heck – that’s what AU is all about!

What classes are we looking for?

The focus for classes for AU2007 (Civil/Survey track) include…

- Migrating to Civil 3D from other products (including Land Desktop)
- Surveying (including survey, point, COGO and DTM operations)
- Site Development
- Subdivision Design
- Road and Highway Design (new roads, intersections, rehab/reconstruction, urban roads and highways)
- Pipe and utility layout
- Environmental projects
- Production Drafting
- CAD Management (styles, standards, data interoperability between AEC and GIS solutions)
- Project/Data Management (Vault, Shortcuts, best practices for production)
- Visualization and Project Communication

Note that there are classes (lectures) and Labs (hands-on) sessions. You should define what you want the proposal to be, but we may need to change it as we juggle the agenda. Those of you who are new may also want to consider being a lab assistant.

Finally – those of you who have never been to AU, start making the case to your boss now to join us. One place to learn more about AU you is at the AU Online website. This site include recordings of a number of classes from last year. Very Cool! It really is an amazing event for learning how technology like AutoCAD Civil 3D can be used to solve real-world production problems. The people who are teaching classes have incredible experience and knowledge to share.

And Philbrick teaches as well…



Cheers
DAS

]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4470/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4419/ Sneak peek” session is up and available for viewing.

Over the next weeks, we’ll be going into a lot more detail on the new release in the webcasts, so please join us if you can. Note also that a number of the bloggers are starting to provide info on the new release. Many of these folks have been exploring the product in beta form for some time. The new Civil 3D website also has lots of good info on feature enhancements. This includes all of the Civil 3D 2008 documentation and the New Features Workshop (located on the Documentation page of the website).

I’m really, really, really excited about this release and strongly encourage you to start digging in when it begins shipping on … (oh that’s right, I’m not allowed to share info like that!). For now, the best option is to join us in our upcoming webcasts, check this and other blogs (yes, I “promise” that we’ll be more active on this blog), review the various launch and supporting materials/documentation on the Civil 3D website and ask your reseller about the new release.

Gotta run and I look forward to getting ya'll more info in the coming months!

See ya
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4419/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4420/ Sneak peek” session is up and available for viewing.

Over the next weeks, we’ll be going into a lot more detail on the new release in the webcasts, so please join us if you can. Note also that a number of the bloggers are starting to provide info on the new release. Many of these folks have been exploring the product in beta form for some time. The new Civil 3D website also has lots of good info on feature enhancements. This includes all of the Civil 3D 2008 documentation and the New Features Workshop (located on the Documentation page of the website).

I’m really, really, really excited about this release and strongly encourage you to start digging in when it begins shipping on … (oh that’s right, I’m not allowed to share info like that!). For now, the best option is to join us in our upcoming webcasts, check this and other blogs (yes, I “promise” that we’ll be more active on this blog), review the various launch and supporting materials/documentation on the Civil 3D website and ask your reseller about the new release.

Gotta run and I look forward to getting ya'll more info in the coming months!

See ya
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/4420/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3702/ Civil 3D Dynamic Model differs considerably from the Static model-based software applications most of us have been using for the past 20 or so years. One of the areas where this is very apparent is with how production drafting is created and, more importantly, maintained in a Civil/Survey project.

I break production drafting into two categories – initial creation of drafting and maintenance of drafting.

Creation of drafting – Most systems that are used today automate the initial creation of production drafting. Example - you run a command that queries the model and inserts the appropriate labels and CAD entities in the drawing. There are also plenty of instances where you’ll need to create simple CAD elements (ie, not from the civil/survey model) to finish up a sheet. Depending on where you are in the world, you’re doing most of your drafting from the model.

Maintaining your drafting – This is where Civil 3D is different than anything else. What happens when the design changes and drafting need to be updated? Does this change occur automatically or does the drafter need to consciously go about updating drafting? Is the annotation a dynamic or static representation of the model?

Dynamic Model + Drafting = Civil 3D
Here’s how I get my mind around drafting in Civil 3D. Think of drafting (annotation or the way something the model is displayed) as just a display of the model. If the model changes, every view or display of the model changes. So...

New way (Civil 3D) - Drafting is a representation of the model. If the model changes, the graphical appearance changes (ie, drafting updates)

Old way (everything else) – Drafting is a static output that is derived from the model. If the model changes, someone needs to recreate the drafting based on the new state of the model.

Make sense? If not, spend a little time playing with Civil 3D and it'll become very clear very quickly...

I need to run. My next topic will go a little further into drafting in Civil 3D. There are some very interesting concepts that leverage the dynamic model interaction I’ve been discussing that you want to be sure you understand.

Cheers
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3702/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3696/
First of all, I’m very happy to see that the term “model-based” is resonating in the market. When we were first preparing for the launch of Civil 3D (Back “in the day”), we found that most civil/survey professionals we interviewed didn’t connect “modeling” with what they did for a living. For them, modeling was more of a mechanical term (3D shaping of a car or toaster…). In the past 2 years, however, we’ve seen the civil/survey community become much more comfortable with the term “model-based.” I attribute this change to the following…

1. The object interaction (ie, model-based design) is very obvious in Civil 3D
2. We’ve invested quite a bit in promoting the concept of model-based design of the civil/survey market
3. You in the market recognize that you’re more familiar with model-based concepts than you first let on
4. Other products in the market are realizing that they also need to promote themselves as model-based products

What I find very interesting (and in my opinion, complimentary) is that suddenly products that have been available for many, many years are now promoting themselves as “model-based”.

Just so we’re all on the same page, here are the basic components (at least from my perspective…) of a model-based civil/survey environment:

The Base Model
Does the object know what it is, and can you use it to create other things? For instance, can I create contours, contour labels, 3D surfaces, etc, from a surface model?

Cross-Object model interaction
Is the road profile derived from the surface? How about pipe rims? Is the road model being designed based on existing surface conditions?

Model – Drafting interaction
Are the graphics and labels in the drawing derived from the model?

Sound reasonable?

So how is Civil 3D different than anything else out there?

Dynamic Model vs. Static Model

For me, the difference between Civil 3D and anything else on the market is the dynamic nature of the model interaction and the depth of those relationships.

What happens if the surveyor working on a road resurfacing project adds incremental topo shots that result in an updated existing ground surface? In the real world, that will result in updated existing and, potentially, proposed profiles, as well as proposed road model, catch basin and manhole rim elevations, etc, etc? All these elements are connected in the real world and need to also be connected in your model-based civil/survey software. This connectivity is the difference between the static model that we all have worked with for years and the Dynamic Model that Autodesk Civil 3D introduces.

Here are some things that differentiate a static and dynamic model based civil/survey environment…

- Do objects update if a change is made somewhere else in the model?
- Is the design criteria that I first used when designing something (ie, road mill/overlay) used again if elements that contributed to the solution change (ie, EG surface)? In other words, does the software update the solution automatically or do I need to manually re-design/edit?
- Can I query or draft across multiple elements in the model (ie, label with station offset of two roads plus the elevation of finish ground surface)
- Does my drafting update automatically if there is a change or do I need to recreate (delete then redraw labels)?

This is already too long, so I’ll end for now… The main point I was hoping to get across is that the process of completing a civil/survey project will always require the ability to make changes along the way. A civil/survey model is just the foundation. What really solves the production problem is the dynamic interaction between the team members and deliverables that make up the project.

My plan for my next post is to take this a little deeper by focusing on how the dynamic model impacts production drafting. This is where the dynamic modeling concepts really sings…

Thanks
DAS
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3696/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3633/ There are many programs and resources that have been developed or that we’ve learned we need to add to help companies move from their historical civil/survey software solution to Autodesk Civil 3D. Learning new commands, understanding changes in workflow, implementing Vault or using data shortcuts, etc, etc… Those are all things that we expected to be challenges and we’ve invested in resources to help you through it.

The one that I think we all underestimated and that’s harder to solve is Expectations.

Huh?

The “big picture” justification for why your company is going through this disruptive change needs to be set clearly for everyone in the organization. How many times have you heard…

From the savvy production, software employees…

“… I can do the same task <> just as fast in my current product… why spend time learning something new if it’s not that much faster?”

From the CTO or CAD Coordinator…

“… it’s just an upgrade to LDT so we’re planning on a 3 day training class”

A common theme that we’ve seen with companies who have thrived through the transition process is that they’ve worked hard to make sure that everyone on the team understands…

- The ultimate business benefits - whatever is most important to you company (e.g., the ability to absorb client or approval revisions, ability to do more with less, ability to explore more design changes, etc).
- The plan that you’ll follow (fast vs. slow; limited pilots; whatever you define as the best plan for your company)
- The impact/cost (be realistic that people will need to be trained, short-term productivity will likely take a hit, etc)

So, the LDT Power-user needs to know that the real benefit isn’t in the initial creation of the pipe network (although I’d rather use this than LDT any day…). Rather it’s the fact that production drafting in all profiles and section sheets will update if the pipe network changes. And the person who’s going to pay for training and other implementation services needs to understand that the production team will be more competitive and will be able to provide a higher level of service in the end.

So…

Whatever path you chose, do NOT underestimate the importance of setting proper expectations throughout the entire organization.
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3633/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3621/
New Subscription Benefit – Autodesk Home Use Policy

Per the Autodesk Subscription team…

The Autodesk Home Use Policy is now in effect. This new exclusive benefit is available for commercial subscription customers. Under the Autodesk Home Use Policy, subscription customers may, after agreeing to an ancillary agreement, install their office software media for eligible products on a home computer for business use.

Standalone license customers will use their existing serial number for a second installation at home. Network license customers will be required to submit a Home Use License Application (HULA) form to Autodesk. After approval by Autodesk, the customer will be issued a home use “companion” serial number to be used to activate standalone installations on home computers.

Home Use policy information is now available on Subscription Center.

I wanted to make sure that you’re all aware of this new subscription benefit. From what I can tell, it should eliminate the issues that many of you have had with enabling employees to use Civil 3D or other Autodesk products at home.

Note - I'm note sure this is available in all countries/geos yet. I'll confirm and update everyone.

Cheers
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3621/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3250/
There was one problem that occurred if the alignment was curved at beginning of the cul-de-sac and you had one continuous Alignment representing the Top-of-Curb (TOC) . If you transitioned your lane from the TOC Alignment back to the CL Alignment, you would end up with a gap in the corridor. The following illustration shows what would happen.

Cul-de-sac Before SP3

The work-around was to create 2 alignments - one for the first half of the cul-de-sac and one for the second half. For SP3, we resolved this issue so now you can have one alignment representing the entire TOC.

Here is the same corridor with SP3. Very nice looking Cul-de-sac!



Cul-de-sac After SP3!


Have you been to http://www.dwfit.com? This is preview technology which lets you view a DWF file without installing a DWF viewer.

Here is the the Cul-de-sac DWF file hosted using the Project Freewheel technology.

Culdesac DWF

Cool technology!

Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/3250/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2967/
Vault/Data Reference
If you are working with Vault, or with Data References, we were able to optimize the memory usage when creating surface references in projects which have multiple surfaces. I obtained a subdivision project from a customer and this improvement resulted in a reduction of 400 Meg when creating a surface reference! The results will of course vary, but it is safe to say you will see an improvement if you have more than one surface in the project. Secondly, the amount of time required to create the reference has been dramatically improved. For the same customer project, I found that it was taking 100 seconds to create a surface reference, and with SP3 it is down to a blazing 2 seconds.

Surface from Contours
We have also made an optimization when adding contour data to a surface. You will notice this if you are adding a large number of contours to the surface and rebuilding the surface. I have a good test surface that adds about 10K contour lines, resulting in a surface that contains about 800K TIN points. For this surface, there is a reduction of about 380 Meg on the build and rebuild. Results will vary, but you will see improvements when adding contour data to your surface.

Contour Labeling
Another user reported that the contour labeling performance was impacting the Plans Production phase of their project. We were able to optimize the algorithms for label placement and we have found about a 5X improvement in drawing regen speed. This will be very noticeable if you are creating viewports and xref’ing or Data referencing a surface with labels.

Corridor Rebuild
Lastly, the Corridor rebuild time has been improved by about 50%. We have conducted a short beta program for SP3 and here are a few comments regarding this improvement:

I'll just say that from my testing that is actually being conservative. I had a corridor that took about 2 minutes and 30 seconds to rebuild and after SP3 was installed it took less than 30 seconds.

Thanks for the Corridor build speed increase. It's very noticeable.Wow that is a huge improvement. But this completely ruins my coffee breaks while rebuilding corridors.

I immediately noticed a performance increase right off the bat in launching the application, opening drawings, and just using general features. Both Corridor and Surface performance is much better.

Dave and I will provide more detail about the Service Pack at the November 3rd webcast.

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2967/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2962/
I’m creating a presentation for Autodesk University and I want to roll in a series of interesting examples of projects that real folks like you are producing using Civil 3D. I can work with DWFs, PDFs, screen capture images, or even the drawing file – whatever’s easiest for you.

I’d also like a wee bit of information on the project – how many parcels, how many baselines used in the corridor model, etc.

My goal of this is to showcase some of the things that you folks are doing. I can also insert your company Logo/Name in the presentation if you want.

If you have anything that you can share, please send it directly to my EMAIL.

Thanks in advance!

Dave S


]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2962/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2927/
Civil 3D Styles
For those that are new to Civil 3D, a style controls the appearance of annotation and objects in the drawing. How will a profile (long section) be drafted? Are there vertical and horizontal grid lines, data bands at the sides and top/bottom, etc? How will the annotation appear and what data values will be included? Every object in the Civil 3D model has a style to control it’s appearance. This is what allows Civil 3D to automate the creation of drawings that meet submittal standards.

In the box…
The use of styles to control drafting was built so that we (Autodesk) could provide in-box drafting standards that meet country requirements. Customers in Germany, Japan, China, Russia and many other countries have styles that they can download that ensure that drawings they create in Civil 3D meet local submittal requirements. For those of you in the U.S., we added styles based on the National CAD Standards. If someone knows of more prevalent U.S. styles, please let me know.

Customized content…
Even with all this investment in style content, it was clear from the start that it’ll be impossible for us to deliver every style that every user will need. That’s why the style creation/editing capabilities in Civil 3D are accessible to all users. There are a number of resources that are available to help you become proficient with the style creation and modification process in Civil 3D. For starters, we’ve presented a number of webcasts on this subject.

The key point is that, even with all of this in-box content, successful Civil 3D pilots and corporate-wide implementations generally include some upfront investment in style modification. Make sure you’re management team understands that this investment is needed, but the efficiencies gained in future projects will easily outweigh the upfront costs.

How do you proceed?
- First, make sure you know what ships with Civil 3D. We provide a number of templates that may cover most of what you need either in the box or as downloads for specific countries. Civil 3D 2007 also included styles that match Land Desktop output. Many of you may find that the country content we provide covers exactly what you need and you’ll be ready to go. This will depend heavily on how well defined the standards are in your part of the world.
- Second, use what we provide as a starting point for labels whenever possible. Rather than starting from scratch, copy and then modify label and object styles that we provide. It’s a lot faster and there are “best practices” that went into making the in-box styles that you can leverage.
- Third, don’t try to boil the ocean. You don’t need to build every style you’ll ever need before you start using Civil 3D. Make what you need and get them into production.
- Finally, you have everything you need in the product to create styles. If you don’t have internal resources to actually build them, work with a reseller or consultant. They’ve been doing this for a while and have seen what works and doesn’t work.

Cheers
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2927/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2919/
Tale of the Tape
- http://students.autodesk.com/
- 17,100+ registered members (as of this morning!)
- many, many, software downloads (sorry, I can’t tell you how many!)
- 290 job postings in the Civil Engineering category
- Student resources including course discussions, industry links, learning materials, etc.
- More…

Friends tell me I talk too much, so I’ll get to the point. I hear repeatedly that it’s impossible to find staff and there’s a shortage of trained Civil 3D users in the market. This Student Community is a central part of a broader plan to address these serious business issues. Hear are the actions that I hope come from this.

1. Make sure that students you know are aware of this portal. (I told my 15 year old son about it… he kind of grunted… not sure what that means)
2. Make sure schools you’re connected with are aware of this community.
3. If you’re looking for quality people, start posting jobs up on the site.

Thanks
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2919/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2900/
So, what’s the plan?
We are actively working on an update to Civil 3D 2007 that will effectively restore the ability to work with non-Vault references. You’ll be able to manually create data shortcuts and then reference those objects so that the model can be distributed to all project team members. The behavior partially exists in Civil 3D 2007 through the Edit Shortcuts command in the General pulldown menu. However, the XML shortcut file must be reloaded every time you open a drawing containing references. The update will eliminate this issue so that references remain live whenever the drawing is opened. The net result is you have all the benefits of reference objects in a very easy to use, easy to implement system.

What’s this mean for Vault?
Vault and Vault-based project capabilities continues to be the primary project/data management direction for Civil 3D. Those of you who have implemented Vault can be sure that Vault is a secure path for the future. Those of you who are preparing for a Civil 3D implementation should take a close look at Vault to see if can work for you. However, for those of you who just can’t get Vault to fit into your workflow, we’ll continue to focus on providing a solution that works for you.

If you’re interested in testing a beta version of the shortcut functionality, please let me know and I’ll make sure you’re invited into the beta program. We’ll provide more details on how this behavior works and how it’ll be released in our upcoming webcast (Oct 6 – A Civil 3D update with Dan and Dave).

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2900/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2900/
So, what’s the plan?
We are actively working on an update to Civil 3D 2007 that will effectively restore the ability to work with non-Vault references. You’ll be able to manually create data shortcuts and then reference those objects so that the model can be distributed to all project team members. The behavior partially exists in Civil 3D 2007 through the Edit Shortcuts command in the General pulldown menu. However, the XML shortcut file must be reloaded every time you open a drawing containing references. The update will eliminate this issue so that references remain live whenever the drawing is opened. The net result is you have all the benefits of reference objects in a very easy to use, easy to implement system.

What’s this mean for Vault?
Vault and Vault-based project capabilities continues to be the primary project/data management direction for Civil 3D. Those of you who have implemented Vault can be sure that Vault is a secure path for the future. Those of you who are preparing for a Civil 3D implementation should take a close look at Vault to see if can work for you. However, for those of you who just can’t get Vault to fit into your workflow, we’ll continue to focus on providing a solution that works for you.

If you’re interested in testing a beta version of the shortcut functionality, please let me know and I’ll make sure you’re invited into the beta program. We’ll provide more details on how this behavior works and how it’ll be released in our upcoming webcast (Oct 6 – A Civil 3D update with Dan and Dave).

Dan
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2900/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2875/
Quick history
Prior to release 2007, Civil 3D used a very basic project environment that was built on a concept of shortcuts (aka, references) that were connected to a project via XML. This approach worked reasonably well for smaller projects, but it lacked the scalability needed for more complex projects. That said, the concept of the reference objects proved to be extremely beneficial (as noted in my previous posting). One of the core requirements that we defined for the 2007 release was to bring the reference capability to the point that it could work with complex projects.

While all of this was going on, another initiative was underway within Autodesk. For a number of years, the Autodesk Mechanical products have included data management capabilities to help support the mechanical workflow. This functionality – Autodesk Vault – has been proven as a core data management solution globally. Its success resulted in a move to introduce Vault beyond the mechanical products with the R2007 launch. As you probably know, Vault is now available as a downloadable extension to subscribers of AutoCAD and a number of other Autodesk applications.

The choice became clear
As with any enhancement or new feature that we add to our products, we reviewed the options available to us. It quickly became clear that Vault was the foundation that we should leverage. It was proven in the market. It is being more seamlessly integrated with core AutoCAD. It provides the scalability to work with very complex projects. It provides a solution to companies who are working between multiple offices.

Is Vault something that will work for every Civil 3D user? Probably not – or at least not in the short term. Should your company just plug Vault in and get started? Definitely not. The reality is that everyone of you will need to closely examine how Vault can fit into your current infrastructure and workflow. We’ve seen customers who’ve been very successful very quickly and others who have had major challenges.

This is probably already too long – I’m still figuring out this blog-thing - so I’ll wrap up. The key points I wanted to get across are…

- Vault is the foundation of our project functionality and it’s something that you need to look closely and objectively at
- Some of you are doing great in this new environment and aren’t looking back
- Some of you will have infrastructure or procedures that result in very real challenges with implementing Vault. We understand this and we’re moving to address your needs. More on this soon!
- Don’t attempt to roll out Vault on your own. There are a number of resellers and consultants who have been helping customers through Vault/Project configuration and deployment cases who are able to help you. Leverage their expertise.

Thanks
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2875/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2875/
Quick history
Prior to release 2007, Civil 3D used a very basic project environment that was built on a concept of shortcuts (aka, references) that were connected to a project via XML. This approach worked reasonably well for smaller projects, but it lacked the scalability needed for more complex projects. That said, the concept of the reference objects proved to be extremely beneficial (as noted in my previous posting). One of the core requirements that we defined for the 2007 release was to bring the reference capability to the point that it could work with complex projects.

While all of this was going on, another initiative was underway within Autodesk. For a number of years, the Autodesk Mechanical products have included data management capabilities to help support the mechanical workflow. This functionality – Autodesk Vault – has been proven as a core data management solution globally. Its success resulted in a move to introduce Vault beyond the mechanical products with the R2007 launch. As you probably know, Vault is now available as a downloadable extension to subscribers of AutoCAD and a number of other Autodesk applications.

The choice became clear
As with any enhancement or new feature that we add to our products, we reviewed the options available to us. It quickly became clear that Vault was the foundation that we should leverage. It was proven in the market. It is being more seamlessly integrated with core AutoCAD. It provides the scalability to work with very complex projects. It provides a solution to companies who are working between multiple offices.

Is Vault something that will work for every Civil 3D user? Probably not – or at least not in the short term. Should your company just plug Vault in and get started? Definitely not. The reality is that everyone of you will need to closely examine how Vault can fit into your current infrastructure and workflow. We’ve seen customers who’ve been very successful very quickly and others who have had major challenges.

This is probably already too long – I’m still figuring out this blog-thing - so I’ll wrap up. The key points I wanted to get across are…

- Vault is the foundation of our project functionality and it’s something that you need to look closely and objectively at
- Some of you are doing great in this new environment and aren’t looking back
- Some of you will have infrastructure or procedures that result in very real challenges with implementing Vault. We understand this and we’re moving to address your needs. More on this soon!
- Don’t attempt to roll out Vault on your own. There are a number of resellers and consultants who have been helping customers through Vault/Project configuration and deployment cases who are able to help you. Leverage their expertise.

Thanks
Dave S
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2875/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2863/
Before I answer the "Why Vault" question, let’s first talk about the goals of a Project-based engineering solution. Here are some things that we hear daily:

- Model data needs to be used by many people in many different forms through the life of a project. For example, the centerline of an alignment will be used in many different production sheets or by many different project team members as a project is developed. Agreed?

- Referencing central model elements (ie, one version of the alignment that everyone shares) greatly reduces the risk of someone working with the wrong version of the model. In other words, one version of the alignment that will be displayed in all sheets and used as a design reference for profiles, corridor models, pipe networks, etc. Make sense?

The basic concept of the project capabilities in Civil 3D are:

1. Create a drawing that includes the full, editable Civil 3D object (ie, an alignment)
2. Check the alignment object into the project so that others can reference it
3. Any user who is working in this project can create a reference to the alignment object. What’s real important to understand is:

a. Users cannot edit/modify the object reference

b. When you create a reference, you can set the style to whatever is needed in the drawing that you’re inserting it. Example – EG surface may be displayed as 1’ contours in the Topo drawing, but then only as a border in the utilities sheets.

c. If the master object is updated and checked back into the project, you can update references of the object (ie, alignment Elm is correct in all drawings)

d. All of the object intelligence is available in the reference. This means you can create drafting details, reports, tables or use the objects for further design from referenced objects.

For you LDT users, think of the LDT project structure, but add the fact that there is a ongoing link between your drawings and the central project. If the central project updates, there’s no need to re-import project data, recreate drafting, etc. same with products that allow you import data from external data files to create drawings or to use in the design process. With Civil 3D, the process is much more dynamic and automated. Referenced project data in Civil 3D can always remain in sync. Correct me if I’m wrong, but having one version of critical model data that is intelligently shared by any number of project team members or that shows up in any number of drawings can provide some serious productivity improvements. Make sense?

OK, so how does Vault fit in?… Oh my, look at the time! I’ve gotta run – I’ll cover this in my next post!
]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2863/ http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/2863/
Before I answer the "Why Vault" question, let’s first talk about the goals of a Project-based engineering solution. Here are some things that we hear daily:

- Model data needs to be used by many people in many different forms through the life of a project. For example, the centerline of an alignment will be used in many different production sheets or by many different project team members as a project is developed. Agreed?

- Referencing central model elements (ie, one version of the alignment that everyone shares) greatly reduces the risk of someone working with the wrong version of the model. In other words, one version of the alignment that will be displayed in all sheets and used as a design reference for profiles, corridor models, pipe networks, etc. Make sense?

The basic concept of the project capabilities in Civil 3D are:

1. Create a drawing that includes the full, editable Civil 3D object (ie, an alignment)
2. Check the alignment object into the project so that others can reference it
3. Any user who is working in this project can create a reference to the alignment object. What’s real important to understand is:

a. Users cannot edit/modify the object reference

b. When you create a reference, you can set the style to whatever is needed in the drawing that you’re inserting it. Example – EG surface may be displayed as 1’ contours in the Topo drawing, but then only as a border in the utilities sheets.

c. If the master object is updated and checked back into the project, you can update references of the object (ie, alignment Elm is correct in all drawings)

d. All of the object intelligence is available in the reference. This means you can create drafting details, reports, tables or use the objects for further design from referenced objects.

For you LDT users, think of the LDT project structure, but add the fact that there is a ongoing link between your drawings and the central project. If the central project updates, there’s no need to re-import project data, recreate drafting, etc. same with products that allow you import data from external data files to create drawings or to use in the design process. With Civil 3D, the process is much more dynamic and automated. Referenced project data in Civil 3D can always remain in sync. Correct me if I’m wrong, but having one version of critical model data that is intelligently shared by any number of project team members or that shows up in any number of drawings can provide some serious productivity improvements. Make sense?

OK, so how does Vault fit in?… Oh my, look at the time! I’ve gotta run – I’ll cover this in my next post!
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What are our goals with this Blog? It's pretty simple. We want to be sure that you - whether you're an end-user, a CAD Manager, a reseller, or anyone else in the Civil 3D universe - have a central place you can go to get the most accurate information on Civil 3D. We'll do our best to keep you up-to-date on things like...

- What's happening with the product
- What we're learning from customers who're working through pilot and production projects
- What programs and services you should be aware of
- Anything else that will help you become a more productive user of Civil 3D

Thanks for joining us.

Dave and Dan]]> http://civilcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/4/blogpost/1917/