Wicked Cool Stuff

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• Cross Sections Part 2

  Posted 07/05/07 by Nick Zeeben

  First things first. When I wrote the original post I did the text on my plane ride back from Europe and didnt bother to look up spelling in our corporate directory. I should have, becuase I spelled Joerg's name wrong. So now that I have that correct it is actually spelled Jörg in German. Jörg also wante d to make sure I passed along some credit to Chakri Gavini one of our product designers based in Manchester, so I will tick that off the list as well.
  
  
  And now to the show. Last time I showed a couple of screen caps of some creative cross section labeling to avoid band clutter. Today as promised I will attempt to breakdown just what makes this tick.
  
  I took the existing band style with all of the overlapping offsets, copied it and promptly turned off all the labels. Now you are probably asking why is he turning off labels, that is what we are after, now this is a true statement, but we are going to use DIFFERENT labels to accomplish this task. All we need is an empty band space in which to insert our shiny new labels.
  
  Next step, code set styles. I know, I know, you already spent months learning what these do and finally have cross sections looking how you would like. We need to add at least 3 custom codes to the markers section. See the screen shot below.Insert screen of adding left, right and straight.
  
  
  
  Still no labels, but we are getting close I promise. We need some custom Marker label styles for our new codes. I named mine to match the custom codes, so I have 2 marker label styles: Left and Straight. The key to these label styles is the new attachment point option that was added in 2008. Bottom of section view, because I know where my band falls below the section, and how tall my band is I am able to draw a line in the band projected down from the points on my design.
  
  
  
  Now the left style is just a little fancier adding in an angled segment to provide me some clearance to the labels next door.
  Centering these labels in the band is another trick. I create a line component, with an x offset that matches the change in x of the angled portion, I then set visible to false. I then simply attach the band text to the middle of this hidden line.
  
  So voila, you have flexible band labeling. The example Jörg created had two different angles to allow for a single stretch and a double; I am only giving you a left and straight style. I can’t do all the work for you.
  
  But wait, you still don’t see any labels do you? I know I said we were getting close, maybe I lied, and good things don’t come free or easy so hang with me.
  
  So earlier we added custom codes to our code set style, take you shiny and new marker label styles and assign them as appropriate to your custom codes.
  
  Last stop I promise. How do you add custom codes at specific locations on your corridor assemblies? The answer my friends is Marked Points. Simply take the marked point sub-assembly, type in which ever code is appropriate. See the annotated image below for how I labeled mine.
  
  That’s it that’s all. Hope you liked it, go grab the style here if you didn’t the first time. Due to the nature of this one it will certainly require some edits to fit with the styles you have defined but it should give you a good start.
  

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• Creative cross section labels from across the pond.

  Posted 07/02/07 by Nick Zeeben

  I seem to be getting out of the office a little bit lately. I just got back from two weeks in Prague, Czech Republic helping with the creation and testing of our Eastern European Country Kits. For those of you wonder what a country kit is. It is a set of content similar to what we ship in the box in North America, this means items like templates, superelevation files, pipe network parts, reports etc. On with the show. I have uploaded an example style drawing to the community site here
  
  Credit for this goes to Jorge Pipo, an Autodesk Civil Applications Engineer based in Germany. A very common problem when working with cross section bands is having overlapping information. Below is a screen shot of a band that show offsets for my design.
  
  
  
  Due to the proximity of the curb points the text become an overlapping mess. Well thanks to Jorge we now have a creative solution to labeling this information without clutter. This screen shot shows and sample of Jorge’s Solution.
  
  
  So for the adventurous in the crowd go ahead and download the drawing from the community and dissect just what Jorge did to make this work. For the less adventurous in the crowd stay tuned for my next post where I will break down exactly how this set of styles is configured.

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• I would call this wicked cool, but I'm not a native New Englander

  Posted 06/06/07 by Nick Zeeben

  Note: I originally published this last week, but due to some technical problems with image uploads I pulled it. Those have now been sorted out, so enjoy!
  
  Well they finally let me out of the office, I am in New York this week taking a training class. I am sitting on the roof top deck at my hotel looking out over Manhattan and I felt like I should write a blog entry, man I am a geek sometimes. At least it pays the bills. Anyhow on with the show.
  
  Corridor featurelines have been a bit of a sticky situation for people out there. Due to the corridor being ala connect the dots, feature lines end up being tessellated line segments rather than true curves along things like flowlines. Alot of folks have asked for a little more control over these, often a profile and alignment are needed along flowline. There is a new command setting available in 2008 for Create Grading Featureline from corridor and Create Alignment from corridor. The command setting is in the popup:
  
  View image
  
  
  
  
  Now first of all, you may be wondering, is smoothen really a word? Yes it is, I checked the dictionary before we shipped because I wasnt quite sure. People with larger vocabularies than I design the product. Anyways our default settings for both of these commands are to create smoothened entities.
  
  
  
  
  So now you are asking what exactly does this mean for me? Well the following two screen shots show exactly what I mean.
  
  
  Smoothened
  
  
  
  No Smoothing
  
  
  

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• Its a small one

  Posted 04/25/07 by Nick Zeeben

  Ok, so I feel guilty for the blog neglect and Anthony's attempt to remain technical was a little sad. So I thought I would put this one up.
  
  The Code Set Style Dialog now supports shift and/or ctrl selection for editing!!
  
  Now most of you are probably sitting around wondering why this matters, but as a guy who used to spend alot of time setting up templates and as any of you CAD manager types reading this will likely agree this particular set of styles was a laborious process to setup.
  
  So let's take a look, I'll even put in some screen shots of the product installed on my own machine.
  
  Simply use your ctrl or shift keys to select the desired codes.
  View image
  
  Now go ahead and choose a style to change. It is really is just that simple.
  
  View image
  
  
  I actually clapped in my cube the day I found this. I realize I don't get out much, but they do say it is the small things in life that matter.
  
  I will try and write something a little more substantive later on this week, Anthony's dirty looks in the halls and subtle reminders in conversation were getting the best of me though and I felt the need to post a nugget.
  
  Nick
  
  

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• Hello from San Francisco and a Wicked Cool Tip

  Posted 02/12/07 by Anthony Governanti

  I'm just settling into my hotel room here in chilly San Francisco where I'll be spending the better parts of the next two days talking to a worldwide press audience about the upcoming release of Civil 3D. I am very excited about this years release, but more on that in the coming week.
  
  I wanted to share a quick tip that I've been using for a while now, and figured it was about time to share. It's not ground breaking, but should save you a lot of time when dealing with (blah) plain AutoCAD tasks.
  
  Drag N' Drop copy:
  
  A lot of times when I'm going through the layout for a design, whether it be a roadway, a parcel network, or a parking lot, I have the need to isolate objects quickly and use them for simple drafting tasks.
  
  Let's take a set of parking curbs for instance. If I'm being a good Civil 3D doobie, and am converting my layout linework to Feature Lines so I can properly grade my site, I may loose some 2D geometry that I need for other things like visualization. So what I typically do is simple copy the geometry into a blank DWG, flatten it if needed, and then copy it back in to a new layer. It sounds dumb at first, cause you're probably thinking, why don't you use Layer isolate or one of the other hundred ways if separating out the geometry needed. Well, quite simply, this is the fastest way I've found.
  
  1 - Create a new DWG using the same template or coordinate zone as the DWG you currently in.
  
  2. Go to the Window menu and select "Tile Horizontally" or "Tile Vertically"
  
  This will put both DWGs on your screen side-by-each. Simply select the geometry in the original DWG you want to work with so the grips show up, and then Right-Click-Drag the geometry into the new drawing. When you release the mouse button, you'll be given a shortcut menu. Choose the paste to Original Coordinate option.
  
  
  View image
  
  Now that the geometry is there, you can work with it in a clean environment and then simply reverse the order of steps to bring it back to the original DWG. Badda-Bing, Badda-boom.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG
  

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• Site Topology Part 3; Managing Sites

  Posted 02/08/07 by Anthony Governanti

  I've been banging away on a site design these last couple of days, and have come accross a couple tips that I hope will help you when you are using the feature line and grading layout tools in Civil 3D.
  
  The first tip is on using a pretty cool feature line editing tools that will make your life as a designer a lot easier.
  
  Set grade between points:
  
  
  View image
  
  This command allows you to specify a point on a feature line to start, then a second point to define a range on the line that you want to grade. Then you can either project a slope, grade, or elevation difference between the two points. Really handy if you need a feature line to be a grade line, say the bottom of ditch, or in this case, a swale that runs on the outside of a parking lot.
  
  
  
  Here we have the grading group selection dialog. If you don't have a grading group defined, you'll be prompted to create one first. Once here, you can switch to a different site, and select a different grading group, thus making its site current.
  
  
  
  Now that I have the grading site current, I can use the editing tools on the desired feature lines (yellow line below).
  
  
  View image
  
  Here we see that I'm trying to use a feature line editing command on the yellow line, but the command will only recognize the green line, which is in the current site.
  
  So how do we change the current site? Well this is where its a little tricky, or at least not intuitive in my mind. We need to use the grading group selection dialog from the Grading layout toolbar. This allows us to select a new "current" grading group, which by default sets the site current as well.
  
  Setting the current site:
  So you may remember from my other posts about site topology that you need to keep feature lines and grading groups separated into different sites if you want things to play nicely together. Once you've adopted this practice, you may run into a situation like I did that took a little hunting to figure out.
  
  Essentially I had two sites for my site design; a Reference site and a Grading site. I used the reference site to collect and manage the feature lines and grading groups I used to crate a reference surface that I use to grade the rest of my site. The grading site was just that, a site to collect the actual grading groups and feature lines that will make up my design.
  
  So here is the situation - I'm working away with my feature lines for my reference site, and then I want to edit one of the feature lines for my grading. When I go to select one of the grading feature lines with an editing tool, they aren't selectable. This is because my reference site is still current.
  
  
  View image
  
  So I hope that helps you all out hen working through a site design using both feature lines and grading groups.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG
  

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• Updated Survey Extension

  Posted 02/05/07 by Anthony Governanti

  A while back I posted about a cool utility that Rob Todd created that extended some of the existing functionality in Civil 3D for working with Survey Networks and traverses. Rob has just released a new and improved version of the utility that you can grab here.
  
  Probably the most notable improvement is the Translate Survey Network command:
  
  From the Redme file: The purpose of this command is to perform a simple translation of a selected survey network, given a base point, rotation angle, a destination point, and a change in elevation (optional).
  
  So if you have a need to translate your networks, or to use the other powerful functions that Rob has added, check out this utility today over in the Content Sharing section of the Community.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG
  

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• Digging Deeper in Civil 3D

  Posted 01/29/07 by Anthony Governanti

  I'd like to take a moment to plug a new book that has just hit the streets for Civil 3D; Digging Deeper into Autodesk Civil 3D by Rick Ellis and Scott Wolter.
  
  This is a Level 2 version of Rick's other Civil 3D book of the same name and "is 442 pages long, organized into 7 chapters. It begins with creating a horizontal alignment, editing alignments for both in graphical and tabular format, working with superelevations and profiles, then continues through corridors and intersections and designing pipe networks. The book concludes with grading, finished surface analysis, final earthwork volumes and managing project data with Vault."
  
  
  
  For a peek at the table of contents you can check out the Cadapult website. This is a great resource for both an intro and now and advanced level of courseware.
  
  
  For a list of other courseware materials that are available you can check out what the folks here at the desk have created too. The way I look at it, the more the merrier, as you can never have enough courseware or text books (as evident by the overflowing bookcase I have in my cube with some all-time greats, including a copy of AutoCAD and its basic applications R12!)
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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• Site Topology Part 2; Grading

  Posted 01/17/07 by Anthony Governanti

  Ok, it’s been a while since I posted on Part 1, but I hope you can forgive the major interruption in service here. I’d like to take a moment to talk about Grading, and how it fits into our site topology discussion.
  
  When we discuss grading in general, we need to separate it into two categories of features within Civil 3D; Grading and Feature lines. Grading is the use of the Grading layout tools to create the intelligent grading projects and groups that Civil 3D can use to design site grading. A Grading (capitol G) uses a feature line to start with, and then applies a grading criteria to project to different targets. These targets can be a surface, a distance by slope or grade, or an elevation by slope or grade, or to a relative elevation by slope or grade. Multiple Gradings can be grouped together into a… you guessed it Grading group, so that any change to one Grading will ripple or update the other Gradings.
  
  
  View image
  Here we see a simple Grading; note the green dashed line is a feature line, the projection has a diamond glyph, and the target line is another feature line.
  
  Then we have Feature Lines, which are essentially 3D polylines, but with some extra data and behaviour attached. With the introduction of Civil 3D 2007, we were given a whole bunch of powerful feature line editing and creation tools. It is these tools that make feature lines very powerful, in that you can get most of the "grading" needed for a typical site done with just the lines, and then finish it off with the Grading tools.
  
  So this all sounds well and good, but if any of you have tried to use the grading tools, you will have run across some problems at one time or another.Most of the issue that 99% of Civil 3D users run into when attempting to grade is breaking the site topology without realizing they did, and thus either creating a bad grading, or worse, a fatal error. Now I’m of the opinion that a lot of this is our fault (meaning Autodesk) because we should be trapping those errors and notifying the user of the problem, or better yet, should make it so it doesn’t error in the first place. Now all wishful thinking aside, what do we do to try and get our grading to work without a topology problem?
  
  Suggestion #1 - Separate feature lines that may cross.
  The first rule in our topology is that geometry is aware of other geometry and in the case of Grading or feature lines, if they cross, we could have issues. The issue is that a vertical point of intersection will be automatically added to any feature lines that intersect, at the point of intersection. And since this happens automatically without the user really knowing about it, this will cause blown shots in the grading, as the PI is set at zero elevation. To avoid this situation, create or move the feature lines that are crossing into separate sites.
  
  Suggestion #2 - Separate grading groups that intersect.
  The second issue is that Grading target lines that cross other target lines or feature lines may stop the projection from happening, giving an incomplete grading, or making it look like a solution wasn’t found. To make sure they still project, separate the grading groups into different sites as well.
  
  Essentially if the gradings or feature lines don't need to interact, then make sure they don't by using different sites. The Site in Civil 3D is basically a bucket that you put geometry in that needs to interact or be aware of each other. Conversely, if that geometry needs to be seperated, then you put them into different buckets, or Sites. By adhering to these two suggestions, I think you'll find that grading will work a lot more for you, and you'll avoid "weirdness" with the feature lines getting zero elevations.
  
  Site topology is something that we don’t really know is there, but having a better understanding of it can help us make better decisions as to how to setup a design in Civil 3D, and in the end avoid issues or problems that we may not be aware are there. I hope this information is useful to you; happy grading!
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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• How do you grade?

  Posted 12/11/06 by Anthony Governanti

  I had an interesting conversation via IM the other day with the Civil 3Diva. We were discussing the different ways to grade a commercial site, and we had some differences of opinion when it came down to some of the methods you can use in Civil 3D.
  
  Dana has become a big proponent of using the corridor model to do the bulk of the site grading, and I am a bit more of a traditionalist in that I make heavy use of feature lines and what I call "reference" surfaces. So we went back and forth as to which way is better, and it dawned on us that this conversation should probably be more public.
  
  So we've decided to each post about our methods to our respective blogs, and let you decide which one is better for you. In the end, I think it will depend on the site conditions, and your familiarity with the tools available. Either way, it should make for good conversation, at least in cyberspace.
  
  The site:
  
  View image
  
  This site is a fairly typical commercial development, with large parcels for industrial buildings and a simple road that splits the property in half. Here I have a parking lot laid out with an entrance to the road, and I need to make some decisions for how I will grade the lot.
  
  The Flow:
  
  View image
  
  I've decided to split the parking lot in half from east to west, and will make a grade line that runs parallel to the parking spaces. As you can see, I'll flow the water to the east (away from the proposed building pad that will be on the west side of the parking lot) and will tilt the lot 1% down from the north and 2% down from the south.
  
  The Setup:
  
  View image
  
  With the general flow conditions determined for my site, I can create some reference elements that I will use to base my grading on. I take my flowline and convert that to a feature line, and set grade on it using the elevation editor. I then use the Stepped Offset feature line command to offset this line to the north and south 150 feet, at 1% and 2% respectively. I add these feature lines to a new surface, which is my reference surface for my site. It dictates the flow characteristics for the overall conditions of my design.
  
  Site Topology - this is where the lessons we've learned on site topology are crucial; we need to keep the feature lines for our reference surface is a separate site from our lot grading feature lines. I make it a habit to create two sites as soon as I start my grading; one for reference lines, and one for my actual site grading.
  
  The Grading:
  
  View image
  Feature Lines created and then graded from the reference surface.
  
  Now that I have this reference surface, I simply project all my parking lot feature to it, and they become "graded". This is where a lot of time is saved, in that I don't have to set any points, or project any slopes; I simply just grab the elevations from my reference surface, and BAM, my lot is graded for me. I then add these lines to a new surface, and we can start to see the design coming together.
  
  
  View image
  Feature lines added to a new surface.
  
  Two tips here; when you convert the linework to Feature lines, make sure to uncheck the option for erasing existing object; we'll need this linework again later if and when we do some site visualization. Two, when you get elevations from surface for the new feature lines, make sure to uncheck the option to insert intermediate grade points as this will save a lot of processing time by eliminating a vertical point being added to every triangle crossing point.
  
  Next I create all my curb lines by again using the stepped offset feature line command. I use a distance of 6 inches and an elevation difference of 6 inches.
  
  View image
  
  Now I finish the design by adding the curb lines to the surface, as well as projecting the outer limits of my parking lot to existing ground using the grading tools.
  
  
  View image
  Final Parking Lot surface.
  
  So I hope you can see that by using the feature line tools and the surface capabilities of Civil 3D, you can do commercial site grading. By using my method of feature lines and a reference surface you can quickly grade the site, and if anything changes, you have the flexibility to either make adjustments to individual features using the feature lined editing tools, or to the entire site by changing the reference surface.
  
  With a little effort on the visualization side you can quickly create powerful rendering of your work.
  
  View image
  
  Look for Dana's version of this site to be posted over at Civil3D.com sometime soon.
  
  So I leave it up to you which method you prefer; just know that Civil 3D is capable of doing commercial site grading - its all in the tools and methods you use.
  
  Till next time,
  Cheers,
  AG

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