From the Ground Up
A European perspective on design and out of the box thinking with Civil 3D.
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- posted 06/28/07 by Jack Strongitharm UK AutoCAD Civil 3D Stars
- So, it seems that I am sat in airports at lot at present (Prague) when doing these blogs.
Time is short and about to move house yet again.
So I would like to highlight the stars of the show so far in the UK and Ireland. I work very closely to our Civil 3D user base and success is priority number one.
These are some guys that have jumped straight onto Civil and have also built their designs, which is the ultimate test for any software to prove itself worthy.
Landscope Engineering- Surveying
Download file
M Design - Housing estates, roads, drainage
Hartlepool Borough Council - Junction redesign and car parks
RES - Wind Farms, access roads
A big thank you to all that have let us write about them to date and also the number of stories that are coming to press very soon.
Until next time
Jack Strongitharm
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Previous Posts
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Drawing Tips - hidden feature
Posted 06/20/07 by Ove Cervin
Hello again,
Yesterday we were in the office outside London (Farnborough). In the evening we went to a small place called Fleet. For some reason the weather went "tropic like" when we were going to the hotel and a heavy thunderstorm were coming in. A LOT of rain... We got W-E-T. Actually the streets were flooded. The drainage in that are could really need some upgrade... But the food made us feel much better soon after. And what is some rain? - some people would really love to have more rain...
When we were working on the beta version of C3D 2008 some of us noticed a nice feature when doing design on the Alignment or Profile. That functionality later in the beta period disappered.
This little thing has been presented on Dave and Dans Blog (The Dave and Dan Civil 3D Show) earlier and can be found here.
The reason I'm adding it again is that I think a lot of people have not seen it. ;-) ...and hopefully my small images can explain even more what this actually does.
What I mean is the nice little "marker line" that traced your section in the Profile View when you were moving the cursor along the Alignment in Plan view.
That feature setting is still in C3D 2008, but as a "hidden command". It will probably be more developed before it becomes a standard public command. But it IS nice already...
The use of this "feature" is what's displayed in the screenshots below.
First is a shot showing Plan and Profile View.
You can see the cursor in Plan. What is interesting is that the Section is presented as a black line also in the Profile View - simultaniously. This is all in the same View in the drawing.
Command: ShowDrawingTips
Next shot is presenting the other way around, cursor in Profile View also presents a Section line in Plan at the same time!
The last screenshot presents an alternative setting for the command;
Command: ShowDrawingTipsFull
This gives a simultane line in all Views if you move your cursor. In the image below I have three views presenting Section, Plan and Profile. If the cursor is in any view you get a line/marker/leader in all the other views.
I have the cursor in Section view (top left) and the line is following in Plan and Profile View.
View image
To turn the command off; use: Command: HideDrawingTips
Try it out and decide for yourself.
Until next time - have a great one! Cheers! / Ove C
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Disclaimer: The opinions and material on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Autodesk’s positions or opinions -
Sat in Cork Airport - Adding features to your cross sections
Posted 06/14/07 by Jack Strongitharm
So I have a couple of hours to kill in Cork airport after finishing my short tour around Ireland this week.
The Guiness was good by the way in the Gravity Bar in Dublin!
Funny how most pictures of me are with a pint! I dont always drink you know!
(from the left, Brian, Seamus, John and me Jack)
Anyway back to the Civil stuff
So here is a little area in Civil 3D that has been there from the last version (2007) and probably has been missed by most people, including myself to be honest!
Within cross sections you can show where other alignments live on your cross sections. But if you think about it and look at what else is enabled is that you can also drop a block in the cross section/s.
Here is how you do it
1. If you want say a fenceline shown, convert a polyline into an Alignment for your fences
2. Go to a cross section and its properties and go to the Gradient Profile Lines tab.
Here you can see that you can add alignments
This will now draw a vertical line on the section to where those alignments are within your section
3. To be able to drop in a block on the ground you need to create a profile for your fencelines
4. Then go back to your section and properties. Remove the alignments and then readd them and you will find that profiles have been added and also that you can choose a marker
If you have not looked at markers before, they are used through the program for labelling.
The basics are that you can choose a cross, circle etc for a simple symbol but also you can choose to use an AutoCAD block that you can draw yourself
In this case I have drawn a simple fence post and 3 rails
5. Then when you say OK, you will find that your section now has the blocks shown and on the surface
( a bit zoomed in to save your eye sight)
Now, if you want to update these to all your sections, in 2008 you can now change anything about them very quickly.
Go to your sample line groups in the propector and right click into properties
You could easily apply this technique to draw on other features such as lighting posts, walls etc.
Just because it says an alignment does mean that is only what it can do. Think outside the box and how you apply the tools, or just keep watching this blog.
By the way, if you move the alignments for the fences, rebuild the corridor and the fence blocks will move on the sections.
You may notice that my cross sections have good text labels in the bands at the positions I need them at.
My colleague, Joerg Pipo in Germany found a great way to make cross sections better.
So I will try to explain this technique in the coming posts.
Good weekend to you all, time to check in to go home!!
Jack Strongitharm
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Using Data Shortcuts
Posted 06/13/07 by Ove Cervin
Hi all,
After what I've heard more and more people are getting interested in how to share data. Most of the same people are not really in line with the thought of getting in to the Vault stuff yet (I'll get you there... ;-) )
Here's the short and simple way to handle your shared data through Data shortcuts.
If you have a project drawing like this one, with a road, some surfaces and a pipe network, you might want to reference some of it in to another drawing.
First - go to the menu "General" at the top.
Select "Data Shortcuts" and "Edit Data Shortcuts..." in the menu.
This will bring up the "Data Shortcuts Vista". At the top you'll find some buttons where you can import, export, create, validate etc all shortcuts in the actual drawing.
Below I have created a few Data Shortcuts to my Surfaces, an Alignment and a Pipe Network using the button "Create data shortcut by selection". Pick the object on screen.
This will get you a list/set of Data Shortcuts.
Then use the button "Export data shortcuts to file", or rightclick on data shortcut and select "Export to file..."
When saving the XML-file with information on the data shortcuts, make sure you give it a good name. A suggestion is using something containing a project number, a site name or something to understand.
Then open your new drawing where you want your data.
Open the Data Shortcuts Vista through the General menu.
Use the button "Import data shortcuts from file".
When you have the shortcuts in the Vista window - rightclick on the object you want to reference. Select "Create reference...". (or use the button "Create reference")
Now we have the referenced data in the drawing. Of course you can have what ever style you want on the data - it IS Civil 3D after all... ;-)
Best regards / Ove C
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Disclaimer: The opinions and material on this Blog are my own and do not necessarily represent Autodesk’s positions or opinions.
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Draping photos on buildings
Posted 06/12/07 by Jack Strongitharm
Something a little more AutoCAD based this week.
The other week we had a little extra event in Salzburg where we sent people out with a camera to take pictures of buildings in one of the squares there and to then drape those photos in AutoCAD Civil drawing in about 5 minutes or thereabouts.
We had the square laser-scanned by Leica Geosystems, and aswell as creating a high end model that we used in a presentation along with Civil 3D. They also set up some very simple 3D faces for just the building facades so to simply apply a photo.
From the links below is a pdf file with some very simple instructions on how to do it.
It is not the only way but it is just a simple way I thought of to just put your Civil design into context.
Also below is a Civil 3D 2008 drawing and photographs to try out yourself.
Applying Images to Building 3D Faces.pdf
Building 1 Original.jpg
Saltzburg_Square.dwg
Building1 Fixed.jpg
You realise now, why using AutoCAD in conjunction with Civil Engineering is such as good idea.
Thanks again to Steven Ramsey and Leica Geosystems.
Civil regards
Jack Strongitharm
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Regression Analysis
Posted 06/05/07 by Ove Cervin
Hi again,
It was a long time ago - sorry ;-)
I've been doing a lot (in my garden...) but finally I have now went through the new feature "Regression Analysis", or at least a bit of it...
Below I'll try to explain how to use it when designing an Alignment.
It's a lot of pictures below, but as they say, a pitures tells more than...
If you for example have a bunch of measured points, like on a centerline, this is a good way to find the most correct approximation of where the line really is.
Here's a set of Points, ordinary ACAD Points.
The new command is found under the menu "Lines/Curves".
I'll start of by creating the line our of the Points.
Select "From AutoCAD points"
When selecting - don't say you have missed the Selection method "WP" for Window Polygon, or "CP" for Crossing Polygon.
They have been here for ages... an excellent way to select the Points. It also gives you an idea of which points that are "in a line" when you draw the Polygon.
When you have done that - hit Enter. Then you'll see a red line presenting the approximation of the Centerline. Also a bunch of black/white crosses presenting which Point that have been used.
In the Panorama window (make sure you have it open) you get all data and also a graph presenting how the line is drawn and how far from each selected Point it is.
Here in the Panorama window you also have the option to mark a specific point (3) where the Line actually have to pass through.
When you select a Point to pass through the grapichs in the drawing presents the new position.
From the Panorama window you can also export the data to an ASCII-file or to Clipboard.
You can also Add or Remove Points from the Analysis.
When you close the Panorama window Vista the Line is drawn as an AutoCAD Line.
Do the same for the rest of the Points.
...and also for the ARC Points...
This gives you an ARC
Open the command "Create Alignment by Layout".
Use the command "Convert AutoCAD Line and Arc" to create the first Subentities of the Alignment. Use "Reverse subentity direction", if necessary, on some of the Subentities.
Now they are almost in place
Finally - add an Curve - done!
I'm pretty sure you find it useful also when doing design in other kind of projects - not only roads. As you saw there are more ways to do this, not only from Points.
Try it out! Cheers! / Ove C
Here are the sample files;
one to start with and one complete
Start:
Download file
Done:
Download file
