From the Ground Up
A European perspective on design and out of the box thinking with Civil 3D.
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- posted 09/26/07 by Jack Strongitharm Start as you mean to go on!!
- As you may know part my role at Autodesk is to see people like yourself and help you adopt Civil 3D, this is part of the reason why we setup this Blog site, environmentally friendly (less paper to print).
From my travels though I see some small common mistakes in first projects when first getting started.
So this week I have listed a quick check list, just to make sure we are all on the same page.
1. Have you installed the Country kit for your country?
We make these kits for you to get you started from the word go and gets you at least the majority of the drawing requirements you will need. (Go to Country Kit downloads)
2. Start from the template file from the country kit.
For the UK and Ireland you should have a file called _Autodesk Civil 3D 2008 UK_IE Bylayer.dwt
3. If using a 3D drawing
Insert your 3D survey drawing into this file. One thing to check is that you don’t get strange scaling from drawings. If it says ‘Feet’ and you are working in meters it will scale it. To avoid this completely, set the INSUNITS value to 0, then no scaling will take place
4. If you use points
Create the surface directly from the point file rather than importing the points as COGO points, Civil has to keep the point data labels upto date, so will require memory. If you need to see them in a certain way refer to the next step.
5. Once you make a surface from the survey data save the drawing.
Rather than starting a design here create a ‘datashortcut’ to this surface (as described in an earlier post by Ove, Go to Blog). Start a new drawing and create a reference to this surface. This will dramatically reduce the active drawing size. It is just like XREFs, you wouldn’t include all your 2D mapping data would you? This will reduce your active drawing sizes.
6. XREF the survey drawing in as a background
Even better is to create a flattened survey drawing and XREF this one, as the file size will be much smaller and also you will find it easier to work with for AutoCAD tasks (non coplanar etc)
7. Create cross sections outside the main model drawing
This gives you chance to have a different horizontal scale but also will mean that the drawing has to update all the sections at the same time. The sections can be made by a ‘datashortcut’ to the base alignment and then XREF the model drawing into the drawing file that you want the sections drawn. They will always be dynamic. (Refer to my enhanced cross sections document, go to post ). )
8. Name civil objects properly
You have the ability to give good sensible names, so try to name them in a way so it is clear what is what and also just in case you are off ill, someone else can see to it and not have to drag you from your pit watching trash tv.
9. Work with simple surface styles
Do you need to see contours displayed for the background surface at all times. It will increase general speed but also make your display much clearer and easier to work with.
10. If you have lots of regions in corridors, maybe you are not designing most efficiently. Use alignments to control width offsets (you can offset an alignment to give a polylines and then convert to an alignment). Also do not put everything in one corridor, try to break them down into logical sections. Use a large frequency to begin with and refine when you need.
Finally keep reading here as we will always point you in the right direction and post comments and we will always try to answer.
Excuse the lack of piccys this week
Until next time
Jack Strongitharm
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Previous Posts
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Changing widths on sample lines
Posted 09/21/07 by Ove Cervin
Hi there.
Summer is over and the Calendar is fully booked. I guess you are aware of that kind of situation...
Today I just wanted to highlight a small "button"might not have been recognized. This is for changing the Sample Lines swat width.
When you're setting up the Sample Lines for your Alignment/Corridor you might (as I normally do) use the "From corridor stations" function. This is great and fast.
When those sample lines are in place you might notice they are far to wide.
Before dismissing the toolbar for sample lines - use this one, "Edit swath widths for group..."
Fast and easy!
You might have seen it before but I wanted to make sure all is aware now!
Have a great weekend! Cheers / Ove -
Las Vegas comes to the UK and Birmingham - AUGI UK
Posted 09/14/07 by Jack Strongitharm
Yes Birmingham England!!, less reasons to burn your hard earned cash I guess on the slot machines and tables in Vegas.
This year the AUGI UK has setup a big meeting on the 13th and 14th of November at the The Hilton Birmingham Metropole.
This event is similar to that of AU as it will have classes for all types of industry using Autodesk based products.
For Civil 3D, I am personally presenting two classes
WORKSHOP 6: 14 Nov 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Course Number: S6-3 INFRASTRUCTURE CIVIL 3D
Title: Intersection and Roundabout Design
WORKSHOP 8: 14 Nov 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM
Course Number: S8-3 INFRASTRUCTURE CIVIL 3D
Title: Visualisation Techniques in Civil 3D 2008
Also my colleagues Lucy Kuhns and Pete Kelsey from the US will be presenting.
Also I gave a colleague of mine Joe Wright a little push on this one so please support him as it is very well done on 64bit technology. This one does of course clash with mine, but choose your weapons!
WORKSHOP 8: 14 Nov 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM
Course Number: S8-7 EDUCATION AND CAD MANAGEMENT
Title: Learning Lessons Toward the 64-Bit Revolution
I look forward to seeing you there please use the link below for more information and registration
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LandXML version
Posted 09/12/07 by Ove Cervin
Hello all!
Some time ago I heard that a customer had faced an issue discovering what happens when you import a LandXML-file from Civil 3D 2008 in to a DWG with version 2007.
If you do this - be aware that the version of LandXML exported from Civil 3D 2008 is "LandXML 1.1". This format is slightly different from earlier "LandXML 1.0". But what really mattered for this customer was that the file includes information that it comes from Civil 3D 2008.
When they imported this LandXML-file to a DWG version 2007 it was converted (locked to) DWG 2008 file format.
Not strange - but please be aware if you in your office are running a project set to use DWG 2007 file format with applications based on 2007. If you import a newer LandXML they will become 2008 DWG's.
Confusing? ;-)
Cheers! / Ove
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Crossing Pipes in Profile View
Posted 09/10/07 by Ove Cervin
Hi all,
It has been some interesting weeks lately. Lot's of contact with users hearing their experiences with the software and their projects.
It has also been a lot of traveling, which sometimes causes my wife to complain ;-) Last week though I bought a nice box of pink colored, champagne tasting chocolate! Success!! ;-)
Anyway - this weeks tip will be on how to easily present Pipes in a Profile View using a Style Override.
Some people has not discovered the built in functionality in the dialog for Profile View Properties.
If you want to present a Profile where you have some crossing Pipes these can have a style presenting only the Pipe "circle". To assign this style the "easiest" way here's how to do:
Below is an area with a few pipes.
Here's a designed blue line (Alignment) that will get a Profile View where the Pipes are crossing.
When you create a Profile View for the Alignment you get the option to select Pipe Networks to be displayed.
If you here choose the "Select parts from screen" you can pick networks.
The advantage to do it this way instead of just tick mark the boxes in the dialog is that you get the Pipe Network objects visual in detail. Then you can uncheck the Structures and thing you don't want to see in the Profile View.
This gives you a Profile View with "your settings" and in my case the Profile View looks like this. Here's the crossing Pipes drawn with standard Style. This is not what I want.
If we then pick the Profile View and select right click "Profile View Properties" and the tab "Pipe Networks" it looks like this dialog.
The purpose here is to use the function "Style Override" for the Pipes. If we here select "Style Override" the selected style affects these Pipe objects - but only in this Profile View! (You don't want to change your ordinary settings "Properties" for the Pipe Network to have a style "Crossing" because that would affect all Profile Views that presents that Pipe Network)
Now the Profile View looks like this. Crossing Pipes.
Until next week - stay put!
Cheers! / Ove -
Enhanced Cross Sections
Posted 09/04/07 by Jack Strongitharm
Ok, I left it a little while until this post, but I am sure you will appreciate what I am delivering this week.
I dropped a couple of themes last time to what I would be covering over the next couple of posts and this week it is 'Enhanced Cross Sections'.
Nick Zeeben on Wicked Cool Stuff Blog (Link to pages) a couple of weeks ago went through some of the basics, but here is it all packed up and ready to go!
For the UK and Ireland and a lot of other countries out there we need more in our cross sections and also in the bands.
The document below is a step by step workflow on how to get setup.
Autodesk Civil 3D 2008 Enhanced Cross Sections.pdf
You will need the UK template file, so either use the Official Country Kit at this location
or if you are not from the UK and Ireland, here is my template.
_Autodesk Civil 3D 2008 UK_IE.dwt
Within the document it tells you which styles you will require, so you can drag them across from this template and into your own. (If you are not sure on how to do this please let me know on the comment log below and I can post that next)
Also required is a toolpallete, this we could not include in the Country Kit this time, but is an essential part of this workflow.
UK_IE Drafting Tools Pallete
Installation instructions are provided in the document.
Have fun.!!!
Thanks to Joerg Pipo and Peter Funk for the original concept and clever stuff!!
Until next time
Jack Strongitharm
