Civil Immersion

See Us Live: Alan Coming to Houston, TX

On August 24th, I'll be presenting with our partner, Graitec USA, in Houston Texas.

This is a free event that focuses on the power of the AEC Collection for Infrastructure customers.  Hope to see you there!

Here is the event link:

• Houston, TX

 

-Alan

See Us Live: Alan Coming to Austin and San Antonio, TX

On August 22nd and 23rd, I'll be presenting with our partner, Applied Software, in Austin and San Antonio Texas respectively. 

These are free events that focus on the power of the AEC Collection for Infrastructure customers.  Hope to see you there!

Here are the event links:

• Austin, TX
• San Antonio, TX

-Alan

 

Finish Strong Friday: Multi-Target Daylight with Subassembly Composer

The fun never stops with Subassembly Composer!  Are we in cut or fill and are we also within the Right of Way?  This is the multi-target case I'd like to consider today.  Over the last few weeks, we've used Decisions for several conditional situations.  Today, I wanted to look at using these in series in order to "cascade" through the various conditional targets.  Disclaimer:  my focus is on building the logic/geometry and in the interest of not having a 30 minute video, I neglect the setup of the subassembly variables, input parameters, etc.

 

Check out the video below to see this in action.

-Alan

Exploring Solid Modeling Fundamentals using AutoCAD

Recently, I picked up a 1970’s era, “desktop” sized Tinkertoy construction set.  The nice thing about construction sets like this is that the parts represent simple repetitive geometric shapes.  For this reason, they can be a perfect tool to help you develop your AutoCAD solid modeling skills.

In today’s installment, we’ll explore the basics of 3D modeling by replicating a “spool” from this set.  That being said, the skills we learn here could be used to create most of the other parts as well.  Building virtual models using these components can be quite addictive once you get started.  With a little practice, you’ll soon be able to recreate the major builds of your youth while never having to worry about running out of parts!

If you are interested, I’ve created a video to help get you started…

Would you like to experiment with the drawings used in this session?  If so, you can download them here - http://a360.co/2vM5McK

-Jeff

See Us Live: Jerry Coming to St. Louis MO

On Thursday Aug. 3rd,  I'll be presenting with our partner Seiler Design Solutions in St. Louis Missouri.

The event is free and will focus on the power of the AEC Collection for Infrastructure customers.

Here is the link where you can learn more:

St Louis, MO

Hope to see you there.

-Jerry

Tool for Tuesday: CurveCalculator

For those days when we need to take some “knowns” and compute the “unknowns”.

In my first week working with a field crew, I learned there is a lot more geometric information to understand about an arc than just its radius and arc length.  There is the delta angle, chord distance, external secant, mid ordinate distance and more. 

What is even more important is that knowing a couple of those values and a few mathematical equations, you can compute the rest.  Having said this, doing the math by hand is not a trivial undertaking.  (at least for me)

Fortunately for us, Civil 3D includes a curve calculator where we can enter the parameters we know about the arc and it will automatically compute all of the parameters we don’t.

This can be an extremely helpful tool especially when working with paper documents.  Sometimes one or several measurements may be missing.  Other times, one or several of the measurements my seem or actually be incorrect.

Having a tool that we can use to reverse engineer missing arc information or simply verify the accuracy of what we were provided can save us a ton of time as well as deliver some peace of mind.

Check out the video below to see how it works.

-Jerry

Finish Strong Friday: “Build-A-Trench Shape” with Subassembly Composer

Even more fun yet with Subassembly Composer!  Building on last week's post, I wanted to show an example of using multiple parameters in order to drive the subassembly shape (instead of one parameter per shape).  The example today is a pipeline trench excavation and we want the user to have access to a specific list of widths and depths to model this trench.  Shout out to Peter Funk from the Civil 3D product team who assisted me with an easier method of controlling my depth geometry.  Happy Composing!

Check out the video below to see this workflow.

-Alan

Finding the Minimum Horizontal & Vertical Distance Between Entities using Civil 3D

Civil 3D represents a three dimensional “design space” where entities can exist at multiple (or varying) elevations.  Knowing this, it may at first appear challenging to identify the horizontal and vertical distances between components.  Fortunately, Civil 3D provides several tools designed to take orthogonal measurements between objects.  In today’s installment, we’ll explore two such commands, “Minimum Distance Between Entities”, and “Minimum Vertical Distance Between Entities”.

The Minimum Distance Between Entities command is used to identify the point at which two selected objects are closest (measured horizontally) together.  This tool can be used to quickly measure and/or validate the minimum separation between many types of objects.  It works with points (whether they be cogo, survey, or traditional AutoCAD), lines, arcs, circles, polylines, feature lines, survey figures, alignments, and parcel segments.

The Minimum Vertical Distance Between Entities command is used to identify the vertical separation between two intersecting objects.  This tool can be used to quickly measure and/or validate the vertical clearance between many object types.  In addition, it will report the elevation of each object at the intersection, and the X,Y coordinate of the intersection itself.  It works with lines, arcs, circles, polylines, feature lines (even when embedded in a corridor), survey figures and profiles.

If you are interested, I’ve recorded sample workflows using each of these tools...

-Jeff

See Us Live: Jerry Coming to Waukesha WI & Melville NY

Next week I will be delivering two live presentations.  

On Wednesday Jul. 26th,  I'll be presenting with our partner MasterGraphics in Waukesha Wisconsin.

On Thursday Jul. 27th, I'll be presenting with our partner MicroCAD in Melville NY.

Both events are free and will focus on the power of the AEC Collection for Infrastructure customers.

Here are the links where you can learn more:

• Waukesha, WI
• Melville, NY

Hope to see you there.

-Jerry

Tool for Tuesday: Network Analysis (Shortest Path)

What is the shortest distance between two points?  A straight line.

Unfortunately, that solution will get us into trouble especially if we are driving a car.  :) 

Did you know that Map 3D supports a Network Analysis tool that will quickly compute the shortest path between two points?  (Among other things) 

This is good for us as it opens the door to additional forms of analysis that we can leverage in Civil 3D and InfraWorks.

For example, I may need to the shortest distance between two points within my city model and display the results in an exhibit.  City center proximity to areas requiring its services.  Proposed school bus routing maps.  Computing distances to complete the site data table for my proposed subdivision.  There are many examples where this could be helpful.

Imagine this…  I quickly create a city model in InfraWorks using Model builder.  From there, I connect to the model (SQLite) using Map 3D and extract the road information.  I then build a Topology from the road information and can perform numerous forms of Network analysis including shortest path between two points.  Once complete, the results can easily be displayed back in InfraWorks. 

In less than 10 min. I can have an accurate exhibit to show to a client or project stakeholder.

Check out the video below to see how it works.

-Jerry

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