Recently, I had the opportunity to present a live demonstration focused on the advantages of using the AEC Collection for a civil site plan. The goal of the session was to demonstrate how the many tools in the collection can work together to take a project from conceptual design through finished visualizations. Fortunately, the session was recorded, giving us the opportunity to share it here!
If you have access to the AEC Collection and are using a small handful of tools, this presentation can help you take advantage of even more applications and increase the value of your investment. If you are someone who leverages Civil 3D to accomplish most of your design work, this presentation will introduce you to many of the purpose-built, time-saving tools and workflows made possible using the AEC Collection.
If you are interested, I’ve added a link to the recording below…
The design of a civil infrastructure project is typically accomplished in stages. It may start with some quick concepts, move to preliminary engineering, and then on to detailed design and construction. Along the way, exhibits, visualizations, analytics and reports are frequently required.
Using the Autodesk AEC Collection, civil engineers and designers have access to an extensive toolset capable of accomplishing most any civil infrastructure task. In today’s installment, we’ll explore how these tools can work together to create compelling visualizations of a proposed design.
Specifically, we’ll be exploring workflows using InfraWorks, Civil 3D, Navisworks, and AutoCAD. If you are interested, I’ve included a recording below that walks through everything…
If you’re someone who leverages Navisworks to create stereo panoramas of InfraWorks models, you may have noticed the sunlight direction shown in the panoramas doesn’t usually match the sunlight direction used by InfraWorks. This is because the InfraWorks environment properties stay behind when an exported FBX model moves to Navisworks. Fortunately, Navisworks provides custom lighting controls of its own, allowing users to maintain similar sunlight conditions between InfraWorks and their rendered stereo panoramas.
That being said, Navisworks is also capable of defining a wide array of light sources representing interior and exterior conditions. By taking advantage of multiple light sources, you have everything you need to create fully illuminated “late evening” renderings of your models, which is something not yet possible using InfraWorks alone.
If you are interested, I’ve created a quick video demonstrating how to control the sunlight properties of cloud based stereo panorama renderings.
Will you be attending Autodesk University 2016 this year? If so, we will see you there! Jerry Bartels and I are scheduled to present the following classes… LD23337 - Weapon of Mass Production: Harnessing the Power of the AEC Industry Collection 11/15/16 (Tuesday) 3:00 PM (PST) – 90 min. https://livestream.com/accounts/22109712/events/6561502
For those of you who are not able to attend, we plan to live stream both of these events. (We’re bringing our own equipment to the sessions to present “off the grid” live broadcasts.)
If you are interested, please use the hyperlinks above to register for these sessions. Then tune in and experience a portion of AU as it happens!
Today’s focus is on Data Management, specifically using Vault Professional to manage our Civil 3D project data.
For those not familiar with Vault, the workflow looks like this…
We check-out our project data to a Working Folder (typically on our local computer), perform edits and/or create new objects, and then check the model back into Vault.
Simple yet extremely powerful and can have numerous benefits over using Windows Explorer with a mapped network drive along with data shortcuts. (Perhaps topics for future installments. :) )
Having said this, by default, the end user is able to set their own working folder location.
In smaller offices this may be fine if we are only dealing with a few workstations. In larger installations, leaving this control up to the end user can present challenges that would be eliminated if every workstation/authoring application used a consistent Working Folder name.
Imagine for a moment the chaos that could result if every application and workstation connecting to the Vault used a different folder on the local computer.
(i.e. Civil 3D's working folder set to C:\Civil 3D Projects, AutoCAD's working folder set to C:\2017 Projects, Microstation's working folder set to H:\Current Projects...)
Or worse yet, end users mapping their working folders to network drives on top of another user’s working folder.
How do we enforce a standard working folder? Do we have to set it individually on each workstation and each application???
Short answer No. We need only change a single setting in Vault Explorer and every computer and every application that connects to the Vault now and forever will use a consistent working folder name on the user's local computer.
Last month, the Civil Immersion Blog celebrated its six month anniversary. In most cases, a six month anniversary isn’t a big deal, however, in that short timeframe we’ve posted more than 55 infrastructure related topics containing more than 9 hours of recorded workflows.
To help make this content available to an even wider audience (especially those who have restricted access to YouTube) we’ve consolidated it into a “package” that users can download and access locally. We’re calling it “Civil Immersion Season One – Pt. 1”. The .ZIP package includes every blog post and screen recording (in .mp4 format) from Feb 2016 through July 2016.
After downloading, simply unzip the contents into a folder on your computer or network. In there, you’ll find a .doc file containing all of the blog posts with hyperlinks to the associated (now local) screen recordings. We hope that by making this content available locally, it will be easier for many firms to access and share with others inside their organizations.
Please let us know if you find this approach helpful! Thank you for your continued support!
When working with an aggregated project model during design or construction, revisions or updates can happen on a regular basis. (Updated design information, field revision, changes as the result of inspection or city comments…) When this happens, the model becomes out of date and needs to be updated with a “fresher” version.
If you are working by yourself, it is not that hard to keep track of the changes but when you are providing copies of the model to others (architect, contractor, sub consultants, engineer…) keeping track of changes and ensuring that everyone has the “freshest” version of the model is critical.
Anyone ever work on a project and find that some of the project stakeholders are referencing outdated information??? Me too! and it is not fun!!
Fortunately for us, Navisworks provides a file expiration feature to help with this. In short, when you provide a copy of the project model to a stakeholder, you can assign an expiration date to help ensure “freshness”. In other words, if someone gets a copy of the project model (NWD) it will cease to function after a date specified by you. As a result, worrying about someone referencing something other than the current version of the model is practically eliminated because the older versions will cease to function automatically.
