Sometimes, sharing files (especially large ones) with stakeholders can be a bit of a challenge. If you rely on email, you can easily run into file size or file type restrictions. If you use FTP, you may experience difficulty connecting to a stakeholder’s site, or they may have difficulty connecting to yours. If you are required to send updates on a regular basis, traditional file exchange methods can make it challenging to follow the history of your revisions, or know which files were provided to each stakeholder and when.
Fortunately BIM 360 Team makes it easy to share files with anyone using a simple hyperlink. In addition, BIM 360 Team retains a copy of every uploaded file making future audits of project correspondence virtually painless :)
If you are interested, I’ve created a quick video that walks through how to use BIM 360 Team’s share feature to make any of your project files available to others.
-Jeff
If you'd like to explore more of what you can do with BIM 360 Team, please review this playlist.
This week I had the opportunity to present at the December 21st installment of the InfraWorks 360 webinar series. The session was called “Creating a Virtual Reality Experience from an InfraWorks 360 Model”. Given the longer format of the presentation, we had a chance to take a “deeper dive” look at the workflow to convert an InfraWorks 360 model into an immersive 3D stereo panorama.
Having the extra time also allowed us to explore more advanced techniques and best practices for creating and sharing stereo panoramas. In addition, we looked at how to resolve several common issues you may encounter when rendering a model for VR use.
If you’re interested, I’ve included a screen recording of the presentation below…
NOTE: This recording has been edited for time. A link to the unedited full length session can be found here - https://youtu.be/nFpBg0w8T8o
Today’s smartphones and tablets provide surprisingly accurate GPS locations. This makes them valuable tools for turn-by-turn navigation, geocaching, and more recently, catching Pokemon. Today we’ll look at a technique that leverages this technology to do a virtual “walkthrough” of a Civil 3D design.
Just imagine being able to walk around a project site while using a mobile device to visualize your physical location within a proposed infrastructure design. The workflow involves a combination of three tools: Civil 3D, A360 Drive, and the Google Earth mobile app.
If you’re interested, I’ve created a video below that walks through the process.
Note: This recording demonstrates the accuracy I’ve been able to achieve using this technique with a three year old iPad. That being said, there are many things that can affect GPS accuracy so it’s possible that your results may vary.
If your civil infrastructure project requires the collection and visualization of borehole data you may be interested in exploring the Civil 3D Geotechnical Module. The Geotechnical Module is a downloadable application provided free of charge as a Civil 3D subscription benefit. To download the module, simply login to your account management page and visit the “Product Enhancements” area.
Using the Geotechnical Module you can easily import and display borehole data in 2D and 3D. Once imported, you can quickly create Civil 3D surfaces representing the various strata defined by the data. With a couple mouse clicks those surfaces can then be displayed in profile views that include strip diagrams of selected boreholes.
If you are interested, I’ve created a quick recording to help you get up and running using this time saving tool!
If your workflow includes Civil 3D 2016 (and you are on subscription) you may want to explore some of the content available in the Productivity Packs. Productivity Packs represent helpful tools that extend the functionality of Civil 3D between major releases. Typically these tools are created in collaboration with customers to help solve specific workflow needs. In many cases, the tools in Productivity Packs represent a “preview” of functionality that will be incorporated into a future release.
To date there have been three Productivity Packs released for Civil 3D 2016. In today’s post we will explore the “Extract Corridor Feature Lines” tool made available in Productivity Pack #2. This tool allows a user to extract feature lines from a corridor in “bulk”, making it much easier to create things like grading objects, targets or surface breaklines that remain dynamic to a corridor model.
After installation, Productivity Packs can be found on the Toolbox tab of the Toolspace. [image shown at left]
If you are interested, I’ve created a quick recording that walks through a workflow using the Extract Corridor Feature Lines tool.
This recording represents "Part 3" of my recent FDOT Design Training Expo 2016 presentation.
