This week I had the rare pleasure of presenting at a Civil 3D user group meeting. My session focused on time saving best practices when working with alignments and profiles. In approximately 30 minutes, we managed to explore more than 15 topics ranging from creation, to analysis, to stylization.
In keeping with our 30 min. Workout philosophy, I attempted to choose topics that both provide value and fall outside traditional Civil 3D training courses. My hope was to demonstrate some workflows the users may not have seen before. If you are interested, I’ve uploaded a recording of the session below…
Thank you so much to Michelle Hood for inviting me to present at JMT’s Civil 3D User Group Meeting!
Tool palettes are one of the most powerful and versatile features in the Civil 3D / AutoCAD user interface. Having said this, most folks only use tool palettes for simpler things like quick access to blocks, or inserting content preset to adhere to the company CAD standards.
Tool palettes can be used for much much more. This includes organizing commands into workflows, creating a training tool, launching lisp routines, hosting quick access to custom macros, providing an easy gateway to almost anything available in Civil 3D.
To make things even better, they can be created through simple drag and drop operations. No extensive coding or CUI writing required!
Once defined, there are several ways to share tool palettes amongst users so no one has to "reinvent the wheel".
When placed along an alignment, Civil 3D sample lines slice through corridor models and identify the end areas used to calculate earthwork and structural material volumes. In places where alignments intersect, their respective sample lines may also intersect resulting in duplicate volume calculations. Fortunately, Civil 3D makes it easy to calculate average end area volumes at intersections using “match line” alignments.
In today’s installment we’ll explore a way to build custom alignments that serve as match lines for the sample lines used in volume calculation. Ensuring sample lines terminate along common linear segments eliminates the possibility of crossings and avoids overlap in volume calculations.
If you’re interested, I’ve created a video below that walks through everything…
In this 30 Minute Workout session, we will walk through some of the ways that surveyors and other field representatives can use the cloud document management tools available from Autodesk.
We start by showing how the Issues system can be used to assign work while in the office. Then we show how to use the same Issues to record evidence found in the field during a boundary survey. After showing how this data is immediately available to others in the office and field, we discuss another "outside the box" use for the Issues system.
In this 30 min workout session, we explore numerous ways you can navigate a Civil 3D model.
(Because there are WAY more tools than just the wheel mouse :) )
These include Walk, Fly, Drive and more. We also review several strategies where tools like Views and Model Space Viewports can be used to increase your productivity. Ever type Zoom or Pan at the command line? There are benefits to doing that as well!!
During our session, we will also look at a technique to locate a point in your project via. a property address.
Finally, because I still love what can be done with LISP, I walk through a quick technique to create a single line LISP routine to automate repetitive tasks.
In today’s installment, we’ll look at an approach that can make Civil 3D corridor targeting more “graphical”. By simply adjusting some object styles, users can predictably display corridor targets inside Civil 3D’s Section Editor. Once displayed, designers and engineers working within the Section Editor may easily review targets (and potential targets) in context with their corridor designs.
If you are interested, I've provided a video below that walks through everything! Note that this recording was made as part of our 30 min. Workout webinar series. If you'd like to attend these sessions live, click here to register!!
Civil 3D makes it easy to calculate average end area earthwork volumes between two surfaces. In fact, there’s no limit to the number of surfaces allowed to participate in a volume calculation. In today’s installment, we’ll explore a concept called “subcriteria”. Subcriteria definitions allow complex material volumes to be extracted from areas defined by multiple surfaces.
If you're interested, I’ve recorded a quick video below to help get you started...
To explore this topic further, click here to find strategies for using subcriteria in conjunction with multiple sub-surface configurations.
If you’re someone who creates, or edits Civil 3D label styles, you may find the text in the editor to be a little challenging to read. In today’s installment we’ll look at a quick way to resolve the issue.
First let me mention that I typically work on a laptop having a screen resolution of 1920x1080. The laptop is capable of displaying 4K resolution, I simply prefer the look and feel of working in traditional HD. I mention this because the issue I’m going to show you may not affect everyone. It’s likely caused by a combination of things related to hardware and screen resolution.
Fortunately, if you are experiencing the issue, it can be resolved by simply toggling off a setting in Windows. If you are interested, I’ve created a quick video below that walks through everything…
It’s often necessary to compute the volumes of materials associated with corridor daylighting. These materials may include things like topsoil, rip rap or seeded grass. In today’s installment, we’ll look at a way to calculate material volumes like these using Civil 3D’s “Place Lined Material” option.
Place Lined Material represents a setting available on every daylight subassembly provided with Civil 3D. Simply turning this feature on allows up to three slope dependent materials to be assigned to specified daylight links. (Options include Fill Links Only, Daylight Links, and All Links.)
The next time you need to calculate topsoil (or other daylight related materials) associated with a corridor, try experimenting with the Place Lined Material option. You may find that it provides an easy out-of-the-box way to apply and compute these material volumes. If you are interested, I’ve created a quick video below that will help get you started!
In today’s installment we’ll take a deeper dive look at Autodesk’s new add-on for Civil 3D called Project Explorer. (Project Explorer was made available as part of the 2021 AEC Collection.)
We'll start by learning how to customize the appearance of design data using a feature called Layouts. Layouts control both the arrangement of columns AND the formatting of the tabular data. (They can also be saved, restored, and shared with other users.) Next, we’ll explore ways to export civil data to a myriad of formats including external files (.html, .pdf, xlsx, .dwg, etc.) and dynamic AutoCAD tables. We will also learn how to automate the creation of such deliverables using a feature called Object Sets. Finally, we’ll take a tour of Project Explorer’s user preferences and customize the look and feel of the application to suit our needs.
If you are interested, I’ve added a link to the recorded demonstration below…
If you are interested in reviewing “Part 1” of this presentation, it can be found here -https://youtu.be/MqnUslv8tT4
