1 Day Grading Course in Madison, MS

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that ALACAD will be having a 1-day Grading Course on January 28, 2010 in our Madison, MS office. Space is limited and is first come first served. For more information follow this link!

Here is a brief description of the class.

This 1-day course will cover several options for grading and show the user how to utilize the different grading techniques to their advantage. Grading in Civil 3D is probably one of the most powerful functionalities in the software, but is also one of the least understood.

This course will begin with a discussion of some basic properties of a surface in Civil 3D and how to modify the surface. This will include a discussion on the methodology Civil 3D uses for creating a TIN. In addition, we will cover the definition and use of Feature Lines. Finally, we will look at some methods for creation grading plans, or finished grade surfaces using the different tools at our disposal.

Autodesk Releases Subscription Advantage Packs for Many Software Titles

Does it really pay to be an Autodesk Subscription Customer? After a brief review of the Subscription Advantage Packs released yesterday I believe the answer has to be a resounding, "YES!!!!!!!" The Advantage Pack for Civil 3D 2010 has many tools that will help increase productivity and efficiency. Let's take a look at some of the new tools that are in the Advantage Pack.

The tools are organized into groups in the Subscription Extension Manager on the Toolbox tab in Toolspace. The first category is for Alignments. There are 2 tools here. The first will allow the user to create a new alignment from an existing alignment and add data to the newly created alignment. (Think rail switches.) This tool can be used in other ways such as creating alternative alignments that have common tie-ins. The next tool for alignments is a routine that will create a best fit alignment from point data. Invoke the routine and pick a point group and you are off to the races! You will be shown a report of the best fit analisys.

The next category contains some inquiry tools for computing minimum distances between entities and surfaces and vertical distances between entities.

Next is Point Clouds. Finally Civil 3D has tools to allow us to harness LiDAR data! The Point Cloud routine will allow you to create a Point Cloud database (.isd format) from data in several different formats. Once the database is created you can recall the point cloud database using the same wizard from the Toolbox tab in toolspace. You can stylize the point cloud to show the information that you want to see and then you can also remove the Civil 3D settings from the point cloud so that the data can be used as a default subset of points.

The next group is for points. The new tool here is not really new, but there is a zoom to command here that allows you to input the point number without having to find the point in a point group first. The really cool thing is that this command can be run as a transparent command!

The Profile group has a routine for creating a best fit profile from COGO point data, surface profiles, feature lines or AutoCAD 3D polylines, points or blocks.

The next tool is for laying out Roundabouts. This routine has a wizard that asks for design criteria and then lays out the roundabout for you based on the alignment geometry and data input into the wizard.

There are some other tools that I will let you discover on your own. So, If you are a Subscription customer, go to the Subscription Center and download the Advantage Pack today. I think it is well worth it. While you are there, watch the video clip. It gives an overview of some of these tools in action. If you are not a Subscription member, call your Reseller today and purchase your annual Subscription to Civil 3D so that you can have access to these great new tools too!

An Update to AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 and Windows 7

It has been a little over 2 weeks since upgrading my OS to Windows 7. So far I have not run into any issues when working in AutoCAD Civil 3D. The software seems to load quicker and respond quicker in most cases. I have had two crashes since installing OS. The first was a BSOD, but I was pushing the OS with Civil 3D, several Office programs, IE and a couple of Virtual Machines running. As best I could tell the crash was actually caused by a driver that I hadn't updated. After updating the driver the only other crash was actually in Civil 3D, but could be attributed to User Error!

Civil 3D and Windows 7

Ok.....I believe in living on the bleeding edge! Last night I decided to install Windows 7 and see what happened. So far, so good. The only thing that I found was something that has been going on for a while. If you prefer to use Firefox as your web browser, you will probably not be able to have the reporting feature in Civil 3D open directly in the browser. This is an old issue. I tried to set IE as the default browser and map .htm and .html files to Firefox, but I still kept getting an error. As soon as I deleted Firefox I was able to get the reports to open in a browser window. Not sure that I am happy about that. I kinda like Firefox. The other option is to create a shortcut on your desktop that maps to the CivilReport.html file so that you can run the report and then click the shortcut and have it open in Firefox. Just a couple of more clicks I guess, but I would like to be able to use whatever browser I choose.

Can you really see through Transparent Commands?

While working on a support call today, I derived a solution for a customer that included using a Transparent Command. That got me to wondering how many people actually use the Transparent Commands in Civil 3D. I know that I did not use them very often in past employment engagements. It was not until I started teaching classes on Civil 3D that I fully understood the power of these commands and how they could help me work smarter and not harder.

For example, at one of my past jobs I worked with an older gentleman who was very close to retirement. He was fairly proficient with vanilla AutoCAD, but almost completely illiterate when it came to Civil 3D. I am not knocking the guy, because he was good at what he did. He just did not see the need to learn new software while being on the verge of retirement. A typical scenario for one of his projects was that I would take the survey data and create the surface and then hand the drawing off to him. He would complete the geometric design and give it back to me to produce profile drawings. When I created the profile drawings, I would have to plot them at an exaggerated scale and he would break out his old HP Calculator, complete with card reader, and design the profile on paper.

Then he would had the paper copies back to me and I would input the data into Civil 3D and finalize most of the design before handing it back for his review. At the time, I did not use the Transparent Commands very much because I did not understand what they were. So to input his design data, I would create a layout profile and get the PVI's close to their desired locations and elevations. Then I would open up the profile editor and hand correct the stations and elevations.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well, after a while I learned that there were commands in Civil 3D that run "inside" of other commands and allow us to input specific data in that command. Instead of having to get the PVI's close, I could have used the Profile Station Elevation transparent command to specifically enter the station and elevation of the PVI without having to go back and edit.

Which brings me back to today's case. The customer was working on a paving project. A contractor had constructed a leveling course and the customer had sent his crew out to collect profile elevations at an offset left and right of the center line. He then wanted to show those offsets in his profile view. I didn't want to have to try and create another surface and extract the data from the surface when we already had the point information in the drawing.

I began looking for a Transparent Command that would let me harness that point information and apply it in the profile view. To both the customer's satisfaction and mine I found the transparent command that would allow us to do just that. The command was Profile Station and Elevation from a Cogo Point, or 'SPE.

To use the command we went to the Ribbon and selected Profile Creation Tools from the Create Design panel. Once we entered the profile name in the dialog box and set our styles we invoked the Create Tangents command and then invoked the 'SPE transparent command. We selected the profile view in which to draw the profile and began to pick the point objects we wanted to see in the profile view. Then the steps were repeated for the opposite offset.

If you have not looked into using Transparent Commands, I encourage you to look into them. They can definitely help us work smarter and not harder!

A Couple of Pointers on Pipes

Have you ever needed to modify, or add part sizes to a structure in AutoCAD Civil 3D? Well, in this post I am going to cover how to modify and/or add part sizes in the parts catalog. The first thing I will tell you is that I am no expert in creating parts via the Part Builder in Civil 3D, but I have learned how to modify some of the parameters for existing parts to get the sizes that I need.

So, let's say, for instance, that you need a rectangular junction structure that measures 4' x 5' outside box dimensions and is traffic bearing (8" min wall thickness). How would we go about adding that part size to the current parts catalog? The first thing that we need to do is open up Part Builder. (Note: all of the Screen Captures in this post are from AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010.) The screen cap below shows where to find Part Builder on the Ribbon.

So we open Part Builder and on the Getting Started Dialog box we select what type of part we want to modify. In this case, I am choosing the rectangular structure with circular frame. Then we click on Modify Part Sizes as shown below.

After clicking on Modify Part Sizes Part Builder opens to show the parametric model of the structure and a list of the parameters used to define the structure.

On the right hand side of the Part Builder screen we see an image of the part. The part may or may not be drawn to any particular scale in this area. It really doesn't matter as we are going to assign the values for the parameters that we want anyway. On the left hand side we see a tree that contains listings of the parameters used to create the part along with definitions for geometry and constraints.

If you expand the Size Parameters node in the tree, you will see a list of the different parameters that make up the dimensions of the structure. Notice in the list that there are parameters for the Inside Width (SIW) and the Inside Length (SIL). These are the two parameters that we want to change for our new structure. We may also have to associate the two dimensions with the Wall Thickness (WTh). We can add or modify the appropriate parameters by right-clicking on Size Parameters and selecting edit values from the pop-up menu. This will open up the Edit Part Sizes dialog box.

Now remember, our intent here is to add a part size that will correspond to the desired dimensions of the structure we are calling for in our design, a 4'x5' box with 8 inch walls. We need to look at the available part sizes in the list to see if we need to add a size or modify an existing one. In this case click in the cell for SIW, then click on the Edit Sizes button (2nd from left at the top of the dialog box). This brings up another dialog box with all of the sizes that have been input for this parameter. Notice that there is not a 40 inch measurement, so we will have to add that one. Click the add button and a new field is created at the bottom of the list. Type in the value, in our case 40.0000. The unit of inches is the default here.

Next move over to the SIL column and repeat the above steps to add a par size of 52.0000 inches. Then check the WTh column and make sure that there is a 8" Wall thickness in the list. Next we need to look at how we are able to add a part with the dimensions that we just created to our parts list. We need to make sure that the wall thickness can be assigned to the new structure from the list of wall thicknesses that are in the list.

Click on the drop down in the middle of the top row of buttons in the dialog box. Then select Parameter Configuration from the list. The Data Storage row should be set to list for the three parameters that we have looked at above. Once this is done, click OK to close the dialog box and then click on the disk icon in the upper left hand corner of the Part Builder. This saves he new part parameters. Now we can close part builder. After closing Part Builder, we need to type "partcatalogregen" on the command line to update our part catalog with the new parameters. Now we edit our parts list and select the appropriate part sizes from the lists for SIW, SIL and WTh.

Another little tidbit that some users have seemed to forgotten. When showing a crossing pipe in a profile view, create a style with crossing pipe in the title and switch on the crossing components on the Profile tab in the view directions box on the display tab. This will cause the pipe to show a a section in the profile view.

SASHTO 2009 Biloxi, MS

Hey just wanted to let everyone know that ALACAD will be at this year's SASHTO event at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi, August 31-September 2, 2009. If you are attending the event, please stop by our booth and say, "Hi!" We look forward to seeing you there!

From the Guys at Autodesk Support: Understanding Performance Using Civil 3D

The guys at Autodesk Support have released their monthly video on their YouTube channel. This time the video is on understanding the performance of Civil 3D. The video discusses RAM, Operating Systems and other performance related issues. So, if you are wondering how Civil 3D interacts with the system memory or operating resources this video may be of interest to you. You can check it out here.

I am in the process of becoming more familiar with AutoCAD Raster Design. So, in my next posts I may be discussing some of the features of Raster Design and how you can benefit from this piece of software.

Update 1 for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 and AutoCAD Civil 2010

Hey everyone. I spent the end of last week at the ASCE Alabama Chapter Summer Meeting. Thanks to all of those who stopped by to say "Hi," or asked other questions. While at the conference, I missed the release of Update 1 for both Civil and Civil 3D. The updates were released on July 31st.

Anyway, for those of you who are looking for a link to the updates:

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010: Download here.
AutoCAD Civil 2010: Download here.

Until next time!

Another Round with Dragged State Labels

Yesterday, while at a customer's office I noticed something that I had not seen before when it comes to dragged state labels, with points anyway. Take a look at the image below. I have created to random points in a drawing with the Point Marker Style for each set to Basic and the Point Label Styles are Point#-Elevation-Description and a style the I created with the coordinate information in it.

So, as you can see I have changed the colors of the text and added the coordinates. But then we looked at the dragged state for the point with the OOTB Point#-Elevation-Description Label Style. I was showing the customer how the label reacted when it was dragged out from the point. The customer asked the obvious question about the location of the leader in the dragged state and wanted the leader attached to the middle of the top line of text. This is where something interesting happened. When I changed the display of the dragged state from "As Composed" to "Stacked Text", the elements of the labels where rearranged. I had not noticed this in previous versions and that was probably because I typically used the Dragged State in the As Composed display mode.

I started digging in to see if I could deduce what had happened. The conclusion that I came to was that the Stacked Text display mode uses the order in which the label components are created. The next screen capture will show what I mean.

You will notice here that the component names are listed in the following order: Point Description, Point Number and Point Elev. And looking back at the label in a dragged state with the display mode set to "Stacked Text" we see that the label has been adjusted to match the order shown in the Label Style Composer.

To prove my theorem, I created a style the contained the same information and added the coordinate data. I was careful that I created the label components in the order that I wanted them to be displayed in the stacked text display mode. The result was as expected.

As you can see from the shot above, the the dragged state is what we would expect in a point label of this variety. Sometimes it is the little nuances of Civil 3D that make you go hhhmmmm.

Brought to You by the Fine Folks at Auotdesk Support

I was looking at different Civil 3D blogs a few weeks back and found one that is being written by the Civil 3D Support team at Autodesk. Not only do these folks do a bang-up job of helping all of us with our technical support questions, but they somehow find time in their busy schedules to blog too! The topics covered are very informative and take on a different perspective by approaching topics from the technical support standpoint. If you would like to check out their blog, click here.

These guys even find time to create the occasional video also. Here is one that covers just about anything you want to know about the Ribbon interface in AutoCAD Civil and Civil 3D 2010. Enjoy!

On another note, ALACAD will be on the road in the next few weeks presenting our Autodesk 2010 Discover Tour. Follow this link to our website and sign up for a city near you. Hope to see you there!

Alignments and Things........

Well, it's Friday again and it seems that this is when I find time to update my blog. I want to start a series of posts on some of the new functionality inside of AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010. But first, a couple of weeks ago I recorded a webcast for our "What's New in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010" presentation. You can find it here. Just scroll down to the archives section. The recording is offered in 2 file formats, Windows Media Player and Adobe Flash.

Now let's move on to today's topic. Almost everyone that I have ever worked with went about creating their alignments in the same manner; lines and curves. Well, if you have been using prior releases of Civil 3D, you have had to take the extra step of converting those lines and curves to a polyline or use the layout tools to "trace over" the original line work that you had created. The 2010 release of Civil 3D has added functionality that will allow us to select the objects from which to create our alignments. Now we can use the Layout Tools, polylines or lines and arcs. The developers even changed the name of the command. Now it is called "Create Alignment from Objects." The command is found on the Home Tab of the Ribbon and by clicking

on the down arrow beside Alignment on the Create Design Panel.

Let's take a look at some other new features of Civil 3D alignments. Have you ever been working on a transportation project that had multiple lanes and transition regions all over the place? It has been a while since I was in that situation, but I do remember those days. We created our center line alignment and then used offset to create the edge of pavement and then created another offset for the transition region and applied fillets and tangents to tie them together. Alas, the boss comes in after a meeting with the powers that be and says that the center line is shifting and we have to have the changes by 9:00 am tomorrow morning. Time to hit the panic button, right?

The 2010 release of Civil 3D has several tools to help in these situations. Let's take a look at the Prospector Tab in Toolspace. As seen below, Alignments now have more categories or classifications. So, what does this do for us? Notice the second classification is Offset Alignments.

Now we can create offset alignments from our center line alignment and the offsets will stay dynamically linked to the center line. Can you think of any useful applications for this?

Another new feature for alignments is Widening. Using the widening functionality the designer or engineer can easily create a widened section in his 2D layout. widening works by creating regions along the offset alignment where the user can specify a different offset for one region to create a turn lane, for instance. On top of creating the widened section, the user can specify the geometry to use in transition between the two regions.

There is other new functionality associated with alignments. We will take a look at those next time.

MAPEXPORT in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I don't know how many of you are using the Map 3D functionality in Civil 3D, but something has been brought to my attention this morning. If you use the MAPEXPORT command in Civil 3D 2010 to create an ESRI shape file, the shape file is empty. The Export Dialog box is missing the portion for you to where you select the object type. Selecting objects on the screen won't work because the object type has not been set. So, what do you do? Well, go here. This link will take you to the page to download a new MapExport.ini file and will give you the instructions on where to put the file to fix the dialog box.

Dragged State Labels

OK.....I'll be the first to admit that I am slow sometimes, mentally that is. This is something that I probably should have found a long time ago, but i stumbled upon it today. I was playing around with some Point Label Styles in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 today when I got to thinking about how I would really like to use a Stacked Text format for my dragged state, so that I could change the attachment point of my leader to the label. Then it dawned on me that I could create this style.

So, let's see how we would do just that. First, I created a point in my drawing. I did not change the default settings so when the point was created all I got was the point marker. Next I applied a Point Label Style to the point. the screen cap below shows my point style and point marker style.


Next, I clicked on the point to activate the grips and drug the label up and to the right of my point as shown below.

From here, obviously, we need to edit the point label style. You can do this by clicking on the Settings tab in Toolspace and then expanding the Points node and then expanding the Label Styles node and then right-clicking on the style and selecting edit. Alternatively, you can right click on the point that you want to edit and in the Edit Points Vista, scroll to the right until you see the Point Label Style column. Clicking in the Point Label Style column will bring up the select label style dialog where you can edit the style by clicking on the button to the right of the style field.

So, we have obviously applied colors to the text components on the layout tab. But, as shown above the colors are changed to the "Byblock" default color for the Dragged State. Here we will click in the Text Contents field to bring up the Text Component Editor and we want to highlight the text in the right-hand side of the editor. Then we will click on the Format tab and set the color of the text.

We want to do this for each of the components in our label style. Then we will click on the Dragged State tab and make sure that the Dragged State Component Display is set to Stacked Text.

The results of our point label style are shown below. This is what the Dragged state would look like if we had set the Dragged State Component Display to "As Composed" also.

So, let's edit the point label style again. And this time on the Dragged State tab, let's change the attachment point of the leader to the Middle of the Top Line.

Click OK. You may have to regenerate the screen to see that the changes did take affect. You should be left with something that looks like the image below.

Now, here are a couple of hints for those of you working with Label Styles. The steps above will work for any Dragged State. You may want to create a Right and Left dragged state if you want a different connection point for the leader depending on which side of the object you are dragging the label. Also, pay attention to the order in which your components are created in the label style. The Dragged State arranges the text components in the order in which they were created!

The Joys of Parcels in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010

Hey everyone! I had the pleasure of doing a "What's New in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010" webcast this morning. I was pleased with the turnout, considering that this was my first attempt at this type of webcast. One thing that I was not so pleased with was the fact that I couldn't see the attendees. For what it is worth, I think that face time is better than computer time. But, with the state of things being what they are, we too are trying to be more frugal.

Anyway we discussed the new Ribbon Interface and the Contextual Ribbons that are exposed when you select a C3D object on the screen. We looked at the Quick Access Tool bar quickly and the and the Application Menu too. The meat of the presentation centered around the new design and analysis functionality that is included in C3D 2010.

I want to take a moment or two to talk about one of these features. Most of you that have met me know that my background in Civil Engineering is in subdivision design. I am not sure why I fell into that category, but it seemed that every consulting firm that I worked for put me into that position. Oh well.....what will be will be! So, for all of you subdivision folks out there, what was the missing link in lot layout using C3D? That's right frontage offsets!

C3D 2010 has you covered! Parcel layout is much better now with the addition of frontage setbacks and minimum widths for lots, as well as minimum and maximum depths as design criteria. The commands for laying out lots have been revamped a little also. In the past we have used the "Slide Angle - Create" command to create or lots with a particular angle at the ROW. This command has now been renamed to "Slide Line - Create." It is the same command, just renamed, as far as I can tell. The neat thing about the updates to Parcel creation is obviously the fact that we can specify a minimum lot width at an offset distance and a minimum width at the ROW. This is functionality that I have been looking for since I began using C3D 2006.

Keep an eye on the ALACAD website. A link to the recording of today's webcast should be posted in the next couple of weeks. While you are there check out the list of other upcoming webcasts for the 2010 products.

Now that my presentation is out of the way, I plan to be adding a few posts on C3D 2010 in the coming days.

Rehab this Rehab that

Hey everyone. In this post I want to talk about something that a customer of mine ran into a while back using some of the rehabilitation sub-assemblies in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. The particular project was a widening and overlay job. So, we started looking at the available options. We put together our assembly and created the Corridor model along with our top and datum surfaces. Completing the process, we cut cross sections and created the section views.

Upon inspection of our cross section data we noticed something strange. The datum surface followed the points and links that we expected it to until it reached the inside of the widened section. Then it shot straight across the section to the inside edge of the widened section on the opposite side. This made for an area that the program considered a cut volume when we created our quantities.

I tired everything that I could think of to change the assembly and corridor properties to rid our cross sections of this cut area. Everything that I tried failed miserably. So, I posted a support request with Autodesk. I got a call on Friday of last week from the Support Technician on the case. He had found the answer to our problem. He started explaining a couple of things to me and then it happened, on of those "Eureka!!!!!" moments.

The solution was simple, but I am afraid we all tried to make it a lot harder than was necessary. All we had to do was go back to the surfaces tab in the Corridor Editor and add the Overlay Link to the datum surface, rebuilt the corridor and everything was depicted as it should have been.

I want to thank the folks at Autodesk for helping on this one. They did an outstanding job!

Cross Sections and Volume Tables

In this post I want to spend a little time with cross sections and computing material and earthworks volumes from the cross sections. I have been using AutoCAD Civil 3D for quite a while now and I have to admit that what I am going to show you next is something that I have not used before, and frankly never thought to ask, "What does that do?" Let's assume that we have created our corridor model, you know existing ground surface, alignment, profile from surface, proposed profile, and assembly. In the process of creating the corridor we also created our Top and Datum surface from the corridor model. In turn we used the boundaries feature in the Corridor Properties dialog box and added boundaries to each of the surfaces at our daylight line.

Then we start to look at our corridor sections and we see something that just doesn't look right. For some reason out datum surface has jumped from the bottom of the subgrade at the edge of the travel way to the top of the back of curb and back down to the extended subgrade. As seen in this image, the datum surface is jumping all over the place.

We know that this is not correct. So, how do we fix it? It just so happens that there is a very simple fix to this issue. All we have to do is open up the Corridor Properties and click on the Surfaces Tab. In the table showing our surface definitions we see that there is a column called Overhang. This column is the correction for the jump in the surface shown above. This is what I had been missing!

By clicking in the Overhang column for each surface, we can tell Civil 3D how to "correct" the jumps in our datum surface. By setting the Overhang for the Datum surface to Bottom Links, the software forces the surface along the bottom links of the assembly, something we probably thought was happening automatically. After setting the Overhang corrections, we simply rebuild the Corridor Model and the surfaces are updated. We can use the View/Edit Corridors Function to verify that the surface has been updated. This image shows the corrected Datum surface.

Here we can see that the Datum surface more closely resembles how a contractor would construct our roadway with a 1 foot extension of the sub-base under our curb and gutter.Now lets talk about material and earthworks volumes based on our cross sections. We are going to assume that at this point that we have created our cross sections from the alignment associated with our corridor model and that we have created multiple cross section views on a D-size sheet. At this point we realize that we forgot to add the volume tables to our cross sections. Can we fix this rather easily? You bet we can.

First of all we have to go to the Sections pull-down menu and select Compute Materials. Make sure that you select the Alignment for which you have cut cross sections and the Sample Line Group for that particular alignment. This will bring up the Compute Materials dialog box. In the Compute materials dialog box there is a drop-down for Quantity Takeoff Criteria. It depends on the final output that I am looking for as to which criteria I select. In this instance we are going to select Material List.

At this point I will edit the Material List Criteria to make sure that have the materials listed that I am interested in, such as Pave1, Pave2, Base and Sub-base. After setting the materials that I want I click on OK to close the Compute Materials dialog. Next I go back to the Sections menu and select Compute Materials again.

I want to click on the Import another criteria. This will allow me to add additional criteria to the current materials list. Here I want to select Earthworks so that we can calculate the cut/fill volumes at each section.

Here I can set the cut/fill factors for the soil if I know what they are. Once I have added the Earthworks Criteria I click on OK to close the Edit Materials dialog box. Now I need to add the Volume Tables at each cross section. To add the tables, I am going to click on a grid line for one of the cross sections, then right-click and select Section View Group Properties.

Click on the ellipsis button in the Change Volume Table column. This will bring up the Change Volume Tables dialog box. In this dialog box I want to select Total Volume from the Type drop-down. I want to select the Table style to use, in this case I am using the Basic Style. Click the Add button to add the table definition. Then I want to make sure that I select the corresponding Material List from the pull-down in the table definition. Then I can set the location of the table using the section view and table anchors.

Then click on OK and you should have your volume tables attached to each of the cross sections. One caveat here is that when you add the Volume Tables to existing cross sections, you will probably have to go back and edit the spacing of your sections. So, you may have a little more work to do, but it is automated by editing the Section View Group and the Array on your Group Plot Style. Remember that you can create the Volume tables as you create the Cross Section Views, but you have to compute the materials before creating the views. Here is an image of a completed section with a volume table.

A Couple of New Tools and a Few Sub-assemblies

Hey everyone! If you are not on Subscription with your AutoCAD Civil 3D, you should be. In the last few months some great Civil 3D content has been posted to the Subscription Center. Of course, the only way you can get to the content is to be on subscription and log in to the Subscription Center.

Here are descriptions for a couple of extensions that were added to the Subscription Center. The first is HEC-RAS Extension for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. This extension loads into your toolbox and allows you to export Civil 3D data such as cross sections into The US Army Corps of Engineers HEC-RAS software. Once your analysis is completed in HEC-RAS you can import the data back into Civil 3D. For those of you out there that perform flood analysis, this is an excellent tool.

The second is the Stage-Storage Extension for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. This extension also loads into your tool box. This extension will calculate volumes for detention/retention facilities with a few mouse clicks! You can then create a table with the incremental and cumulative volumes and then plug that information into the Hydroflow Hydrographs Extension for pond calculations.

There were several sub-assemblies that were posted to the Subscription Center also. These sub-assemblies included a Conditional Cut/Fill sub-assembly and a Crowned Lane sub-assembly that allows for independent slope control on sub-base. This is something that people dealing with Mississippi State Aid Projects have been asking for.

Again all of this content is available only to subscription customers. So, if you are not on subscription and you think that this content could be helpful in your every day routine, contact your reseller to get your subscription started! If you are already on subscription log on to the Subscription Center and download the content!

It Will Be Here Before You Know it!

The cold of February is beginning to pass and a hint of spring warmth is in the air, at least in some parts of this great nation. I spent this past weekend on Alabama's Gulf Coast with several thousand revelers where the festivities known as Mardi Gras originated. No, Mardi Gras didn't begin in New Orleans, it began in the city of Mobile, AL in 1703!

Anyway, as we attended parades over the weekend and had as pleasant of weather as I can remember in the last few years, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement about the onset of spring in the southeast. Spring in the southeast is great, as the days get longer, the fish start to bite better and work becomes filled with the anticipation of the next release of our beloved Autodesk Software products.

I can't talk a whole lot about the new features in Civil 3D yet, but I can talk about some of the new features in AutoCAD 2010, and since Civil 3D is based on AutoCAD............

One of the new features for AutoCAD 2010 deals with pdf's. Yes, we have been asking to be able to use pdf's as underlays in our drawings and with the next release it will be possible. There are some cool features pertaining to the creation and use of pdf's in this release.

Keep tuned for more info on AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010!

Vault or Shortcuts, You Decide

First things first. I have slapped my hand because I have not blogged in almost 3 months. Shame on me. I think I just got into a rut and had a little writer's block. So, with the next edition of our bi-monthly Alacad newsletter coming out in a few days I felt that writer's block or not I needed to get something posted.

Since I began working with Civil 3D with the 2006 release and I learned about Vault I have been a proponent of using Vault to store my projects. In fact, I convinced the Civil Department at my previous employer to try Vault. I even talked the IT Department into giving me a dedicated server for my Vault database and filestore. I still have a local install on my laptop for work that I use occasionally. Notice here that I said occasionally.

I am not as big a proponent of Vault as I used to be. Why? Good question. When I first started using Vault it was me, myself and I. I had full control of how my projects were set up and I knew what files I should keep or delete. I was the only one working in Civil 3D and storing files in the Vault. Life was good. Then we hired a new draftsman. Teaching him to use the Vault was not as easy. I also considerably more data to manage because there were two Vaulters now.

One of the things that I loved about Vault at the time was that I could create references to my data without having to do a whole lot. When I checked a drawing into the Vault, I was prompted to add the shortcuts or not. I typically created the shortcuts as needed and on occasion I would create all of the shortcuts, just in case I needed the information down the road. So, now you may be asking, "What data can I make Vault Shortcuts out of?" That list would include surfaces, alignments, pipe networks, etc. Again, life wasn't too bad at this point, but I did find myself using a lot more of my time trying to manage the data in my Vault.

So, I decided to try using the data shortcuts and references for a while. I could create the data shortcuts and store them in our project folder. This began to create a few issues. I had to store the data shortcuts in the project folder on our server, not on my local machine. This wasn't that big of a deal until I needed to take my computer home to work on a particular project. When I got home all I was able to see was a "Broken Reference." Now I am at home trying to be productive and I can't complete the tasks that I needed to complete that night. (we didn't have a VPN server at the time.)

Then I left for Alacad. I still had a few loose ends to tie up, so I continued using the same methodology for creating the shortcuts. I tried to keep them in the Project folder on my hard drive, so that when I took the projects back to the old company there would be no issues with the shortcuts. This was all fine and good until the project folder was moved to the file server and BAM!!!! All of the references were broken again.

Then I started working with AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. Man, what a difference. The folks at Autodesk gave us some tools in 2009 that are second to none. Now I have a Project Template that reminds me a lot of the file structure in Land Desktop, so there was a familiarity there. they also gave us a program called Data Shortcuts Editor. This is the tool that I had been looking for! Now, if my Data Shortcuts get moved to a different location I can use the Data Shortcuts Editor to "remap" the location of the shortcuts and all is well with my drawing file. I can use the Find and Replace tool to find the Shortcuts' original location on my hard drive or server and replace that address with the new address and update my drawing file!

So, now that I have finished my narrative on using both vault references and data shortcuts, I'll challenge you to give them a try and see which works best for you. Until next time.