July’s Knowledge Base Updates.

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven’t posted in a long while. I have been busy with work and sports. I want to thank everyone that have emailed me questions with issues they have been facing. Anyways I have provided a link for the knowledge base issues posted by Autodesk. In addition, the third service pack for C3D 2010 has been released. If i were you, I would  wait at least a few weeks before installing because there always seems to be problems with the install of new service packs. Anyways , thank you for reading my post.

KNOWLEDGE BASE

C3D 2010 SERVICE PACK 3

How to Insert Excel Tables With Data Link

In the last few years I have noticed that some techs and engineers insert drainage and storm tables, created in excel, as PDF files or even do a copy and past into their drawings. I am sure some of you do the paste special option and select AutoCAD entities or Microsoft chart option.

Tonight I will show you another way to insert excel tables with the data link command. If you type the command DATALINK the data link manager will appear. Click on the “Create new excel sheet” and small dialog box will appear asking you for a data link name. I typically provide the project number then the table name such Prop Storm or Ex Storm.

BE SURE TO TURN OFF YOUR PREVIEW
The New Excel Data Link dialog box will appear. You will first browse to your excel sheet. Then select the sheet or tab that you want to use . !. The reason I say this is because it has a tendency to bog down when trying to display your table in a small preview area.

Next select the area that you want to insert.  I have provided a short video presentation on how to insert the able that you just create. The data link command will definitely be a helpful way to add storm and drainage area tables into you plans. I hope this information will be help improve production time.

Part Builder Pt. 1

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Softball and flag football season has started so i have been occupied with that and other side projects. Anyways I have received a few emails from some of my followers asking question about part builder, Well tonight I will do my best to try to teach you a few things about part builder. The first step in learning about part builder is knowing the size parameters. I have listed most of the size parameters that you will see.

BdyD1, BdyD2 = These are the diameter dimensions to the circular profile or the body dimension.

Fth = This is the floor thickness.

LenB1, LenB2 = These are the model parameters set to the extrusion or length body

LenA1, LenA2 = These are vertical distances set in the work planes.

SID = This is the inner structure diameter variable and will be set as a list of variables.

Wth = This is the wall thickness variable and can be set as either a constant or list depending on you structure requirements.

SBSD = This is the structure diameter variable and will be set as variable.

PID = This is the pipe inner diameter.

SRS = This is the rim to sump height which based on the auto layout point is the surface insertion point to the bottom of the structure.

SBSH = This is the structure height which is the other component of the vertical control. Remember the difference between SBSH and SRS is the floor thickness (Fth)

Bellow I have posted a short video presentation on how to add size parameter to pipes and structures. I should be able to post Part 2 sometime this week. Have a great week.

Support For My Followers

I would like to hear from my followers of issues or problems they are having with C3D 2009-2011. I will do my best to try to answer you question to the best of my abilities. Maybe some of yall are working a design shortcut but just can’t quiet figure it out. Right now I am actually working a presentation on how to corridor a roundabout. If I can’t answer your question I will find someone that is knowledgeable in that area of design or programming. I want to thank everyone that reads my post and those that have made comments and sent me emails. Tonight I will release a post on Part Builder. Have a great week.

2010 and 2011 Tips of the Day

Today I'm going to provide you few quick tips and tips how to improve performance with CD3  2010 and 2011.

TIP #1: For those of you that are experiencing  slow zooming and jagged panning when you first install C3D 2010 or 2011 you need to turn off your “Enable hardware acceleration” option. Typically this feature is turned on by default. When I first install both trial version of C3D, I experienced these same effects. After spending a few minutes playing round with setting and browsing through all the feature in the Options dialog box I came across the Enable Hardware Acceleration feature. I decide to turn it off and I immediately noticed a drastic performance boost. You can type “3DCONFIG” to get into your performance tuner dialog box. Select Manual Tune. In the next dialog box uncheck the “Enable Hardware Acceleration”. See images below.

 

 

TIP #2: For those of you that work with projects that have large aerial images C3D has a feature that allows your make changes to the amount memory C3D used. Here some helpful information: “Civil 3D reserves 25% of the total physical memory (RAM) on your system for inserting images with Raster Extensions. If you increase the default amount, more of the physical memory is used for images and less is available for other operations in Civil 3D and for other applications you might be running.

If you require additional memory for your images, the Civil 3D’s Raster Extension uses a temporary swap file. For example, if you insert a 100 MB file, and the Memory Limit is 8 MB, Civil  3D stores the remaining 92 MB in a temporary file. You can specify where the swap file is created.

You can change the following Raster Extension memory settings:

• Temporary File Location — The default directory for the temporary swap files is the Windows temp directory.

  Tip For best performance, use a local drive for your temporary swap file. It is recommended that you do not use the drive where the operating system is installed as the drive for the swap file unless this is your only local drive.

• Memory Limit — Specify the maximum amount of computer memory that AutoCAD Map 3D can use to store image files.

Note The more physical RAM you have, the higher you can make your Memory Limit. The higher the Memory Limit, the less swapping to hard disk occurs and the faster your images load and display. However, do not allocate all available physical RAM because doing so slows overall performance.

Note Close and restart Civil 3D after adjusting these settings.”

You can make the changes to the memory by either typing “MAPIOPTIONS” command or changing your workspace to Tool-based Geospatial. Then select the Insert contextual Tab. Click the small arrow at the bottom of  the Image Ribbon. This will bring up the

 

 

Note: If you have drawings with large aerials or images that are not being used but need to stay in the drawing , its best to hide the image for faster performance. You can either type the “HIDEOBJECT” command or click on the yellow light bulb at the bottom right corner of C3D.

 

TIP #3: If you ever need to know who has a certain drawing open you can use the “WHOHAS” command. Once you type the command the Drawing Open Query dialog box will appear. Just select a drawing file and if the drawing is in use by a user, a dialog box will appear like the image below.

TIP #4: I don't know how many people know this but you can use the featureline Insert PI feature for polylines, parcels, survey figures and 3D polylines. I use this feature on a daily basis.

AutoCAD Raster Design 2011 Object Enabler

I have provided a link for the 2011 object enabler from the Autodesk website.

Raster Design 2011 Object Enabler

New Knowledge Base Issues

I have listed below some of the new issues fixed by Autodesk for this month. Click on the link below for more information.

1. System Requirements for the Autodesk Network License Manager
2. Enabling 3GB switch on Windows Vista or Windows 7
3. Windows 7 support for Autodesk 2010 products

KNOWLEDGE BASE SUPPORT