Civil 3D 2012 Part 1

Hi everyone. I decided to create a short video presentation over a few feature that have been incorporated into civil 3D 2012. I’m sure most of half if you have already installed C3D 2012 and designing away like crazy lol. This short video can be a refresher for some of you or a training video for some of you. This video will be part 1 of 4 videos that I will create. On top of that, I have decided to create my very own person training DVD’s for civil 3D beginners. Each DVD with have 25 videos. I will create 4 training DVD’s over pipe networks and labels, alignments and profiles, grading, customization and settings. Feel free to email me if you are interested in one of my DVDs. Enjoy the video

Tip of the Week: Fun with Character Map

Good morning everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend? I know I did watching the Texas Rangers win again. GO RANGERS!!! Anyways, the other day I was playing around with mtext and I was wanting to add some subscripts and basic math operations to my text info. Well after about an hour of messing around I found something very interesting and cool in the Character Map dialog box. Have you ever found yourself scrolling thru all the endless amounts of characters? Well I found an easier way to display characters by groups. What if you only want to display the math operation characters? Here are my steps on how to do this.

• Open the text editor and select the Symbol pull down and pick other.The character map dialog box will appear.

• Next on the Character set select Windows:Western.
• Then select the down arrow for the Group by and select Unicode Subrange.
• The Group By dialog box will appear. Here you will be able to choose from characters pertaining to that particular group. For example if you only want to see the math operation character you would select the Mathematical Operations group. Anyways I hope this information was helpful to you. See the short video for an example. Have a great week and GO RANGERS!!!

 

Tip of the Week

How’s everyone doing so far this week? I hope everyone is enjoying the week. Last week one of my engineers was working onquantity takeoffs and he notices that my profile pipe label length did not reflect the alignment stationing.  So I took a look at the label style that was create (before I became the CAD Manager) and noticed that the 2D pipe length Center to Center was 122.2. So why was the label rounding up? We typically use the normal rounding standards. So I went into the pipe label style and into the Text Component Editor. Here I found out why my pipe label was rounding up. The pipe length precision was set to Round UP and not and not Round Normal. Some of you may be thinking what’s one foot right? Well if you are designing large subdivisions with a large storm, sewer and water pipe networks, that 1 foot segment can turn into 10-20 feet. That in turn can cost the client an extra $500-$2,000 depending on the type of pipe and size.  Anyways, I hope this information becomes helpful to a few of you. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend.

 

What Process Is That?

Good afternoon everyone. Wow how about those Texas Rangers!! Anyways, I would like to go over a few processes that Autodesk uses that you might see in the Windows Task Manager. I’m sure some of you are saying” what is this?. Well after doing some research here is what I have found. Feel free to add more information if you like.

Connect.Service.ContentService.exe.*32 = used by Content Explorer Service to allow advance searching, watching & sharing functionality for AutoCAD 2012 & Civil 3D 2012. It can also be used to sharing objects such as blocks, layers, styles …etc. across the network. I typically just terminate the process since I don’t use this feature or share my stuff through the network.

WSCommCntr2.exe = Autodesk InfoCenter which provides balloon notifications for live updates, RSS Feeds, Subscription announcements..etc. Sometimes if this process does not close after closing C3D it will not allow you to open a new session of C3D. You will have to close the process thru task manager.

raysta_3dmax2012_63server.exe*32 = rendering application used by Autodesk 3ds Max Design. If you are not currently using Autodesk 3ds Max Design you can terminate the process.

Aec32BitAppServer57.exe*32 = application that runs when using Storm and Sanitary Sewer Analysis software.If you are not using SSA you can terminate the process.

AcHelp2.exe*32 = Autodesk Help application. This process runs every time you hit F1 for the help menu.

Tip of the Week

Wow what a crazy day it has been. Anyways, todays tip of week comes from a email question I received today. I want to thank everyone that reads my blogs, follows me on tweeter and emails me.

Problem: How do I show the deflection angle for an alignment PVI?

1. Go to your Annotation Contextual Tab and select the Add Labels feature in the Labels & Tables ribbon. (Or General pull down menu and select Add Labels)
2. The Add Labels dialog box will appear. Change the Feature options to Alignment and Label Type to Tangent Intersection.

3.  Now go into the label Editor by clicking the down arrow on the right and select “Edit Current Selection”.

4.  The Label Style Composer dialog box will appear. Select the Layout Tab. Click on the small icon button just right of text Contents to make our edits. The Text Component Editor dialog box will appear. 

5.  Highlight and delete all information in the window. Then in the Properties options select the Delta Angle option. Change the format to DD’MM’SS’’ and hit the right arrow icon at the top right to add our label property.

6.Click Ok, APPLY, then OK. Now we can add our new intersection label to our alignment. Make sure that your alignment style is set to show line and curve. I hope this will come in handy to some of you. Have a great day.

New Autodesk Cloud

Hi everyone. Today Autodesk introduces Autodesk Cloud. These new package is for subscription members only of course. Autodesk Cloud allows for storage, sharing and viewing of your of design anytime and anywhere. In addition, you can view your design with the AutoCAD WS to edit your drawings. I have provide some cool links below for more information.

The main benefits of Autodesk Cloud are:

1. Storage, Sharing and Viewing
2. DWG Editing
3. Mobile Viewing
4. Rendering
5. Optimization
6. Energy Analysis

Benefits With Subscription to Select Products and Suites

Rendering

Autodesk Subscription

Design Review Mobile

AutoCAD WS

AUTODESK NEWS LETTER

Additional cloud services exclusive to Autodesk Subscription customers give designers, engineers and digital artists sophisticated new capabilities, such as high-performance 3D visual communication, simulation and collaboration that were once limited to organizations with privileged access to expensive, high-end supercomputing centers.

These exclusive services include:

• Autodesk Cloud rendering ― Customers with an Autodesk Subscription to the Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Design Suite or Autodesk Building Design Suite will have access to powerful rendering capabilities, helping them better visualize designs, increase the number of renderings they can create and reduce hardware investments.
• Autodesk Inventor optimization ― Customers with Subscription to the Premium or Ultimate editions of Autodesk Product Design Suites will gain an intuitive cloud-based simulation tool, enabling them to test multiple design options in the cloud, and to create more sustainable designs and higher-quality products while reducing material, transportation and energy costs.
• Autodesk Revit Conceptual Energy Analysis ― Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Revit Architecture or Autodesk Revit MEP software, or select suites containing these products, can extend design beyond the desktop with powerful cloud-based energy analysis capabilities, helping them to quickly gain insight into the energy consumption and building energy costs of early design concepts from within the design application.
• Autodesk Green Building Studio web-based energy analysis software ― Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Building Design Suite and other select products have access to this cloud-based service that can help designers, architects, engineers and building energy analysts perform faster, more accurate energy analysis of multiple building design iterations, optimize energy efficiency and work toward carbon neutrality earlier in the design process.
• Autodesk Buzzsaw software as a service (SaaS) ― Customers with Subscription to Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC software now have access to cloud-based document, data and design management solutions for architecture, engineering and construction firms and owner-operators, helping them centralize and securely exchange project information and enhance team collaboration.

Autodesk works with multiple partners, including Amazon and Citrix, to provide a scalable cloud computing infrastructure to meet customer needs. Autodesk has been working with Amazon Web Services for more than three years in order to securely host high-demand, scalable applications such as Autodesk Homestyler software and Autodesk Seek web service. Amazon Web Services provides Autodesk with the flexibility to scale computing around the world with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and resilient storage capacity with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Block Store (EBS), as well as the ability to more efficiently deliver applications and content to customers. Autodesk also teams with Citrix to provide customers with greater efficiency in their use of Autodesk applications. Delivering solutions to end users with Citrix XenApp can help customers reduce workstation costs while still providing the software performance they need.

“Our relationship with Autodesk demonstrates how innovative and forward-thinking software companies can leverage the power of AWS to provide greater value to their customers,” said Terry Wise, Director of Business Development at Amazon Web Services. “We are pleased to work with Autodesk to provide secure, on-demand, pay as you go cloud services, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the design and engineering market.”

In addition to the new Autodesk Cloud services, Autodesk Subscription continues to provide the most up-to-date software, online technical support and flexible licensing privileges for customers looking to maximize their competitive advantage.

Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk 3dx Max Design 2012

Good morning everyone. I just wanted to let everyone know that Autodesk just added the Advantage Pack for Autodesk 3dx Max Design 2012 for subscription member. I have listed  some of the new features below. The advantage pack is great for presentations that needs 3D rendering and a realistic look. See below for me info. More documentation and videos can be found in the subscription website. Have a great day.

• Render pass system—Segment your scene for downstream compositing with an entirely new render pass system that features a visual interface.
• After Effects and Photoshop interoperability—Enjoy significantly enhanced interoperability with Adobe® After Effects® and Adobe® Photoshop® software.
• ActiveShade for iray*— Experience a truly iterative creative process for finalizing renderings with new ActiveShade support for the iray® renderer from mental images. This feature is a GPU rendering system. It’s a photometric accurate rendering.