Tony's Civil 3D World

Thursday, August 16, 2012

August Updates

Good morning everyone. Sorry I have not posted in a long while. Here are a few updates that Autodesk has posted in the last few weeks. I will try to do another post tonight with tips and trick, and more new hidden features with C3D 2013.

Two days ago the Productivity Tools for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 was posted on the subscription center. The productivity tools include: Borehole Utility for AutoCAD, Cartogramma Utility for AutoCAD, Corridor Solids Extraction, C3D 2013 Extension for Civil View, 12D Data Extension for C3D 2013, Rural and Urban Road Subassemblies, PISTE Translator for C3D 2013, Clip/ISTRAM Translator for C3D and I have been told the Bridge Modeler was also included.
Two weeks ago Autodesk released Service Pack 2.1. for C3D 2012. This service focused on Hydroflow Storm Sewer, Hydroflow Express, Catchments, Corridor Volumes, Cross Sections problems and much more. Click on link below for download and more information. C3D 2012 SERVICE PACK 2.1
In addition, another hot fix was release to fix the problems with data shortcuts.Click on link for further information and download.
C3D 2012 DATA SHORTCUT HOTFIX
Autodesk also release another hot fix for C3D 2013 to fix the problem with survey figures property dialog and opening a C3D in Navisworks Manage 2013. Click on link for further information and download. C3D 2013 HOT FIX

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

C3D 2013 Hidden New Features

Good evening everyone. I hope everyone’s week is going great. Well the last few week has been extremely busy for me but now I finally got some breathing room to post another blog. I hope everyone has had the opportunity to test run the new C32 2013. I am sure you have heard all about all the big new features that has been incorporated into C3D 2013 but tonight I would like to share with you some small hidden jewels that you may not know about yet.
The first hidden feature can be found within: pipe, structure, alignments, profile, parcels ,surface, fitting, appurtenance, corridor, intersection and section label style composer. Go to your Layout tab and select the Reference Text options from the Create component pull down.

The Select Type dialog will open. As you can see from the image below the Survey Figure options has been added. Select Survey Figure and click OK.

This will bring you back to the Text Component Editor. Select the text box next to the Content line.The will send you to the Text Component Editor-Content dialog box. In the Properties Tab select the pull down. Notice you have 4 properties label options for your survey figure. (Name, Description, Survey Figure-Figure Style,Site) This could benefit those that want to label survey figures..

Hit Cancel, within the Text Component Editor select the Reference Text options under the Create component pull down. Click on the content line editor. The Text Component Editor-Content dialog box will open. In the Properties Tab open the pull down for all the properties options. As you can see, several new properties have been added. You now have roughly 45 different properties that you can select. In C3D 2012 you have 16 different properties attributes.

Another hidden feature change is the properties filters. For structure label styles, this is what you have for structure type filters in C3 2012.

But in C3D 2013, this is what you have.

Anyone’s it seems every time Autodesk adds new features some current ones are removed for some reason. Anyways I hope this information is hopeful to you. Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to make comments or vote cool or interesting just underneath this post.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

C3D 2011 CROP SURFACE

The crop surface feature will come in handy when you have a small project site and you are using USGS contours or aerial contour that covers hundreds of acres. The crop surface feature will allow you to cut area of surface that you need for your project without affect the original surface or source surface. I’m sure some of you are asking why not use boundary and data reference the surface out. Well to answer that question, as far as I know you can not make revision or changes to the data reference surface once you insert it into your drawing. With the crop surface feature you will be able to add points, breaklines, contours…etc. Anyways, this feature would have definitely helped me in my subdivision design I was working on which had 500 acre surface. I have provided a short video below on how to use the crop surface feature. Remember if you make changes to the original surface and want those changes to reflect to the copied surface, simply select rebuild snapshot then rebuild surface on the copied surface.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Civil 3D 2013 New Features Part 4

Good morning everyone. I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. So for the past 2 weeks the internet and tweeter world has been blowing up with the all the new features that C3D 2013 has to offer. The introduction to pressure pipes and import/export capabilities for IMX fix was huge leap, there was some draw backs. As most of you know the import Google earth feature has been remove. I’m sure this is kick to the stomach for some of you. Overall I rate this version a B+.

Anyways in this post, I will skim over the new pressure parts features. For those of you that have already download your version of C3D 2013 from the subscription website, you will instantly notice all the features relating to pressure parts/networks throughout the ribbon. I have posted some images of some area where you can find links/features related to pressure pipes.

As you can see pressure pipes can be honestly be considered the star of the show for C3D 2013. So what is pressure pipes?
Pressure Pipe Typical Workflow.

Select the Pressure Network Catalog
Create a part list such as Water Parts
Create pressure pipe network from Pressure Network Creation Tools on the ribbon
assign the reference surface
Select the pipe size and material
lay out of your pressure network

As you can see, you have the ability to display true pipe bends, fittings and apparatus on the fly when laying out your pressure network. On top of that, a new feature has now been included to check pipe coverage for your network. In addition, you can also create vertical curve pipe in your profiles.

On the negative side, Autodesk did fail to add PVC as a material on the pressure parts material. This causes you, as the user to custom build the PVC material from scratch. In order to this you have to use content catalog editor. To build the PVC material you will need all the manufactures specification data.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Civil 3D 2013 New Features Part 3.

Good morning everyone. Well congrats on Kentucky wining the men’s NCAA national basketball championships and Texas Baylor Bears winning the women’s NCAA national championship. I also want to send my prayers go out to all those that lost their homes in the DFW area during Tuesday’s tornados storm.

Anyways, I hope everyone is exciting about all the new features that C3D 2013 has to offer. Some new feature may benefit some firms greatly, while it may not be useful to other firms. It honestly depends on what type of projects your company/firm works on. So moving on, in this post I would like to talk about the transportation improvements that Autodesk has included in C3D 2013. I have listed below few more new features of C3D 2013. I have also included a short video presentation.

The addition of Subassembly Composer
The addition of railway design tools
The addition of cant railway design with new rail alignment
New layout tools
Importing/Exporting IMX files from/into Infrastructure Modeler
Pressure Part Network.

Some of you may be asking what is cant rail design? Well basically cant rail design is used to steer a train moving along a curve, keeping the wheel flanges from touching the rails. This minimizes friction and wear. In addition, cant rail design helps in the distribution of weight across both rails, and creates a smoother ride by neutralizing the effects of lateral forces. The two acting factors of cant design is the speed and radius of the rail track. Cant design is basically in essence referred to as superelevation of a rail from one side of the rail to the other side. If you go to your settings tab on your toolspace, and right click on your ALIGNMENTS and select Edit Feature Settings, here you will find settings for your rail options and cant design. From here you get set the rail wide, degree of curvature, design speed,pivot method…and so on.

In a few weeks I go more in depth over rail design. I have presented below the new and improved layout Tools tab.
Civil 3D 2012 Layout Tools Panel

Civil 3D 2013 Layout Tools Panel

As you can see from above, the layouts panel has a new look with a few needs features. See video below.

C3D 2013

As you can tell some really cool features have be incorporated into C3D 2013. If you are in subscription you can now sign in and download you new slick C3D 2013. I apologize for only skimming over the new features so fast but I will do a few more new features post to get a better understand of the new features. . Feel free to comment.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Civil 3D 2013 New Features Part 2

Good morning to everyone in the AutoCAD universe! Wow this has been an overwhelming exciting week for Autodesk. There has been several webcast this week with the introduction of all the new 2013 Autodesk products. The tweeter world, blogger websites, Facebook, Google+ ,and LinkedIn has been blowing up. So, not only were new features added the 2013 software, the design suite packages received a upgrade . For example, the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2013 added a few new goodies to the packages. (See image below) The highlighted items are additional software that has been included. I totally love that the Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) 2013 has been added to the Premium package. On top of that, the addition of Revit 2013 and Utility Design 2013 to the Ultimate package makes it a very enticing package to get.

Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed the screencast shots that I posted Wednesday from the Blogger Day event. As we all know by now, the three main new features that was added to C3D 2013 was the creation of pressure part network, new survey contextual tab with survey features, and transportation with the incorporation of subassembly composer and Railway Design. Of course there are other hidden gyms that was added but that’s to come later in part 3 and 4. Did everyone notice the new logo? Yes the desktop shortcut icon and application menu icon have changed. (See images below).

I have placed the C3D 2013 shortcut icons on top and the C3D 2012 icons at the bottom. So what do you think about the new logo?

(Application icon for 2012 and 2013

Anyways, today I will skim over the new survey features that was added to C3D 2013. The first thing you will notice and slap you in the face when you open C3D is the new look for the command line. It no longer stretches across the bottom of the screen but has a smaller more slick look. The autocomplete is still present and active. I also want to add the volume dashboard feature can be found in the Analyze contextual tab.

So here is a list of new survey features that you will see on the survey contextual tab/ Survey Modify panel. There are other features that you will also recognize from C3D 2012.

Survey Toolspace: Used to open and close the survey tool palette on the C3D toolspace. This tool palette acts as your primary interface when working with survey data
Network Properties: Used to change and edit your network name, description and style. Also contains the Edit Network Styles feature.
Figure Properties: Used to display survey figures. Also contains the Edit Figure Style to create and edit styles.
Survey Query: Used to display the survey query tab. When clicked, the ribbon changes to display the survey query features. (See image below)

Survey Figure Properties : Used to make edits to survey figures
Survey Points Properties: Used to make edits to survey points
Browse to Survey Data: Used to browse to network, figure and observation.
Edit Geometry, Edit Elevation (Used to edit featurelines data and geometry) and ,Update Figure, Update survey data from drawing, and Update Figure from survey data.
Mapcheck, Geodetic Calculator, Coordinate Geometry Editor: Also seen in the Analyze contextual tab.
Quick Profile, Create Surface and Grading Creation tool: Also seen from the 2012 version.

I think Autodesk is starting to move in the right direction now in improving their survey features and functionality. If Autodesk continues to make improvement on the survey side I can see a larger demand for C3D in the near feature. There is much more in survey improvements but I will get more in depth in part 4. Monday I will do my best to release part 3. Part 3 I will skim over the transportation improvements. I really think some of you will love this topic. Anyways thanks for stopping by and feel free to post comments. Have a great weekend. Smile

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Hello Civil 3D 2013!!!!!!!

Good afternoon everyone. Today is an exciting day for Autodesk because they officially introduce C3D 2013. Actually this week has been crazy with the announcements of various new 2013 Autodesk products. Yesterday was the introduction of AutoCAD 2013. Anyways, I have posted a several screen shots from the live webcast today. In addition, I have listed a few new features that have been added to C3D 2013. This will be part 1 of 2 post. Tomorrow I will get more in depth with all the new features that was included with Civil 3D 2013. Enjoy