Holy cow, two posts in a day, what are you going to do??? I’m stuck in the lovely Birmingham International Airport, enjoying the free power for my laptop and wireless and have nothing else to do, so…why not blog?

We spent the day today doing some very interesting training for the Southern Company. They don’t do subdivisions or strip malls, but they do civil engineering and design. Ash stacks, distilling basins, drainage channels, large scale earthmoving, all the things that a huge power interest has to do to serve most of the south with reliable energy.

The interesting part was that we used C3D to solve unusual problems, using the tools in ways they were never designed to be used. It’s simply amazing what a little creativity and customization with this program can accomplish. Notice the shoulders in the road at right…they stretch and shrink based on cut and fill conditions. This process was labor intensive, requiring the designer to check every section and modify as required.

This solution isn’t out of the box, and it’s not complicated, but it took a process from hours to minutes. This is what a good consultant and training can do.

This one is both undocumented and unsupported, so don’t ask me any details.

A user on the Civil 3D newsgroup wanted to know how to find object layers easily. Dan Philbrick (of the Friday Dan & Dave show fame…) mentioned a command called AecInspect. This gives object information, as well as object layer information. It won’t get subcomponents, but could prove to be quite useful from time to time.

Here’s a sample result of a report on a surface that I have:

Have fun!

OK, so in case you hadn’t put two and two together, Engineered Efficiency, Inc has been working with John Postlewait at George Butler Associates on their C3D implementation. They’ve been pushing the software harder than 90% of the folks out there, and have tested Vault in the real world.

In spite of John’s occasional rant in the NG, he is still pushing forward, and continues in his efforts to make Vault work in his environment. Yesterday, he shared a great little batch file with me, and I’ve gotten his permission to share it with you:

@ECHO OFF

START /W IISRESET /STOP

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Data Management Server 5\Vault Manager\Connectivity.VaultManager.exe” -Opurge -NVault -KEEPVERS1 -EXCLCMT”Save” -VUadministrator -VP -S

IISRESET /START

That’s the magic vault purge script that will keep your server clean. That’s it. Copy and paste that into Notepad, and save as Vaultpurge.bat. Watch for word wrap! There’s one line from the “C:\…” all the way to the “-S” Be aware that this is working on the default install, with a single vault. You could add multiple program calls to have it purge multiple vaults. This script will purge all but one version from your Vault. You can modify it as needed.

Use Windows Task Manager to run it late at night. Notice that it is shutting down the Vault with the IISRESET /STOP portion. If you can, run this on Sunday around 3:00 AM so that nobody gets caught in the shutdown.

Vault is NOT the end of the world folks, and is the only way to fly in C3D 2007. The effort of getting Vault in place is well worth the benefits that come with 2007. Don’t let the fear-mongers and uninformed let you deter from investigating what can be a great solution for your firm…

One last thing: Adesk released a Service Pack. Go read the other blogs for details (and cookies), I’m not going to waste your time or mine posting the same stuff as ten other sources. Inconsistency is key!

Hey, I know I’m a day late. Gimme a break, I was on the road yesterday.

Service Pack 1 for Civil 3D 2007 has been released. It’s installed here, and I’ve noticed a little difference. From my perspective, grading is slightly faster, but still broken. I can crash it almost at will. Maybe one day…. *sigh*

From the readme:

This Service Pack resolves the following issues:

General

Memory usage has been improved when performing the following functions: labeling, masking of pipe objects, regenerating drawings, and plotting.

Using the Alignment Grid View on multiple drawings no longer causes the program to close unexpectedly.

Label text masking now plots as expected when using named plot styles.

The text height on an xref label now scales as expected in a paper space viewport.

An issue with zooming to a surface or to an assembly has been resolved.

When you open a drawing that has been migrated from Autodesk Civil 3D 2006 to

Autodesk Civil 3D 2007, the Display tab of the Profile Style dialog box now displays the 3D Chain component type in the Component Display list.

An issue with drawings not showing existing ground profiles due to alignments containing problematic geometry has been resolved.

Alignments

Clicking on a parcel area label now responds as expected.

Tangents displayed in a horizontal geometry profile band are now correctly represented (displayed and annotated) as tangents instead of curves.

When two or more station equations are added to an alignment, the profile view data band now reflects accurate station values.

Corridor

Slope values for the following subassemblies now migrate correctly: LinkOffsetAndSlope, LinkSlopeAndVerticalDeflection, LinkSlopeToElevation, LinkSlopeTo Surface, LinkWidthAndSlope.

When creating cul-de-sacs that are modeled with the corridor object, the offset from the arc now computes correctly when the offset point is located at exact center of the arc.

Accessing the Subassembly Properties dialog box no longer causes the program to become unresponsive.

Civil 3D 2006 drawings containing subassemblies with slope values now open successfully.

Grading

Transitions using relative elevation criteria are now created correctly. Previously, the projections were sometimes created with incorrect distances.

Several issues that prevented drawings containing problematic grading geometry from opening have been resolved.

A performance issue with grading into a surface has been resolved. For example, grading a pond into a surface now completes in a more acceptable amount of time.

Pasting a grading surface into a corridor surface then saving now responds as expected.

An issue with opening a drawing containing grading feature lines, after closing another drawing, has been resolved.

Pipes

An issue with pipes in a Profile View when connected structures are displayed as a solid has been resolved. Note that in the Structure Style dialog box, the “Enable part masking” check box is now hidden when the structure is being displayed as a solid. It is recommended that you use the Display as boundary option in the Profile tab of the Structure Style dialg box. The performance of this option is significantly faster than when the Display as solid option is used. Note that the Display as boundary option is the default for new styles, but existing styles from Autodesk Civil3D 2006 are set to Display as solid.

An issue with structures displaying as blocks in Profile Views has been resolved.

Masking now works as expected.

Points

Points modified in the Prospector tree and drawn by point groups other than the All Points point group now update appropriately.

An issue with using the Point Editor to change point styles, point label styles, or point layers has been resolved. The Point Editor now responds appropriately when you change these items.

An issue with opening a new drawing using a 2006 drawing template has been resolved. Drawings that have an external data reference in the point settings can now be updated successfully.

Quantity Takeoff Reports

Calculating volumes when more than one material is a structure type now works correctly.

Incremental volume values for materials in the Select Materials reports are now reported correctly.

Fill factors are now applied correctly for structure type materials and material areas.

Switching the type for a material in the Material List tab of the Sample Line Group Properties dialog box now works as expected.

The program responds as expected when deleting shapes from materials and adding shapes to materials in the Material List tab of the Sample Line Group Properties dialog box.

Volume tables now display accurate values for structure type materials, and also react dynamically when editing volume related information.

The list of available corridor shapes now displays accurately in the Select Corridor Shape list in the Quantity Takeoff Criteria dialog box.

Survey

Modifying and updating multiple dependent Survey Networks now produces accurate results.

When inserting figures into a drawing with different zones, the program no longer closes unexpectedly.

When creating a figure from 3D objects in the drawing, vertex elevations displayed during an inverse or mapcheck now display accurately.

When using the Export to Field Book command, figures that are created from objects containing non-tangent curves using the Create From Object command, now export and re-import correctly.

The Traverse Analysis command now finds the closing side under the following circumstances:

A closed loop traverse is run where the starting station’s coordinates are known and a reference direction and observations to the final station are taken. The traverse proceeds to the last station where closing observations are taken to the first station. For a four-sided traverse, the definition is as follows:

Initial station = 1
Initial backsight = 4
Stations = 2-4
Final foresight = 1

An issue with saving changes made to Equipment items in the Survey Toolspace Item View has been resolved.

Icons displayed in the Survey Points collection now accurately represent the current state of items in the Control Points collection.

The Survey tab now opens as expected in Toolspace when you use a survey command.

Issues with zooming or panning to an object from the Prospector or Survey tab when a UCS is in use in the drawing have been resolved.

This Service Pack also includes resolution for the following AutoCAD issue:

Saving or autosaving a drawing file results in a fatal error followed by the CER dialog. This issue occurs randomly.

Have fun!