Comments on: Xref, Dref, and Plotting

By: Mikie van der Watt

Mikie van der Watt — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:04:54 +0000

I always keep my corridor and at least my storm pipework in the same drawing as my proposed or graded surface. That sometimes gets big depending on the size of the project. Its OK to have your sanitary pipework separate and bring in your proposed surface as a data shortcut because in itself it does not require grading. Then on the other hand you have your pipe networks in different drawings.

Fact is that if you do not make use of referencing you have got a problem. I trained myself to use Civil 3D and have been upgrading workstations and complaining on the discussion groups for a long time before realizing that one drawing with 70-80 layouts and more than 200 viewports does not work and no system can handle that.

I am looking forward to more posts on this topic.

By: Joshua Modglin

Joshua Modglin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:11:21 +0000

Yes but let me take this breakout a step further.
Your fine grading may include phases of grading. For example, your preliminary built on top of your site fine grading, which is connected to your corridor surface from the entrance drive.

This is where it gets tricky in the sense that each company will see how to split these files up differently.

So would you keep all design grading in one file or multiple files which are DREF’d into one master design grading file?

This is where consultants help out.

By: James Wedding, P.E.

James Wedding, P.E. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:12:04 +0000

Josh might answer differently, but I believe that’s correct. That gives you a working design file that can continue to me tweaked and worked while sheet creation occurs in parallel.

By: Mikie van der Watt

Mikie van der Watt — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:26:28 +0000

Do you do all the fine grading in step 3 where you create your proposed surface before you xref it into the G&D plan in step 5?

By: civil3d.com » A New Way of Thinking for Drawing Setup.

civil3d.com » A New Way of Thinking for Drawing Setup. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:30:45 +0000

[...] is kind of an add-on to Josh’s post about Xref, Dref and Plotting. I just think it is such an important concept that I still see the [...]

By: Jeff York

Jeff York — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:12:09 +0000

Good chart. Thanks

By: Kevin Clark, P.E.

Kevin Clark, P.E. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:14:31 +0000

Yeah it’s bad but is a starting place.

By: James Wedding, P.E.

James Wedding, P.E. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:29:33 +0000

That document was terrible when it was written, it still is. They basically took a Mechanical Engineering work flow (one object per dwg?) and tried to shoehorn it into the Civil space because it was coming from the Vault experts.

While there is some practical information there in terms of commands I wouldn’t suggest that process to anyone I liked.

By: Kevin Clark, P.E.

Kevin Clark, P.E. — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:58:31 +0000

Setup is a key. http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/civil_project_mgmt.pdf is a good starting point.

By: John Mayo, PE

John Mayo, PE — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:17:03 +0000

Excellent post Joshua. It’s overdue. We have evloved into the same practice. You may want to note for the surveyors that the same practice can be applied. It has worked well in our firm for surveyors and engineers. The only difference being the design files are now parcel and EG surface files.