Grading in curbed islands can be a time consuming task and they often need to be changed based on the overall grading changes. Whether it’s a curbed island in a parking lot or a curbed median on a boulevard, secondary corridors give you another option to keep your islands dynamic.
On January 14, 2010,
in 2010, Alignments, Corridors, Grading, Surfaces, civil3d.com,
by Jonathan Stewart
On January 13, 2010,
in Surfaces,
by Mark Spatz, P.E.
Again, this is a re-post on a topic that was already covered in 2007 on Civil3d.com, Surface Smoothing Simplified. However, this tip may be a little more simplistic – not giving as much in-depth detail – making it a little easier to distribute around the office. Also, maybe some folks missed the 2007 posts… you never know.
Creating a nice smooth surface in the computer has always been a somewhat difficult task; until now! With Civil 3D you can apply a surface edit (call “Smooth Surface…”) that will run some extra algorithms on your surface and make nice smooth contours were you don’t have that much definition to build the surface.
Check it out…
On January 4, 2010,
in Surfaces,
by Mark Spatz, P.E.
A tip I picked up from an Autodesk University class was to use restrictions on surface triangulation length to help create a surface boundary. This is useful for Existing Grade (EG) and Finished Grade (FG) surfaces; surfaces built with Point, Survey Figures, or Featurelines. However, it does not work for surfaces built from a corridor model. It’s a real shame too, because I think it would be most useful for corridor surfaces. So here’s the trick…
Have you ever battled with the Command Alias Editor; that tool under Express Tools that lets you set abbreviations for your favorite commands (ie: "QS" to invoke the QSELECT command)? I have, and after multiple lost battles (lost battle = me giving up) I have finally WON!
Why is the Command Alias Editor important in Civil 3D? Well, it is a critical component of the workflow for adding Featurelines (breaklines) to a surface, QUICKLY! So lets get started…
A seldom used command in AutoCAD is Quick Select (QSELECT). The QSELECT command is basically a filter that allows you to quickly select objects that have commonalities. So, what does this have to do with the Command Alias Editor? Well, typing QSELECT each time you want to use this tool takes way too much time – for me at least – and keeping the AutoCAD Properties Palette open slows down Civil 3D. How do we fix that? We use the Command Alias Editor!
After the jump learn how to use Command Alias Editor and how to use QSELECT to quickly add all your Grading Objects, Featurelines, Plines, 3Dplines, and 3Dlines to your surface in two steps.
On October 26, 2009,
in Surfaces,
by Mark Spatz, P.E.
Looking at the image below, at first, it may appear that you need multiple surfaces; one for each area (pond). But in Civil 3D a single surface can represent multiple spot areas by using the OUTER and SHOW boundaries.
Two practical everyday uses:
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E&S Grading
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Spot Grading along a Corridor Model (endwalls, ponds, custom daylighting, etc…)
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