civil3d.com

I’m in the middle of preparing for Autodesk Boot Camp, a 5 day training session in Dallas, Texas for reseller sales and AE’s. I’ve got all my software downloaded and installed, and I’m playing with what SHOULD be the final incarnation of Civil 3D 2007 before I get my DVD in the mail.

A nice new feature in C3D 2007 is the addition of an Inquiry Tool. This is a dockable window, similar to the Properties window. It includes Inquiry Tools, of all things! You can find it under the General menu in C3D 2007. Here’s what it looks like:

It includes many different inquiries that will prove to be very useful in the design process:

• Point – Point Inverse
• Surface – Elevation and Grade at Point, Elevation and Grade Between Points
• Alignment – Station and Offset at Point, Station and Offset and Profile Elevation at Point, Station and Offset and Surface Elevation at Point, Two Stations and Offsets Between Points
• Profile View – Station and Elevation at Point, Elevation and Grade Between Points
• Profile – Station and Elevation at Point, Elevation Difference at Station
• Section View – Offset and Elevation at Point, Elevation and Grade Between Points
• Section – Offset and Elevation at Point, Elevation Difference at Station
• Corridor Section – Offset and Elevation at Point, Elevation and Grade Between Points, Elevation Difference at Offset

I’m going to start this post out by giving credit where credit is due – both Nick Zeeben and James Wedding helped me along with this one. Without them, I’d still be stuck in a hotel in Hattiesburg, Mississippi beating my head against the wall.

One of the first questions I received in my Civil 3D class this past week was “How do I find Symbol Manager?” For you Land Desktop users, you’ll know what Symbol Manager is – it inserts, catalogs, and holds your standard symbols, from north arrow and bar scale to trees, the infamous “handi-man”, and roadway signs. It’s very simple to use and very useful. I thought for a minute, looked around, and tried to think of a good workaround. A good idea didn’t come until later that night.

Now, there’s two ways to do this. There’s the way that James and Nick told me, which is to use Design Center to navigate to the folder where your symbols are stored, and create a tool palette from all those blocks. Well, for those of you who don’t mind a very long tool palette, that’s fine, but I wanted to more closely mimic the Symbol Manager from Land Desktop, so here’s what I did.

I opened a new drawing in Land Desktop using a generic project (this drawing needs to be assigned to a project for this to work). I started with my blank drawing, and just went into Symbol Manager and began inserting blocks into my drawing. I created a drawing that is essentially a library of those blocks. I then saved that drawing in a place that could easily be found (and protected).

Next, I opened the drawing in Civil 3D. and created a new tool palette. I right-clicked on each block and dragged it to my new palette (just to see if it could be done, the only palette that I did was survey symbols.) For what it’s worth, here’s what it looked like:

Now, I can right-click on any symbol on that palette and change the properties. I can give it a name, set the insert scale to correspond to the dimscale, make it non-explodable (very nice for CAD management purposes) and specify what layer and rotation I want it to have when I insert it, in addition to other settings. Here’s all you can do with that:

Now, as long as you don’t delete that block “library” drawing, or move it, you’re set for your symbol manager.

The final question was how to make the blocks to insert to the proper scale, which would be dependent on your drawing scale. This is pretty easy. First, in the block properties on the tool palette, make sure the scale is set to 1. Next, set your auxilliary scale is set to DIMSCALE. Now, go to the settings tab of toolspace. Right-click on your drawing name and click Edit Drawing Settings. Set your drawing scale to whatever you need it to be, then make sure “Scale objects inserted from other drawings” is checked. Your DIMSCALE variable is controlled by your drawing scale, so everything comes in scaled like you want it.

Hope this works for you!

Customers should start seeing copies of the new 2007 line of Autodesk products arrive in mid-April. I don’t know who else is like me, but I used to think that the mailman was like Santa Claus when it came time for new rollouts. This year, for the first time, I get to be a part of that rollout. I’m really looking forward to showing our customers (both existing and potential) the incredible new features of Civil 3D 2007!

ALACAD will begin a product rollout tour the first week of May. If you work in the Southeast, we’ll likely be coming to a city near you! Here’s our schedule:

Tuesday, May 2 – Jackson, Mississippi

Friday, May 26 – Gulfport / Biloxi, Mississippi

All specific locations are still to be determined. If you’d like to register or just find out more information, visit our Autodesk 2007 Rollout Page.

I look forward to seeing you there!

I’m going to start this post out by giving credit where credit is due – both Nick Zeeben and James Wedding helped me along with this one. Without them, I’d still be stuck in a hotel in Hattiesburg, Mississippi beating my head against the wall.

One of the first questions I received in my Civil 3D class this past week was “How do I find Symbol Manager?” For you Land Desktop users, you’ll know what Symbol Manager is – it inserts, catalogs, and holds your standard symbols, from north arrow and bar scale to trees, the infamous “handi-man”, and roadway signs. It’s very simple to use and very useful. I thought for a minute, looked around, and tried to think of a good workaround. A good idea didn’t come until later that night.

Now, there’s two ways to do this. There’s the way that James and Nick told me, which is to use Design Center to navigate to the folder where your symbols are stored, and create a tool palette from all those blocks. Well, for those of you who don’t mind a very long tool palette, that’s fine, but I wanted to more closely mimic the Symbol Manager from Land Desktop, so here’s what I did.

I opened a new drawing in Land Desktop using a generic project (this drawing needs to be assigned to a project for this to work). I started with my blank drawing, and just went into Symbol Manager and began inserting blocks into my drawing. I created a drawing that is essentially a library of those blocks. I then saved that drawing in a place that could easily be found (and protected).

Next, I opened the drawing in Civil 3D. and created a new tool palette. I right-clicked on each block and dragged it to my new palette (just to see if it could be done, the only palette that I did was survey symbols.) For what it’s worth, here’s what it looked like:

Now, I can right-click on any symbol on that palette and change the properties. I can give it a name, set the insert scale to correspond to the dimscale, make it non-explodable (very nice for CAD management purposes) and specify what layer and rotation I want it to have when I insert it, in addition to other settings. Here’s all you can do with that:

Now, as long as you don’t delete that block “library” drawing, or move it, you’re set for your symbol manager.

The final question was how to make the blocks to insert to the proper scale, which would be dependent on your drawing scale. This is pretty easy. First, in the block properties on the tool palette, make sure the scale is set to 1. Next, set your auxilliary scale is set to DIMSCALE. Now, go to the settings tab of toolspace. Right-click on your drawing name and click Edit Drawing Settings. Set your drawing scale to whatever you need it to be, then make sure “Scale objects inserted from other drawings” is checked. Your DIMSCALE variable is controlled by your drawing scale, so everything comes in scaled like you want it.

Hope this works for you!

I spent this week in southern Mississippi training 3 Civil Engineering firms on Civil 3D. They were extremely impressed, and I expect to go back in a month and see it being used in full production.

As I was working yesterday with profiles, profile views, and profile bands, I threw up a band showing cut and fill data, much to the delight of my clients. I’ve seen this look before – slack-jawed, glassy eyes, not believing what they’re seeing. I sat there in about thirty seconds of silence, allowing it to sink in. At that point, from the side of the room, I heard “Wow, that’s almost sexual.”

I cracked up…I wonder if Autodesk marketing is looking for a new slogan?