The Miracle (and Reality) of Civil 3D Label Text Sizing

You've heard the rumors. And yes, they are true. CIVIL 3D AUTOSIZES YOUR TEXT ACCORDING TO YOUR VIEWPORT SCALE So you throw away that leroy chart you had thumbtacked to your cube wall. And you dive in to Civil 3D. And then... what the heck??? She said it would resize! Why is it so big? RETURN THIS SOFTWARE JUNK. Hold on. Autosize does not mean MIND READ. In the old world, you thought about your plotted text height- maybe say, 0.08". Then you did some mental math based on your drawing viewport scale, the angle of the sun and your lunch tab to come up with a textstyle height in model space that would plot for you. Change the scale of the drawing? Then you needed to reinsert all that text. Or maintain a duplicate. When I worked in the metric world in large neighborhoods, we maintained two sets of text. Text that was readable on 1:1000 drawings, and text that was readable at 1:500. Back here on the east coast with small sites, we varied from 1"=10' to 1"=500' and text was always an issue. So what does autosize mean then, Dana? Here is a drawing with a 1"= 100' viewport. Looks good from afar. (Remember, click on any image to see it larger) A closer look at the structure label style reveals that this label style has been set up to have 0.08" text. Which means, I should expect that REGARDLESS of my viewport scale. So I come in closer in paperspace and measure my text. Yes- it does measure 0.08". When I plot this sheet, I can measure with a ruler and get the same result. MY TEXT PLOTS 0.08" EVERY TIME. So you don't believe me? Let's change the viewport scale to 1"=200' and regenall. Ok, so something looks weird. Why is my text suddenly HUGE. Dana is such a liar. This didn't help me at all! But what happened here is exactly what I expected based on my label style. I told it - PLOT AT 0.08" NO MATTER WHAT. So my drawing elements got smaller to reflect the change in viewport scale. But my text is still literally, 0.08". And I mean, as plotted. Literally. 0.08". So why do I keep saying this over and over? We are so used to the mental math involved in setting text size in model space that we cannot fathom that something would always stay steady in size regardless of the viewport scale. This applies to any and every viewport. So if I had two different viewports showing this same text, the text would size itself to be 0.08" in each one of them, even if one was 1"=100' and one was 1"=30'. Or any other iteration. As you have noticed, perhaps the same text size is not appropriate for all viewport scales. In this case, I would probably want to have another label style with a smaller plotted text height, like 0.06 or 0.04. So does this save you any effort? Sure, as long as you want the same plotted text height. Civil 3D also makes it easier to generate multiple text labels that are different sizes and update dynamically. So if I had a set of labels that was a 0.04" and one that was 0.08" and I had to change the pipe invert, both texts would be updated right away with the invert change. So even if I need double labeling, it isn't double the work.

_Recover Revisited Regarding Reattaching References

I crack me up. Anyway, mea culpa, I was wrong. I'll repeat that, I was wrong. The problems I ran into last week had nothing to do with the _recover file, but with the Pipe Network and Data References I was using. At the time, I did speak with some brilliant guys, everything else seemed to be working, and the only culprit we could find was the use of the _recover file. A week later, things start going south again, we have a bit more time to investigate, and no _recover was involved. More conversations, e-mails and a full Vault shipment later, and it appears the pipes were the source of my problem. It would appear that the problems will be addressed in the SP2 release (No, I don't know when,) and we'll move forward. In the meantime, _recover still gives me the creeps. If I haven't done just a ton of work since my last save, I would simply go back to the last saved version, or to getting the Latest Version from the Vault. With that said... If you've done a lot of work, and _recover is your only hope, then try this out. I don't like the Naming Conflicts that arise, but I think I can work around them. This technique is a best guess! I don't have a crash suspect handy, but I've moved data references using this technique before. Here's how:

1. I have a drawing called PIPES.dwg. I've checked it out and in a couple of times, it has an alignment (LINE-A) and a pipe network (SANI). I manage to bomb out of Acad, and go ahead and create the PIPES_Recover.dwg. Remember that Vault has PIPES.dwg checked out to me at this point.
2. Open C3D backup, and open the PIPES_recover.dwg from your working folder. Perform a SAVEAS and overwrite the working folder version of your PIPES.dwg.
3. Delete the LINE-A and SANI from the drawing, then check it back in, but keep it checked out. This should remove the references to those objects in the Project.xml file.
4. Close (Autocad CLOSE) the PIPES.dwg and reopen the PIPES_recover.dwg. Because you have PIPES.dwg checked out, you should be able to now SAVEAS on the PIPES_recover.dwg and overwrite the PIPES.dwg file.
5. Reopen PIPES.dwg and check it back in. You should now be able to publish your LINE-A and SANI network without problem.

I cannot test this right now, it's time to go push the kiddo on the swing. If you crash out, and recover is your hope, it's worth a shot. Let me know how it works. If it doesn't work, I'll post that as well!

An Update: Wblock and Vault and _recover

Well, it seems that wblocking a dwg with data objects in it is NOT the end of the world. My speculation was thankfully incorrect. There does seem to be an issue the first time you try to check in a wblocked version of your drawing, but if yo uncheck the objects, check in the dwg, then check it out and in one more time, they appear to slide right in. More investigation is still in order, and the whole thing makes me nervous to be honest. It works, but it's an exciting ride.... Update Part 2: _recover might not be the problem. Yep, I might be wrong. It's been known to happen. Right now we're tracking down a problem with pipe networks and certain labels that might be the source of my fun. A full recant to come? Possibly, stay tuned, dear reader.

Pipe Export Saga Part 2.

As Dana continues thrashing a road down the Civil 3D pipes path she managed to find another little gotcha in the export code. The images below should paint the the picture. I am posting an updated version that will deal with this as well. Download the update here.

It's Coming....

After months of prep work, testing and development, the Autodesk Civil Engineering Community is on the verge of going live. An exciting collection of tools, resources, tricks, hacks, and of course blogs will be available to all in the very near future. With a front page full of useful information, extended profiles of members and direct feeds to the discussion groups, this might be the second most useful Civil 3D site on the net...after this one of course! The team tells me that the site will go live soon, but here's your sneak peek! The Front Page. A quick listing of the top news, resources, activity in the discussion groups. All customizable and built just for your interests. How does it know your interests? Well.... You tell it about you on the Profile Page. Similar to the AU Online from last year, it lets you tell the rest of the community about YOU...down to how much you love movies and long windy walks. My Network. This is your place to find your peers, pals, potential partners and resources for training or engineering! The Dan & Dave Show Blog (Along with the great Anthony Governanti and links to peer blogs): Great Articles on C3D from the rags and Tech Pubs: So, there's the 10,000 foot view of the CE Community coming soon from Autodesk. Keep watching, we'll have some more exclusive sneak peeks as the launch gets closer! And no, you can't have the link yet.

Because Not Enough of You Hang out in Vault...

Not nearly enough Civil 3D users frequent the Vault newsgroups yet. One of the Autodesk folks was kind enough to point out a Hotfix that most Civil users know NOTHING about...even though it has been out for over a month. Hey Support guys, why don't you add stuff like this to the C3D downloads instead of letting users find this stuff on their own?

Hotfix: Microsoft Word slow after Vault Add-in installation Published date: 2006-07-19 ID: TS1057489 Applies to: Autodesk® Productstream™ 5, Autodesk® Vault 5 AND OH YEAH, all the C3D users using those who installed Vault Issue After you installed the Vault Word Add-in, you noticed that performance was slow when you were typing in Word. Performance degraded even further when you were working on documents that resided on a remote server or a slow network. Solution To install the hotfix: Download and unzip the TS1057489.zip file into a temporary directory. Double-click on the TS1057489.exe to install the update.

So, keep an eye on those Vault fixes. Even if you're not USING Vault, it could be using you.

Parcel Migration and Parcel Import- Don't Let them Bite You

I received a drawing to look at this week for an unrelated reason, and I noted something that strikes fear into my heart. In the Prospector Tab, there was a Site called "MIGRATED PARCELS" It might as well have said "ANTHRAX SPORES" Because that is how diseased migrated parcels are. Perhaps, that sounds harsh. But let's flash back to June 2005. Yes, June 2005. For those of you old enough to remember June of 2005, that was Civil 3D 2006 PRE SP1. And we all know that Civil 3D 2006 was a tough dinner date before Hot Fix 2. I was working with a group who was new to Civil 3D. The idea of free form creation of parcels was a foreign one to them, and to be frank, to me as well. I was pretty new at this. Since they had a land desktop project that they had started with, and since there was a migration option for parcels under “Import Data from Land Desktop” it seemed a perfectly reasonable solution- let’s bring ‘em forward. So we did. All seemed fine. They were parcels like any other, you could apply styles… But then, the inevitable editing has to happen. See, I get tricked into believing the Stone Sculpture people. They tell me- this site plan isn’t going to change. It’s locked in stone. No way no how. The county has approved it this way. The told is it will never change. Let’s just bring it in the easy way. Then three days later- kaboom. Changes. So we try to grip edit these beasts and get the job done. It seems to go OK. BUT- I spent the next few weekends at their office in my sweatpants and ball cap trying to figure out why we couldn’t open these drawings anymore. It just seemed so unreal to me that a few weeks before, I had been at BootCamp with a gleam in my eye totally psyched to hit the streets with this. I had drawings in to Autodesk that came back with the “We’re sorry, it’s a known issue” response. What the heck? WHAT is a known issue? Why didn’t this work? I couldn’t tell you then. It took me until June 3, 2006 to truly figure it out and articulate it. (See Parcel Rules, Explained) I also noticed the same thing happened when you brought Parcels in through LandXML, or defined side-by-side parcels from closed polylines. Here is why: DUPLICATE EDGES In Parcel Rules, we see that TWO LOTS share ONE LOT LINE. When you migrate parcels from Land Desktop, it sees each one individually and NOT as part of an overall web of topology. LandXML does this to a lesser degree, but it still does it. Here are some examples: Now let’s look at a LandXML example. Here is the drawing as done in a Civil 3D Topology. I’ll export to LandXML and bring them back in. It is a tight topology. No errors. Carefully constructed so that each parcel segment connects but does not overlap with another side geometry element. LandXML Export- JUST the parcels. New drawing (slightly different style template) LandXML Import The moral of the story: Migrating Parcels from Land Desktop = NEVER Migrating Parcels through LandXML = KNOW THE LIMITS How do we do it then? It is not as “instant” but the rewards are many if you use your old parcel linework as a guide and recreate those parcels using the layout tools. You can use free form create and just snap, crackle, pop through your whole site quickly. Of course, this depends on good drawing geometry. But that, my friends, is the subject of another post. Related posts: Parcel Rules Explained How to Corrupt a Civil 3D Drawing in one easy step How to Approach Site Geometry Site Geometry and Transitions

Vault and _recover. It's Not a Happy Marriage.

Sorry for the wordiness of this one, I don't have pretty pictures, but carry on, faithful reader!

Years ago, Autodesk realized that their products would crash, sometimes with little warning. They got smart and began creating a _recover.dwg file as part of their error handling. This worked well, people could open the _recover, saveas, and get on with their lives. Nifty! Here's the kicker. Vault doesn't like your _recover.dwg. Not one bit. Vault considers that file an interloper, a wrench in the works, a fly in the ointment, a pox on its house. Here's a situation for you:

1. A wildly efficient (probably trained by EE!) Vault-using, data reference loving user crashes C3D for whatever reason. Acad engine asks if the user wants to create a *_recover.dwg. User answers yes. Vault has NO knowledge of the crash, drawing is still checked out to that user. OK so far.
2. User opens up Civil 3D, opens the _recover.dwg and performs a saveas to replace the original vaulted file in the working folder. This should be ok, right?
3. A right-click on the file name in Prospector presents Sync to Project (because the project has references,) and Add to Project (because the file info is different,) but NO check in option. Any attempt to Add to Project results in "File by that name already exists in folder XYZ, blah blah blah." Essentially, the user cannot check in and overwrite the existing data. Uh-oh. This isn't good.
4. The new drawing (from _recover.dwg) can be added if the drawing is deleted entirely from Vault. This DESTROYS the versioning, as well as any Civil 3D objects that might be sharing data from within that .dwg file. Bad idea, but maybe...?
5. If you do take that step, and get the drawing back into Vault by deleting the existing instance of that drawing from the Vault structure, you cannot check in any objects that were shared previously because of naming conflicts. The only way I was able to get those objects back in to the Vault Project and available for referencing was by hard hacking the project.xml to remove those item references. IE will show the file very clearly, but is non editable. NOTEPAD shows the file as one long line. This is not for the faint of heart, and could completely hose your project. Ugly, but doable.
6. Here's the fun part, kids! If you do manage to get that file back in, with the objects now checked in and ready for references, ANY drawing that was referencing the original drawing and objects is now hosed. That drawing cannot be opened, recovered. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. It's toast. And now the wheels are off the bus, you're praying LDT still works, and it's time to think about polishing up the résumé.

Moral of the story? Don't use that freaking _recover.dwg, it will hose your Vault data. I can only say that I find this interesting since Autodesk wants to push people into Vault from all disciplines, yet one of their major recovery tools completely botches Vaulted data.

I bet this would also happen if you went to the wblock everything to a new drawing in cases of corrupt drawing files. The object handles change and that hoses so much within the Vault Civil 3D shortcuts. If you test this, let me know, it's on my To-Do list, but I've not made it there yet.

Admittedly, much of this is conjecture, and I could be wrong. EE has spoken with Manchester about this behavior, and they agree with my theory. Here's hoping it can be addressed in a future Service Pack or in 2008.

In the meantime...Don't use the _recover. Save early, save often, and go back to the Working Folder copy when you do crash.

Based on great feedback, I've added a Mail this Article button to the blog. Click the little envelope down to the right here and you can send your favorite civil3d.com articles to your peers and friends easier than ever! Thanks for visiting and your feedback! JW

Grand Opening Class Specials

To celebrate our new digs, Engineered Efficiency, Inc. is presenting two advanced hands-on training classes on Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 for up to 18 PDH credits. Register for these Grand Opening classes and get up to $350 in FREE training per person attending. Call for info on discounts for multiple attendees from your organization. Call 630-773-TRAIN (8724) or e-mail to sign up. Classes will be held in EE's new state of the art training lab, located in Itasca, Illinois. Click here for a map. Advanced Intersections for Local Roads August 29, 2006 (Tuesday) 1-day Civil 3D Advanced Intersections for Local Roads (Hands On Lab!) GRAND OPENING DISCOUNT: Normally $425. This class $325. Save $100! Includes one day of training; Courseware; Data sets; Free Continental Breakfast & Lunch Class will be instructed by Professional Engineer, Eligible class participants will receive 6.0 PDHs Advanced Grading for Residential Design September 12 and 13, 2006 (Tuesday and Wednesday) 2-day Civil 3D Advanced Grading for Residential Design (Hands On Lab) GRAND OPENING DISCOUNT: Normally $850. This class $650. Save $200! Includes two days of training; Courseware; Data sets; Free Continental Breakfast & Lunch Class instructed by Professional Engineer: Eligible class participants will receive 12.0 PDHs Trainees who register for both courses will receive another $50 discount, for a total saving of $350 About the instructor: Mark J. Scacco, PE has been a consultant in the land development and construction industry for over a decade and has experience in all phases of development, from conceptual preliminary design through final platting and construction. He has designed projects ranging from small 1-acre sites to 500-acre, multi-phase subdivisions and is still currently active as a civil designer. Mark received his BSCE from Purdue University and is a registered Professional Engineer in Illinois. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the Geospatial Information & Technology Association. Mark has been using AutoCAD since 1992, Softdesk since release 8 and the entire suite of Autodesk Civil/Survey products since their initial release in 1998 and he is an Autodesk Certified Instructor. Mark worked with Autodesk to create the Civil 3D Implementation Certified Expert courseware and exam and has trained and tested Application Engineers from dozens of resellers from across the nation and in the Chicago area.

Learning Curves... and Segments

In my previous post about sculpture vs. modeling, I mentioned a group that really latched on to the modeling aspect and had early success with our training material. I received an email from my friend the project manager today that I must share. A little setup- this is a small site plan that I am helping out with some conceptual layout, but the PM wanted one of her newly oriented interns to take a stab at it with Civil 3D first. From the PM: "I think she just figured the template thing out, after a frustating day yesterday." And attached drawing that looks like this: I realize this isn't the most complicated site plan, but it is a thing of beauty. There are no drawing errors, no topology issues. The drawing is tight, well done and clean. It is also very attractive. Why? 1) One day of frustration is about 1/100th of the days of frustration I experienced while trying to master parcels. I was a good 4 months into it before I could produce a plan that was this tight, this error free and this well labeled. 2) None of the label styles nor object styles in this drawing are default. I left them a starter .dwt with a few extras in it, but each one of these was created from scratch by the intern. Now, perhaps you say "big deal", but the first few Civil 3D label styles you create are difficult. Consider also that I did NOT teach them how to make styles during my two days- we just did some overview skills. So why is this so darned inspiring? Because it says to me that it IS possible to dive into Civil 3D and get stuff working well. If you have an open mind, get some baseline training and commit yourself to seek coaching and learning DAILY- all things are possible.

One Station/Offset- HOLD the Offset, please!

Just because you have a label type called, say, Station/Offset, doesn't mean you have to use the offset part. Nor does it mean you are limited to just station/offset in your label. This goes for many different types of labels. My model reference/expression labels are technically speaking, "Station/Offset" labels, but they don't look like any omlette I've ever eaten. There was a request for a label that looked like this: Here is how to make it. Note each angle, attachment point and other aspects show to recreate on your end. Note that you DO NOT want this to rotate with the view. You want it oriented with respect to the object. In this case, 90 angle from the alignment. When I say "HARD TEXT", I mean text that you type in that is not harvesting data from the model, it is always the same no matter what. We could have a different style for every case of hard text, or we can override later. I show that at the end. Now harvest the station. Alignments>Labels Station Offset Add it, use an offset of Zero. To override text in certain labels (this works for Station Offset, note and a few other label types, but not all) Type in the box that comes up. An alternative to dtext/mtext for sure.

Inverts Inverts Everywhere

So I spend the weekend playing with playdough to try to train my mind in the Clay Sculpture paradigm, but when I comes to pipes, I still dig my spreadsheets. In the old days, I would make an 11X17 print of the site, and use a red pen (red=sewer in my head and always will) and mark in some prelim structure locations, pipes, etc. and use my scale to populate a simple sheet like this. Today, I sketched my pipes and structures in my dwg as a pipe network. I have a composite FG for the rims to target, but otherwise I ignored the vertical- including inverts and cover. Then I made my simple sheet. I did this entirely by hand for today, but I am working on some Excel magic to do lookups from info copied into Excel from the Prospector. Or perhaps something even better. We shall see. I just have a really simple format that I like to follow. (And yes, I know that in most parts of the world, you cannot connect a CB directly to another CB) The above sheet is very basic- just the Upstream and Downstream Structure Number, Length of Pipe (2D CL to CL in this case), Slope, Size of pipe in feet (from outer top to invert- 15" ID plus 3" thick in this case), Invert out Up Structure (or, start invert of the pipe) Invert into Down Structure (or, end invert of the pipe) Rim Elevation There is a sample VBA that ships with Civil 3D that Nick mentions in his post today. However, the format that it requires for reimport is nothing like my little goofy sheet. But, not too hard to get where I need it to be. I just added a column for pipe name, then did a little copy and paste to end up with this: Which I could sort to get this: This last batch I just pasted into the sheet that the ExporttoExcel VBA makes, and executed the ImportfromExcel VBA. (Or whatever they are called) Once Nick fixed the problem with the handles, it worked like a charm. More to come, as this is a key component of my Stormwater Management using Civil 3D class at Autodesk University. Many firms already have a sheet like this one, and it usually also has things like velocity, mannings equations, coefficients, etc. Those sheets you are already using can be added into this equation. So maybe you will have to talk the boss into sending you to AU after all.

Pipes Pipes and More Pipes

As the story goes Dana was working on this weekends design project with pipe networks. So I am idly minding my own business when I get an IM asking if I have any clue why the import portion from the pipes import/export routine that someone down Manchester way posted wasn't working, of course it was posted with no implied warranty. So I began digging around to see what I could find. The routine worked just fine on the Getting started guide pipes drawing. An IM later and I had Dana's current dwg. Now I could see the error. Certain pipes inverts were not being updated as expected. After some hunting I was able to track down the error. Autocad and thus Civil3D track items by something called the handle(A unique identifier made up of letters and numbers for each object). The problem in this case was some of the handles were numbers which include an E, such as 305E8. Now in most cases this wouldn't be a problem, excel however being a spreadsheet application sees that number as 3.05E+10. When one went to import the adjustments made in the spreadsheet no object in the drawing had a handle 30500000000 which was causing pipes not to get their updates. I simply added a line to the export routine which formats the first column in the workbook to be text and stops excel from converting any of the handle values which happen to contain an E into scientific notation. So here is a link to the updated code.

Make Reading Blogs Easier (aka What is that weird Orange Square?)

This whole blog thing was new to me, so every once in awhile, I want to take the time to explain some of the options you have for reading Civil 3D Rocks and Civil3D.com You may have seen this little orange square and text appearing around my blog and others: CIVIL 3D ROCKS Civil3D.com What does this mean? Well, if you love reading blogs but find it hard to get to each website every day, you can have the posts delivered to, kinda like email. This threw me for a loop-- where do I read it? Is this something I have to buy? And what the heck does "FEED" mean and what is "RSS"? "Feed" is a term that tells your reader where the blog lives. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and you could think of it as "How to Deliver that FEED to your inbox". To use this, you don't have to buy anything. In fact, you may already use a tool that will allow you to read your blogs daily. If you use a yahoo home page, or a google homepage- in addition to allowing you to track your local weather and news, you can add your favorite blogs! Lately, I have been using my Google homepage to read my blogs. Just go to www.google.com and sign up to have a personalized homepage. Another free one that works nicely is Bloglines. I used it for awhile. You just set www.bloglines.com as your internet home page and it shows you what is new at your sites. Other ideas- when I posted on this subject in the past, some folks make comments with suggestions of readers that they like. So check this link out, too. Civil 3D Rocks: Keep up with your Blogs So how to get started? Click on the orange square and follow the directions. Here is what the link takes you to:

AOTC: Residential Grading

This title is newly updated and available at the Autodesk E-Store. Over 80% of the book was changed to reflect new methodology as users (and the authors!) have gotten more comfortable wth the program. Changes include:

• Better knuckle modeling
• Revised surface use and dynamic blocks for pad grading
• Use of one corridor to drive temporary and final surface models
• Wide use of feature lines for grading and drainage considerations

We will be giving away copies of this book at our booth and in the halls at AU this year. Come by and register to win one!

Oh, and for any resellers that are reading, please don't try to teach this in a day, I'm not sure why the estore says that it's a one day class. We designed it as three, shrank it to two. If your students are new or even just getting past Essentials, it will be every bit of two days. We'd like to work with you to present this to your clients, please e-mail me for more information!

Thanks, Matt!

Matt Kolberg from GCS Corp. in Vancouver was kind enough to post a small DVB file today that will push your structure rims to the reference surface if that surface has changed since the original placement. With his permission, I've reposted it here. Here's his disclaimer, but I think it works pretty well in my quick testing. From Matt's newsgroup post:

Run the routine, then it asks to do an entire network, or to select certain structures. It then resizes structures based on this selection. ***DISCLAIMER***This file is provided as freeware, it is BETA software and will always beso. I have tested it only on one computer and one OS, capishe? I am not aprofessional software developer and as such, the code may not look pretty,or have all of the error checking it should. In fact, I really don't care.It does what I want right now and that's all that matters in my office.I accept no responsibility if this routine FUBAR's your drawing, though I really hope it doesn't, and I don't expect it to.***DISCLAIMER***

Click the header of this post to download. Thank you again, Mr. Kolberg. Updated at 9:10 CDT based on an e-mail from Matt. The download is the latest version.-JW

Rethinking your Approach: Clay Model vs Stone Sculpture

So, I make an appearance ... I had much internal debate if this was a post for Civil 3D Rocks or if this should be my first post over here. And Civil3D.com won out. I think it is about time this frat house took the beer cans off the Christmas tree and got some pink frilly curtains. Lately, I have been spending a lot of time with different types of Civil 3D users. There are two groups that come to mind specifically. Group 1: Two incredibly talented and experienced Civil Designers. These guys teach me new stuff every time we work together. They have the whole site figured out in their heads. They work in a very point/cogo paradigm. They can layout and design a perfect site on the first try in Land Desktop with no problem. Tight enough to make you cry. But they STRUGGLED with Civil 3D. And they still have their doubts. We have spent six days together on a pilot project, plus a few more. After day three, we had a 20 lot site plan that they were almost happy with. Just the parcels. Group 2: Four summer interns (Civil Engineering Students) and two young EITs. They are developmental in their understanding of "good design" but they are eager and tech savvy. I came in with absolutely no expectation of getting anything done. I reluctantly dragged my sorry self in there as a favor to the owner, a good friend of mine, fully prepared for blank stares all day. But by the end of the day, each one of them had a fully parceled subdivision, including a cul de sac, a transitioning corridor, several surfaces with several analyses applied, and the list goes on. I barely even taught anything- I'd just give a few guidelines and they'd figure it out. SO- WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE HERE? The first is that we have to know the difference between having a site fully MODELED versus having a site fully DESIGNED. Group 1 had their site fully DESIGNED then began creating a MODEL. Group 2 had their site fully MODELED then would need to iterate and seek feedback before their DESIGN would be complete. Maybe this would help you visualize what I am talking about. Think of sculpting with stone. You are given one block of granite and the appropriate chiseling tools to create this horse. You are suddenly in a position where each strike of the hammer is irreversible. So instead of diving in an experimenting, you take a lot of time really working out your design and carefully plan each strike. You try to get as many of your trials done in your head and on paper because you know it is difficult to make the change once the granite has been shaped. Now consider your kid coming back and saying they want a pig instead. Time for a new block of granite. Think of building with clay. Or playdough even. If you want to model a horse with playdough, you can start with a shapeless blob, then give it a general horse shape, then slowly refine. You can change your mind and start over completely, or you can just redo a portion of the horse- one leg, the head, etc. Either way, the dough is forgiving and resilient. Finally, you can make the last minute touches like buttons for eyes or different color dough for mane and tail. But if your kid comes back later and says he wants a pig instead, you could easily break it down to bare shapes and start again without having to completely redo the entire form. So Group 1 comes from a Stone World where changes in the CAD environment require so much bookkeeping and sheet changing that they want to have every detail ironed out before even picking up the mouse. They want every parcel boundary they create to be the "right" location. Instead of allowing me to show them how to stock their toolbox with different playdough cutting tools, they want me to essentially show them how to make Civil 3D draft as if it were AutoCAD. This means lots of fixed lines and curves on alignments, lots of fixed parcel lines, etc. and not much flexibility above and beyond what regular AutoCAD entities could give them. Group 2 is happy with playdough. They want to experiement with shapes and textures. They want to get the aligments, profiles and corridors built in a fashion that makes sense from a reactivity point of view, then play around with grades and constantly visualize the results in 3D. They want to see where their mistakes are in 3d view, then adjust, rebuilt and continue. While they still certainly need guidance to make sure their design comes together well- they can quickly make those changes and see the results of their efforts immediately. Both groups can certainly benefit from Civil 3D. Even when used as a Stone Chisel, Civil 3D makes labeling and annotation really easy, adjusts your text sizes, reacts to revisions, helps you compute areas and many other tasks. But the real power and the real productivity gains come from those who can change their view of design from the "Red Pen and Paper" world of Stone to the experimental and iterative world of a Clay Model. Perhaps is seems scary- but think about your firm, your future, your competition. What are you delivering? What are they delivering? How quickly can you change your design? What makes your firm worth more than a manual drafting house? Granite is expensive to cast aside, while playdough is reusable- and a whole lot more fun, too.

Take My Style...Please!

It's been documented in the groups a couple of times, but I build this style everytime I go to training. This Profile Curve Label Style has the High Point and Low Point components in one label. You can use this style on all vertical curves and the HP or LP will only be labeled if they actually exist. Place this in your standard design profile bandset, and get on with life. Click here to download the DWG. It only has the one style in it, so open it, then drag and drop to your template for immediate use. Busy couple of days around here, and there's still more to come!

EE RAS Tools, Beta 2

Engineered Efficiency, Inc. is pleased to announce the availability of RAS Tools Beta 2. Please send an e-mail to ras@civil3d.com and you will receive a link to the exe file for download. If you problems receiving the link or do not get a quick reply, please email me directly, and I will get you a copy. Some mail systems we have tested do not like the direct link to an executable file. Good IT folks in those places. Improvements since B1:

• Improved speed on processing and exporting.
• Toolbox installation batch file included
• CUI Toolbar for execution, with documentation
• Existing alignments valid for section and bank selections
• Improved error checking for section and Alignment direction

Known Issues:

• In some cases the section list will be blank, but the exported file is sound.
• Some alignment creation and manipulation methods can cause the HEC-RAS symbolic arrow to point in the wrong direction.

This beta is time and section limited because we are testing those mechanisms as well. Please send comments directly to me, and thank you for your interest.

Have a Drink...

"You're a lucky, lucky, lucky little boy. 'Cause you know why? You get to drink from... the FIRE HOOOOOSE!" I'm pleased to announce that Jason Hickey and Dana Probert will be adding their knowledge and insight to civil3d.com in the near future. I'm hoping this will help create a more dynamic conversation between us and give our visitors more information than they know what to do with, drinking from the fire hose if you will. We will be attempting to merge the articles from their previous blogs into this one. I've also added Blogger's search bar across the top, allowing you to search this blog for older articles. I'm not thrilled with its appearance, we'll see what happens. Please feel free to comment and offer your feedback! To HEC with that thing, Google Search has been added in the right hand pane. Oh, and you should still come back tomorrow, more on the way...

Watch This Space

Come back on Friday. It will be worth it. Really.

Getting objects out of vault.

I am not sure that this is going to happen to any of you out there, but if you ever run across this you will know. Anyhow was having a discussion with a colleague about Vault and he asked this question:"If I check a drawing and object into vault but I later decide I do not want that object to be shared what do I do?" You cant delete the object because you want to keep it in the design, the desire is just to no longer have it shared. So I did a little digging and here are the results. You can't right click anywhere and remove the sharing, even if no data shortcuts have been created "<" cough">" Feature Request(\end cough). The Process is as follows: Original objects as added to vault. 1.) Start Vault Explorer 2.) Login to your Vault 3.) Select the project in question 4.) Select the project XML right click and choose check out 5.)You will need to select somewhere other than your working folder to save the file, as there is already a copy there. 6.)Open the XML file up in your favorite text editor, or XML editor if you have one. 7.) Look for your object in the list, each shortcut starts with <shortcut> My EG Shortcut looks like this: <Shortcut name="$\Sample\GSG_surfaces.dwg:Eg"> <Criteria> <File name="$\Sample\GSG_surfaces.dwg"/> <Object type="AeccDbSurfaceTin" useType="0" name="Eg" useName="0" version="1" useVersion="0" handleLow="3335" handleHigh="0" useHandle="-1"/> <DisplayProperties layer="0" useLayer="0" color="1" useColor="0" lineType="ByLayer" useLineType="0" lineWeight="0" useLineWeight="0"/> <Vault sourceDrawingMasterFileId="217" parentHandleHigh="0" parentHandleLow="0" objectDescription="EG BACKUP"/> </Criteria> </Shortcut> 8. So in order to remove that object from being shared, just wipe out that <shortcut> to <\Shortcut> for the object in question. 9. Save your project.xml 10. Check it back into the vault. Voila the object is no longer shared in the project to others. *Someone over at autodesk might be shaking their head at me right now as they read this, if I get told this is bad idea I will be sure and let you all know. Like I said, I was just answering a question that was asked of me. Oh and BTW, be careful when you are playing with that XML file, you can hose your project good in there. I don't think it is going to cause me any problems though, cause I have done something similar with projects in 06 and contrary to popular belief things with vault aren't that much different.

The only Civil 3D setting that isn't stored in your template

Ok, so I exaggerated a bit. For those of you who aren't News Group nerds like myself, we were having a discussion about custom pipe and structures and how to share those amongst our organizations. Having played the CAD management game a time or two I prefer to put as much of my standards in a single network location as possible. The less often I am copying things to all the stations or writing batch files the better. So my suggestion for sharing the Pipes and Structures was to place the catalogs on a network location. John then popped his head out of his gopher hole and asked why he couldn't find the setting anywhere to do what I had suggested. The answer is because it is the only setting that isn't controlled by the template you began your drawing with(there are probably others but that ruins the drama of this post). Instead it is found in the Pipes menu, the command is called Set Pipe Network Catalog... I've attached a screen shot for reference. But lunch is over now, so I have to get back to work before the boss checks in.