Thursday, August 29, 2013

We Are Moving!

“The only thing constant in life is change!” - François de La Rochefoucauld

This statement being true, we are moving the IT’S NOT JUST DIRT blog to a new site. We’re joining forces with other industry leaders to create a “one stop shop” for all things technological in nature. The new site will include posts by other authors within the building, infrastructure and manufacturing industries, as well as a “New” technical support blog.

We would like to encourage you to follow us at http://blog.advancedsolutions.com/ for all of the up-to-the-minute posts, latest trends in technology and fun facts. 

You only have until September 3rd before IT’S NOT JUST DIRT will become obsolete.  Follow us today at  http://blog.advancedsolutions.com/ 

Cheers,

Rob, Leo & Kevin

Friday, July 5, 2013

Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 Hotfix 1

Autodesk has released Hotfix 1 for Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 which addresses a number of various issues found by customers and Autodesk.  As always, you should take a look at the read me file prior to installation.  It is important to note, that this Hotfix can be uninstalled from the control panel.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

BIM Specialist Certification

Autodesk has announced a new certification program that is based on a workflow.  The certification is called Roads and Highways Workflows using the 2014 Infrastructure Design suite.  Autodesk has been certifying users on individual products for quite some time, but this is something new.  The exam itself is broken down into the following topics:
            • Project Planning
            • Preliminary Design
            • Detailed Design
            • Visual Communication
The following are a sample of some of the objectives that may be tested during the certification exam:
            • Create a storyboard
            • Select a road style
            • Create a proposal
            • Import the .imx file into Civil 3D
            • Create the initial corridor
            • Preform clash detection
            • Calculate cut/fill
            • Render Images
Here is where you can find a complete list of objectives for the exam.  The exam will focus on such programs  as Civil 3D, Navisworks, 3Ds Max and various other products.

A book has been created by Ascent which matches the name of the certification and can be used for preparing for the exam. Information for taking an exam at one of our facilities can be found at the following Advanced Solutions link.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Shared Reference Point Tool

On the Autodesk Subscription Site, under the productivity tools for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014, you will find the Shared Reference Point Tool.  There is an installer for Civil 3D, which runs from the Toolbox, and then a second installer to run on Revit.


The extension exports an XML from Civil 3D with X,Y, and Z coordinates, along with the corresponding rotation and units.  This reference point defines the relationship between the site and building.

GEOREMOVE Command

As many of you are using the GEOMAP command, it has come to my attention that several users have tried to use this command, only to have an Aerial photograph inserted in an incorrect location.  This seems  to happen with existing older jobs that were created in prior versions of Civil 3D.  In order to get around this issue, I have had the users with this issue simply type the GEOREMOVE command, which clears the current coordinate system from the drawing.  After the coordinate system has been set to No Datum, No projection, simply go and re-assign the proper coordinate system, and the Aerial photograph  should come in the proper location.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Live Map Service - Civil 3D 2014

In Civil 3D 2014, Autodesk has introduced a live map service to acquire satellite images.  In order to to use this service, the user first needs to log into Autodesk 360, and have a coordinate system assigned to the drawing.  After logging in, the user simply needs to type GEOMAP on the command line.


The user is presented with several choices.  The first choice is Aerial.


The second choice is Road.



The third choice is Hybrid.  This is a combination of Aerial and Road.


Lastly, the user can simply select off to hide the imagery.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 - New Features

As you probably know by now, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 has been released to the masses.  I will try to summarize the list of new features that have been added or enhanced in this years version.  A good place to start as always is the help files.


          • Pressure Pipe Enhancements
            • Create Network from Objects
            • Can be added to cross section views
            • Can have assigned pay items in the Parts List
            • Can be used via the data shortcut
            • Sort parts lists by size
            • New annotation options
            • Can be added to plan production sheets
          • Extract Corridor Solids
          • Data references are saved in the drawing
          • Improved interoperability with InfraWorks (Otherwise known as AIM)
          • Survey Queries Import and Export

One of the more interesting features in Civil 3D 2014 is its backward compatibility with Civil 3D 2013.  This means that 2014 files can be opened and edited in 2013.  However, there are some limitations due to enhancements in 2014.  The screen capture below talks about the limitations.  This can also be found in the following link Round-Tripping Data between versions.



Lastly, here is the new logo for Autodesk going forward. 



Monday, March 18, 2013

Geotechnical Module for Civil 3D

Roughly a month ago, Autodesk released the Geotechnical module for subscription customers.  It can be found under the Productivity Tools for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013.


It is important to note that installation of SQL server as well.  After installing the module, you will see the following addition to the ribbon.


To begin the process of importing soil boring data, we will select import.  Before we can import any boring data, a drawing will need to exist, which means it must be saved.


The import data box allows us to select the appropriate files to be imported.  I'm bringing in data via csv.  There are also options to import data via AGS 4 and AGS 3.1.  Here is a link to AGS that discuses in further detail the formatting and group headings.  Since I have chosen a csv file type, I will be importing to files HOLE.csv and GEOL.csv.  It is important to note that in this version of the module, the csv files must be named exactly as I stated, including case sensitivity.  Samples of these files can be found at Keynetix, along with sample tutorials for using this module.


After selecting import, your boring data will be brought into your drawing.  As you can see from the screen capture, the borings are brought in with an x,y, and z location.  Note in the view on the right, the borings are broken down into various stratum.


From the Borehole Manager tab, when can select which borings we will like to include, along with assigning an appropriate style for the type of boring as seen below.


From the Strata Manager, we can select which surfaces we would like the module to create within Civil 3D.


The Hatch Manager allows the user to assign various colors and hatch patterns to an array of soil boring materials.  


Finally, the Create options allows the user to add the soil borings to profile view for a given alignment.


The borehole selection screen allows the user to choose which borings will be added to the profile view.


Now simply select create, and the soil boring data is added to the profile view.



Thursday, February 28, 2013

Issues with using Corridor Extents as Surface Boundary

While teaching recently a Civil 3D 2013 class we came upon an interesting dilemma with Corridor Surfaces.  When trying to constrain a Corridor surface using the corridor itself is now always presented as an option by default.  It may not always be to our advantage.



The issue is evident when the a subbase extends further out than the proposed TOP surface.  When trying to constrain the proposed TOP surface with the Corridor Extents, the surface will go further out than the Daylight.


The fix here is to constrain the surface using Add Automatically using Daylight or Add From a Polygon.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Help missing from Hydraflow Hydrographs

Today, one my clients was trying to look up some information for Hydrographs in the help content, but there was a problem, nothing happened.  Typically when selecting content from this program or any of the various Autodesk products, the user's guide pops up with content, index, and search options for the specific software.


After spending some time searching for a solution, I simply went back to an older version, in this case Civil 3D 2012, copied the following file, and overwrote the same one in Civil 3D 2013.

C:\ProgramFiles\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012\HHApps\Hydrographs.chm

The hep content now works as expected.  The file in 2013 must be corrupt.  If you do not have access to a previous version of the software, please let me know and I would be happy to send the file.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Adding Labels to Specific Links within a Code Set Style

From time to time, we may want Civil 3D label certain subassemblies within our corridor model.  The problem with the Top or Default code is that we get those links we want labeled, plus many others.  As you can see from the image below, this isn't what we want.


In order to get around this, we can go into our code set style and add some additional link codes that we will assign to just the links we wish to label.



Once we are editing the code set style, we can right click on links, and hit add.  Here we can add a link code for such things as foreslope, ditch, etc.  These additional codes will allow us to specifically assign them to certain links.  After selecting add, it will ask for the link style witch isn't important.


After selecting the link style, you will notice that it makes a new link code named new code.  We can rename this to Ditch, or whatever additional feature we wish to label.  Here we can also assign an appropriate label style to label elevation, slope, or whatever data we wish to convey.


The following screen capture depicts what the new code set style should look like after creating the additional codes with an appropriate label style.


Now that we have created the two additional link codes, we can go into the subassembly properties of the two individual links.



From the parameters tab, we simply go to the link codes, put in a coma, and add the appropriate code we just created, in this instance we would add ditch.  It is important that we spell the code to match exactly with the code created, upper or lower case does matter.



We can do the same for the foreslope as well.  Here is what the subassemblies look like.


This process will save time on labeling, and these styles can ultimately be added to the corporate template for  others to use.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Assemblies: Look Wrong but Build Right

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I hope I can prepare you when it happens to you.


When laying out Assemblies sometimes the overall look can wrong, some subassemblies will even include a label “Layout Mode” to let you know that when processed in a corridor will look right.


Assemblies are building blocks to build a corridor, and are NOT intended to be plotted, we have Standard Details Sheets for that. . I’ve notice this behavior in the Generic Link to Marked Point and some Medians.



Looking at a MEDIAN assembly, this one is closing the gap from Left to Right hooking to the MarkedPoint (triangle), with positive grades crowning upward.


When built in the corridor and placed in the cross section, the positive grades.




Now using the same subassembly on the other side of the median, closing the gap from Right to Left. This time we will hooked to the MarkedPoint (triangle) will cause the subassembly to flip.



Because the median subassembly had to flip to connect, the original positive grades are now inverted too.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Why isn't my pipe round?

Have you ever tried to show a pipe crossing in profile view or section view and it looks like the following:


As you can see from the screen capture, it looks more like a hex nut  rather than a pipe.  The cause of this is a system variable called FACETDEV.  The default value for the variable is set to .5 feet.  This variable works very similar to how the mid ordinate distance does for contours.  Civil 3D is drawing small line segments to represent the circular pipe.  If you change the variable to say .01, you end up with what you see below.


This is probably what most of you would expect to see.  I would like to point out that this variable will hold if changed in your corporate template, meaning you should only need to change this once.  Lastly, you may notice some drawing performance depending on how low you set the value, so you may need to play with it to get the right balance between performance and display.   



Friday, January 11, 2013

Template Tricks

I was recently asked by a IT manager if I have any creative tricks for stream ling the template creation process. In this blog, I will go over two such techniques I use.   The first technique I will go over is getting the object layers assigned in the template.  Typically, I chose to make all of the objects layer with a C3D- prefix, unless the client has some predefined ones.  So an example of this would be C3D-Alignment.  Now, rather than type each one, we can open a drawing/template with all those objects layers all ready assigned, like the one shown below.



Now with the blank template as the current drawing, I only need to edit the drawing settings of the other template/drawing that has the object layers assigned.  I then select the object layers tab and simply hit OK.



As you can see from the screen capture below, the object layers have been transferred to the blank template.  



The second trick I like to use is to have three predefined pipe networks all ready created within the template, which you can see in the following screen capture.



It is important to note that these networks are networks in name only, and they don't currently contain pipes or structures.  Now what they do contain are object layers, like you can see in the capture below.


By having the networks predefined, the user doesn't have to set these layers when they start the pipe network creation process.  All the user needs to do is edit the appropriate network, and start laying out pipe.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Intersecting SURFACE Boundaries

Some time ago... a day, a week, a month, who knows, I wanted to compare 2 TIN Surfaces and figure out the EXACT location of where the Surfaces touched. Ended up coming up with these steps: 

         1. Create a TIN Volume Surface 
         2. Ran am Analysis to User Contour Elevation 0
         3. Then Extract the Created User Contour as a Line 



Start by Creating a New TIN Volume Surface
(in this example a POND will be compared against a CROSSING plane) 


The Volume Surface is calculated from elevation 0, it will appears below the TIN Surfaces. 


To simplify view set TIN surfaces to No Display, and leave VOLUME Surface on


The Volume Surface is shown here using a Tin & Points Style. Notice how the Pond hole is filled up. A Surface Analysis to a User Specified Contour needs to be done to find the intersecting boundary.



Before running the Analysis, make sure the User Contour component is visible in the used surface style. The color has been changed to RED for it to stand out in Plan View


Then the VOLUME Surface Properties dialog box to the Analyses Tab, Select User-defined Contours as the Type. Presses on the Range to 1 and In the Range Detail area set the Elevation value in the row to 0.00


The result should be a POLYLINE marking the location of where the 2 Surfaces intersect.


The resulting Boundary Outline can be extracted. By selecting the surface and going to the Contextual Ribbon. From the Tools Panel use the Extract Objects and Uncheck everything except User Contours.


The final product is a 2D AutoCAD Polyline, that can be selected and edited.