Civil Highways

Archive for March, 2010

Vault Replication 2.0

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

By Darren Hartenstine

No, this isn’t a new product coming out from Autodesk anytime soon.  But, it’s a major addition to their replication environment available in Vault Collaboration 2011 and Vault Professional 2011 (formally Manufacturing). 

Replication allows for two geographically separate offices the ability to share a common Autodesk Vault. In 2010, we could only replicate the files and all database transactions need to occur at the main site.  The result would provide some performance boost in accessing and editing CAD files, but searches and Item Master / Change Order access could be slow as a result of poor network performance between sites.

Now, with 2011, we can replicate everything.  Or, if you want to win first prize to the Geekdom awards, you can create a hybrid configuration of full replication at some sites and partial replication at others. 

Brian Schanen posted a recent blog explaining how the technology works. 

Here’s the link to the blog:

http://underthehood-autodesk.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/full-replication-with-autodesk-vault-2011-product-family.html

A few things to point out…..full replication takes a Microsoft SQL license at each database site.  And, you will need the Autodesk Data Management Server (ADMS) to be installed at each remote site.

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil, General, Manufacturing | No Comments »

Twitter’s Tweets on Autodesk 2011

Friday, March 26th, 2010

By Darren Hartenstine

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube….I am just amazed at the amount of information available for the Autodesk 2011 Products found on these social sites.  Now, that’s not to say it doesn’t come with an annoying side-effect….what I  like to call - word vomit. 

Gross analogy, but right on track with the kinds of irrelevant “stuff” you have to filter through to get what you’re interested in.  Since this blog is related to what I do at work, we’ll keep this about the current product release from Autodesk.

If you weren’t part of the Twitter release of Autodesk’s 2011 product line, you didn’t get the massive barrage of comments around the product videos, personal takes on the features, what’s new guides, and general impressions from fellow “Tweeps” - which I think are the individuals and companies I follow on Twitter….or, Twerps.

If you use any of these sites, you can follow me at twitter or Youtube using the same name…..ManageYourData.  Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/manageyourdata Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/manageyourdata

For those individuals that resist or just haven’t gotten around to it, you’re missing out.  I hate to be a nerd and use a line in a movie, but “Resistance is futile.” - social media is going to become a large part of our daily lives. 

Hopefully….tweet at you later…I know, dorky, right? My wife calls me a Twerd.

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil, General, Manufacturing | No Comments »

Civil 3D 2011?

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Its that time of year again.  In the next month or so you should be seeing the latest Civil3D release become available.  Notice I didn’t say “show up in your mailbox” since it is a download delivery (you can opt to have a box sent to you if you prefer).  Once again Autodesk has pushed the program to better, more efficient heights with this release. 

First, this release is 64-bit.  One of the aims of the release is to be able to do more and faster, and this will help that aim.  But that’s under the hood.  What about the new things that users will touch everyday, and affect design.

There are many improvements to the transportation end of the software.  Corridor editing tools are now in the context ribbon so you have more immediate access to them.  One of my favorites here is that the corridor will only rebuild regions that have been changed, speeding up the edit/rebuild cycle.  There is greater control over the superelevation settings, and it comes in the form of an easy-to-use wizard.  This makes learning the interface much easier, while giving more design control to the user.

There are a host of new layout tools.  Roundabouts are becoming more prevalent, and a layout tool is now standard in the 2011 release.  Along with that are best fit alignments and creating alignments from already existing alignments.  Really, your design is tying in to existing somewhere, right?!  These allow you to copy portions of alignments so you don’t have to redraw and risk an inaccurate tie-in.  Couple that with the profile tool that can create vertical tie-ins and you’ve got all three dimensions sewn up!

For those of you that bump into DGN files there is an enhancement.  To further the connectability of DGN underlay you can now copy linework into the DWG file.  Again, you don’t have to redraw over the top of an existing design.

Two things that I personally like are the projecting objects to multiple section views, and merging or splitting pipe networks.  If you have markers that you need to show in each section view, you no longer need to add them to one section at a time.  The pipe functions will be important to anyone who has created networks from objects and was upset to find that each object had to be its own separate network.  Now, just merge those individuals together and you have a more appropriate network layout.

This is just the introduction to what you can expect.  If you’d like to see more, sign-up for a webinar or live presentation on the new functionality.  MasterGraphics offers several such events and schedules can be  found here.

 

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Vault 2011 Product Family - What’s New

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

By Darren Hartenstine

Follow me on Twitter.

Well, today we can start to talk about the new products coming out from Autodesk.  You will begin to see a lot of great information on what’s new from MasterGraphics.  I have to say that this release is huge! Autodesk Inventor has a ton of new features and with Vault, they have taken a more evolutionary approach. 

Since I’m the Data Management guru, I will focus on the Vault Product Family.  If you are not aware of the various products available for Data Management, they are Vault, Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration and Vault Professional.  So, where’s Vault Manufacturing?  It was renamed this year to Vault Professional.

One more piece of information is that Vault is no longer a Manufacturing only product; it is now platform.  This means it will work with both Manufacturing and Architectural products, like AutoCAD Architecture and Civil 3D. Revit currently doesn’t work with Vault, but I am sure it is in the pipeline for future releases.

One side note is that this year, Autodesk will provide the software as a download and may not have sent you a DVD, unless you requested it to be delivered that way. If you forgot your login information, you can request it  from the subscription portal. http://subscription.autodesk.com

I will post some blogs over the next few weeks discussing the new features available in the 2011 Vault Products. For now, I wanted to post the technical “What’s New” Document. Enjoy!

Vault 2011 Product Family - What’s New

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil, General, Manufacturing | No Comments »

What Do Civil 3D Users Need to Know?

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

I have worked with a lot of Civil 3D users.  Most of them are starting out brand new.  Some are coming off of limited training, or (gasp) trying to figure Civil 3D out on their own.  There are some consistent stories that evolve from these various circumstances.  They usually center around what the user needs to know, and what they need to understand about what they need to know.

Let’s be clear.  Very rarely does an individual user need to know all of the nooks and crannies of Civil 3D.  But it is also rare that any given user doesn’t need to know some of the same things as others. 

First, there is the concept of Civil 3D.  This may seem simplistic, but it really does change the way that users look at the way they interact with Civil 3D as a tool.  Since settings are an integral part of the concept I’ll count this here.  This doesn’t mean that every user needs to understand and build all of their own styles, but they should have a working knowledge on how to assign styles to objects, and maybe how to tweak styles to what a project specific need may require.

Whether importing survey points, importing a file of contour polylines as a block, or some other data format, you need to start somewhere.  Again, we’re dealing with concept since the format that is coming in may not be the same “object-oriented” design as Civil 3D.  But the data is being translated into Civil 3D objects.  The more data the better, and once its in Civil 3D you can use it for a whole host of functions.

Almost every user I’ve worked with needs an operational understanding of surfaces.  Whether it is how to build a surface, how to build a surface using “odd” information (Hey!  Those aren’t POINTS!  Those are….BLOCKS?!”), to breaklines, to profiles, to volumes, and maybe grading.  Surfaces are one of the more basic building blocks in Civil 3D, and nearly everybody uses one sometime, in some form.

Now is when users usually diverge to some extent.  If the user is roadway specific alignments and profiles are necessary, with assemblies and corridors to follow.  If they are just looking for grading, then surface and grading tools (and don’t forget feature lines).  Then we have to ask if there are pipes being designed, or maybe not designed but just shown.

If a group is needing to work as a team on a project then data shortcuts will be necessary.  I’ll discuss these in a later post, but they are a great way to get your team working on a design all at the same time.  We usually have to discuss where on the network project data will reside, what folder structure is needed for the team, and what is the best workflow for the team.  It may sound complicated, but once you have some basics discussed and decided the data shortcuts are a very friendly part of your project.

Usually we get some comment during one or all of these steps that such-and-such can’t be done.  This is either through a misunderstanding, bad information, or just not knowing what is available.  Maybe its because a particular function wasn’t available in a previous version.  Whatever the cause a little bit of conversation prior to starting an implementation of Civil 3D can help avoid areas that you don’t need while focusing your efforts on the parts that are critical to your operation.  Not everyone needs to know everything, but we all need to know some basics.

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Naming Objects in Civil 3D

Friday, March 12th, 2010

There are a lot of things that you can do to “automate” Civil 3D.  One of the hallmarks of Civil 3D is to take the mundane tasks off the user’s plate and let the program handle them.  This increases productivity since the user no longer has to manage these little repetitious functions.  One of the things that a lot of users overlook is the naming conventions that are possible.  If your standards include the naming of layers and objects, or you just want something that is appropriate and quick, you have some options.

Let’s look at object layers first.  Any template file that you are using should have an array of layers to begin with.  If you intend someone with base AutoCAD (or some other platform) to use your design file after you are done with it they will need layers to control which objects are visible.  Object layer modifiers can set a prefix/suffix for a layer to create unique named layers for objects.  In the Drawing Settings there is an Object Layers tab where objects receive their default layer assignments.  There is a “Modifier” column which allows for either a prefix or a suffix to be added to an object.  My example would be that of an alignment.  I like to suffix my alignments with “-*” (drop the quotes) which adds the alignment’s name in place of the asterisk.  This, in turn, creates a layer as soon as you create an alignment with this naming convention.  You don’t want to do this for every object or you would be drowning in layers before you know what happened.  But for alignments and surfaces, and maybe a couple of other objects, it could be very useful.

Another way that you can standardize objects is to tweak the naming template.  You can set this in the Object Settings for those objects, or for some it is assigned in the object’s commands.  Depending on the object, you may have more than one name you can set (like alignments, you have centerline alignment types and offset alignment types), and you may have more than one option in the naming convention.  Like in the alignment I can add just a counter, but profiles I can add several aspects besides the counter (like alignment name or profile type among others).

Its important to note that these defaults are just that; defaults.  The user can change these names at the time of creation or afterwards through the object’s properties.  But most of the time you need a certain naming convention to happen, then most of the time you can have it ready to go for the user.

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AutoCAD Skills for C3D Users

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

If you are about to learn Civil 3D 2010 and are coming from an old version of AutoCAD, Microstation or even BricsCAD, you’ll need to brush up on your AutoCAD knowledge.

The attached PDF will take you through the bare-bones basics of AutoCAD in preparation to learn Civil 3D 2010.

Mastergraphics also has a 1-day crash-course for people who want to be led through the AutoCAD update process.   We have a lot of fun and go into as much as we can in 8 hours!   Contact your sales rep for more information.

Enjoy!

autocad-skills-you-need-to-master-for-using-civil-3d

-Lou

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Alignments: Parents, Children and Grandchildren

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

 

In the 2010 release of Civil 3D Autodesk unveiled a new type of alignment: the offset alignment.  Originally created for the intersection tool, these alignments can be created manually by the user to fill a whole host of functions for design.

 

Offset alignments need a parent alignment to take their position.  As you need to edit the parent alignment’s position the offset alignments will update, staying generally parallel to their parent.  Keep in mind, you can create widening regions that shift the offset alignments so they do not have to be absolutely parallel to the parent alignment, but these regions will stay relative to the parent.

 

If the original alignment is the parent, and the offset alignments are the children, you can then create “grandchildren” alignments that are offset from the children.  Now we have several layers of control throughout the design.  If the overall road centerline (the parent) alignment needs to shift, all of the alignments move in relation.  If the parent stays still but one of the children needs to shift over (for a lane moving over) then the grandchildren shift with it as well.  Finally, if the edges of the roadway need to shift, but the overall boulevard centerline and the lane centerlines are staying still, you still have that level of control.

 

That example is of a fairly complex boulevard design.  But there are other reasons offset alignments can be useful.  If you are working with parcels, they also respond to alignments.  The issue up until now has been that if the roadway centerline that controls the right-of-way (ROW) parcel frontage moves, the ROW parcel doesn’t necessarily update with it.  If you instead use the offset alignments to control the ROW parcel, then the centerline alignment moves, the ROW alignments move, and the parcel appropriately updates.

 

This is all towards a level of control that we didn’t have before.  Changes in real-time, and keeping things relative.  This will keep your designs moving forward through the revision cycle.

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