Archive for the ‘Civil’ Category

Volumes Dashboard Extension

Survey Database US Survey Feet as Default

Autodesk 2012 Software Certification Prep Classes

Civil Support Question of the Day

Rotate UCS vs DVIEW Twist

Rotate Coordinate System

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Photofly in Real Life

Scaling All Bocks - without Changing Insertion Location

Monday, November 7th, 2011

by Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer

Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about the volume calculations in Civil 3D we have to break the conversation into three different methods. Then there’s the inevitable question about printing a nice looking report. Sure, there are ways to do it, but they are a little…indirect. Last week the Volumes Dashboard Extension was posted on the Autodesk Subscription site. This extension basically takes the volume calculation functions and puts them into a unified tool. Put another way, “dashboard” is a very appropriate term for it!

The Dashboard appears in the Toolbox tab of the Toolspace. By right-clicking on the tool it provides a panorama window that looks similar to the volume calculator that we’ve had in previous releases. But there’s more. You can create a volume surface from here. Then, assign a boundary for a bounded volume calc. this trees the bounded area(s) below the volume surface entry. Nice and neat, keeping all of your data in relation to each other. The color swatch that used to be the litmus test for cut OR fill now provides that data in relative amounts.

You can then create external, for-printing, reports, or data tables for inclusion in the drawing. Both have easy to read styles, and are a good ending point for the data you are representing.

By the way, you’re on subscription, right? There are a lot of reasons for being on subscription, but these extension packages are one of my favorites. Talk to your reseller to find out the full scoop on subscription.

Posted in Civil | No Comments »

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

By Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer

I realize this post isn’t going to affect everyone out there. Some Civil 3D users are perfectly happy with the survey database settings defaulting to International feet. But, there are a lot of users who are just tired of having to change it from International Feet to US Survey Feet every time they start a new survey database. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s the little persistent things that can drive a user crazy. Plus, if someone forgets it can be difficult to spot the problem until deep into a project!

To make any setting a default for your future new survey databases follow these steps. First, open any survey database, either new, or one you’ve worked with already. Right-click on the name of the database and choose Edit Survey Database Settings. Make sure the Distance field is set appropriately. Actually, make sure all of the settings are appropriate for defaults since this will remember them all.

Second, at the top of this survey database settings dialog there are two little buttons that show little blue arrows and survey equipment. The one to the left is click Here to Export These Settings to a File. The other one is import, so you have a 50/50 shot of guessing if you don’t wait for the icon tooltip to pop up. This button will open a dialog of where you can save the “Survey Database Settings.sdb_set” file that will be needed later. This should be in your survey database settings area.

Third, go back to the Toolspace, Survey tab and click the Survey User Settings button (top of the toolspace to the left).

Near the top will be a Survey Database Defaults area, and one of the fields will be Survey Database Settings. Click the empty drop down menu and you should see your newly created Survey Database Settings file. Click OK and this should pull these settings as the defaults on your next survey database.

Posted in Civil | No Comments »

Friday, October 14th, 2011

By, Dan Banach

If you are planning on taking an Autodesk 2012 Certification exam Autodesk is offering virtual certification prep classes. The virtual classes will be hosted on the Autodesk University (AU) Virtual class site starting on October 18^th, 2011. The list of prep classes is located at: http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=au2011_certification_preparation_classes

Enjoy the classes.

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

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Civil 3D Question of the Day:

I have my linework and points in a drawing that gets XREFED into ALTAs and other design files.

When I want to freeze a particular layer to hide the points all of them freeze! I can’t leverage styles easily because you can’t manipulate styles via XREF.

What is the best way to set up my point styles?

ANSWER:

There are two ways (ok maybe 1.5 ways) to accomplish what you are after.

The first place Civil 3D looks for Styles and layers is the Description Key Set. The overall point layer always comes from the Description Key set. In the event you have a field code that doesn’t match, the layer ends up as the default set in the command settings.

Method 1: Forget Layers, Use Point Groups

This is what I train my newbies to do, since I have the benefit of being able to brainwash them in the ways of Autodesk.

Advantages:

Takes Layers out of the picture
Quick control of many points at once.
How the software was intended to operate (or so I assume)

Disadvantages:

You still need to worry about layers when it comes to plotting - so you will also have a description key set. (Otherwise, because you are not using layers you would lose the ability to use VP Freeze)
Can’t manipulate Styles via XREF.

Set up a bunch of point groups in your template that you anticipate using. Or make them in the current project. Doesn’t matter.

Leave the _All Points group as-is. There will be no overrides on the styles here, just in case you want to see how they were interpreted by the Description key set.

Method 2: Layers only Method

Since the first stop for Points is the Description Key Set, use this to set the layers. And use Traditional CAD Freezing to control what groups are visible/not visible.

Advantages:

Many people are used to this method
No worries about VP Freeze

Disadvantages:

Need to Simplify styles
Can be cumbersome to remember what points went on what layer.
Points that do not match description keys are all sent to the same layer.

Below is the Wisconsin DOT Description key listing. They have quite a few description keys, each with its own layer.

Regardless of what is in the style layer-wise the layer from here is the layer most people use when freezing & thawing.

The way I think of it is, assuming you are familiar with how blocks operate: You have the layer that the block is inserted on. Some blocks may also have layers hidden inside of them (not if I taught them CAD, but you get the picture). The insertion layer of a block is analogous to the point’s layer from the description key set. Those “hidden” block layers are similar to the layers within a style. 99.9% of the time if you want to freeze a block, it is the insertion layer that you are aiming for. Same for points.

In other words, the layers you see inside of a point style are more or less irrelevant. The only time they will rear their heads is if you explode a point down to its core components. UNLIKE a block, changing the LAYFRZ settings to Entity will not give you access to these underlying layers.

My Wish for the Future:

A lot of headache could be avoided if point groups had data shortcuts. That way I could make a point group that contained the points I wanted to show in my new drawing and make a reference to them. Perhaps there is some logic or programming reason that this can’t be done. But I would love it! This would also facilitate surfaces using a point group that did not exist in the same drawing.

-Lou

Posted in Civil | No Comments »

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Clients teach me new things nearly every day. This week the lesson I learned is the difference between using DVIEW to rotate your design on screen and rotating the UCS about the Z axis. All of my CAD career, I’ve used DVIEW. For a long time, when someone mentioned rotating the UCS in a 2-D drawing I would cover my ears and go “Llalalalalalalala.” Before this week, all I knew is that rotating the UCS caused major problems in survey software.

The company I trained this week had always used the UCS to angle designs into a more comfortable drafting mode. After telling them that they should use DVIEW instead, they naturally asked, “Why?” At a loss for a real reason, I’ve taken it upon myself to dig deep and understand what the difference is.

A little background…

UCS stands for User Coordinate System. When you first enter a drawing your UCS lines up with the WCS. WCS stands for World coordinate system where Y is up, X is right and Z pops out of the screen at you. WCS is a nice, normal place, where things don’t go wrong. In any new drawing, the world coordinate system lines up with the user coordinate system, much like a rectangular piece of paper whose edges line up with the edges of the desk it is sitting on. Rotate the piece of paper and you are rotating the Coordinate system. If instead you just started working on the drawing by scooting your chair to another position, that is more like what DVIEW > Twist does.

DVIEW > TWIST & SNAPANG

DVIEW is accessed by typing DVIEW at the command line. (Shocking, I know.) DVIEW stands for dynamic view, and represents the position of your eye (or in Autocad terms, the Camera) in relation to the canvas. After you start the DVIEW command, you are prompted to select objects or select a DVIEWBLOCK. I usually go for DVIEWBLOCK unless I’m just going to eyeball the rotation with a line or two as reference for the rotation. Type TW for twist and key-in your rotation angle. A positive angle will rotate the camera counter-clockwise.

You can leave the drawing as is, but your cursor will have rotated too. I usually use SNAPANG to untwist the cursor back to parallel with the bottom of the screen.

To rotate a coordinate system, use the view tab and find the Z axis rotation. Enter the angle you wish to rotate the view.

Rotating the UCS is redefining where the zero angle is, therefore a positive angle will rotate the coordinate system clockwise.

PLAN <CURRENT>

Like DVIEW, the rotated UCS leaves you with a wonky cursor. Key-in PLAN, then hit enter for Current to straighten things up.

Un-twisting

To un-twist from DVIEW, I type in PLAN, then W for world. (If you know of a slicker way, drop me a comment). To untwist a UCS, click the world button on the View tab.

Now that I understand the differences, I totally understand rotating the UCS if lots of text is going to get placed relative to the rotation. However, that is the only compelling reason to do it. Overall, I still recommend DVIEW over rotating the UCS. A drawing can only have one UCS at a time, but you can use DVIEW in every viewport if you wanted to. A rotated UCS can seriously impact how XREFS line up and how blocks are inserted. A rotated UCS will cause XREFs and blocks to come in at unexpected locations - you are changing the coordinate system after all!

DVIEW (Pros)	UCS (Pros)
Different dview twists can be set in different viewports	Text placement follows UCS
Works better when XREFS and blocks are inserted	Can use cad objects directly to set angle (DVIEW requires you to measure first)
Can be used in multiple viewports
Preferred method for many 3rd party apps

So next time one of your co-workers insists on rotating the UCS, you don’t need to cover your ears and spout nonsense words. Get the whole story - then decide!

-Lou

Posted in Civil, General | No Comments »

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

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

Friday, August 26th, 2011

by Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer, MasterGraphics, Inc.

Its been a while since I posted a “trust me.” That, and it seems that I have posted this topic before, but I couldn’t find it. Its an important enough topic it bears repeating.

The issue is adding polyline contours into surface definition. When creating a surface from contour lines a lot of the surface definition is left up to the decisions inside Civil 3D. In some cases the logic picks incorrect locations for TIN triangle creation, and Edits need to be preformed to ensure a more accurate surface model. These issues occur, generally, when the polylines loop around, or near the tops of hills where the top contour line will be the same elevation. These locations either end up as “table-top flat” or swales that “step down” rather than gradually descend.

The tools that need to be used to fix these contour issues come in two phases, one during the addition of polylines to the surface as contours, and then as edits that immediately follow the definition of the surface. It is important to take both steps as you add data!

The first step is during the adding of contours, to minimize the flat areas. In the Add Contour Data dialog, Minimize Flat Areas By: area select the first two, but turn off the second two options.

The second step is to go to the Toolspace, in the surface definition, right-click on Edits and choose Minimize Flat Areas. This dialog box should look very familiar. Uncheck the first two (already run), and check the second two. This will force Civil 3D to recalculate the polylines and surface definition and the surface object’s contours should then match the original polylines.

Here’s a before-and-after of a contour line that was fixed by this method:

Posted in Civil | No Comments »

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

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

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

by Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer

This post was a little hard to write because it becomes personal very quickly. I’ll get to those details in a second. Let me begin by saying I have been fascinated with what Autodesk’s Project Photofly could accomplish ever since it was first posted to the Autodesk Labs website. Photofly is basically the way we can create surface models from photos. And better yet, any digital photo should do, as long as some important guidelines are followed. This means anyone with a nice digital camera, a cheap digital camera, or phone camera, could create 3D surface models of objects, buildings, people….If you’re creative this list goes on.

So this is where it gets personal. Several weeks ago my dad was in a terrible car accident. He is blessed to be alive. After it was clear he was going to be ok, and the business end of things was taken care of, the somewhat odd part of going to see the wreck and crash site came up. I don’t know why but I had to see both to get my head around the whole incident. This is where the geek side of me takes over. I’m only going to get one chance to try this, so it has to be now. I started taking pictures of the wrecked truck, trying to remember the Photofly shooting guidelines as I did so. I have an old camera that doesn’t hold a lot of data, so I was disappointed to run out of storage space before we got to the crash site. Working with civil data, the topography of the crash site would have been marvelous to capture. That just says, when attempting a Photofly pickup, plan ahead.

I returned to the family house and ran the images through the Photofly Photo Scene Editor. It is not a fast process, but it allows you to send the data and receive an email when the scene is complete. The processing occurs on the remote servers, so your resources are still available for other work in the mean time. The results of the capture were stunning! I have to admit, this was my first attempt, so not all of the model came in as I had hoped. The truck body being shiny tended to negate some of the processing, leaving some gaps (especially on the “sun-side” of the truck). But a good portion of the truck was visible, and produced a great 3D model of the most badly damaged side of the truck. I am an iPhone/iPad user, and have the Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer (.ipm file format) which Photofly exports to. Android users will also be able to get the IPM app. Also, the Photo Scene Editor exports to DWG and LAS among others.

I’ve seen some great uses for Project Photofly discussed. Capturing small parts, capturing room data, capturing building exteriors (especially known landmarks). I think we need to add another use to the list, accident investigation or recreation. I’m certain that if I’d been able to shoot the accident scene, some useable data could have been retrieved to review the road design in that particular area. Also, besides showing the truck to friends and family, the insurance companies (and yes, lawyers) could make use of the 3D model of the vehicle(s). Depending on the situation it may not be possible in all events.

Even if Project Photofly doesn’t seem like it would be in your normal workflow, I encourage you to check it out, or at least the shooting guide, which I found as a great creative introduction to what could be accompished.

Let me end with the good news. My dad is doing much better. After spending weeks in the hospital, and having to relearn how to walk and maneuver around his injuries, he is scheduled to be home soon.

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

All the new groups that you create will utilize the style and label style overrides.

Create an _All Points (Style Override) to display all points uniformly.

Don’t forget to make a No Display group that includes All points.

Then, when it comes time to turning certain points off, use the Point Group properties. Right-click the very top of the list as shown.

Shuffle around the point hierarchy as needed.

The order in which the points groups appear here is which group controls the style. Because points can belong to more than one group at once, you need to determine the precedence. For instance, a Topo point will be in the All Points groups, Topo group and No Display. If No Display is higher in this list, that’s the style that “wins”.

Points that reside in groups ABOVE No Display will show up. Points that are in groups BELOW No Display will be hidden.

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Recently a customer asked me if I knew of any LISP routines that would allow users to select blocks, then rescale them without changing their location in the drawing as the regular scale command would do.

There are LISP routines out there, but in my opinion they are completely unnecessary.

Note: IF the blocks you are working with are from Civil 3D, you’ll need to edit the Style that is bringing them in. For example, if the block is there because it represents, say a fire hydrant from a survey – you’ll need to find the fire hydrant symbol in the Settings tab of Civil 3D.

If they really are plain AutoCAD blocks, the best thing I to do is:

Find the Quick Properties Icon. This is on the Home Tab or in the Properties dialog.
In the Quick select dialog, pick the following options. Apply to: Entire drawing, Object Type: Block reference, Operator: Select All (You could also search for a specific block name if you wanted – this example will give you all of the blocks in the drawing – as long as they are not on a frozen layer, of course.)
Click OK and all the blocks become selected.
Lastly, change the scale to whatever you like. It will not change the base-point of any of the blocks.

Hope this helps!

Have a super-sunny-fantastic day! -Lou