Although its useful to be able to superimpose profiles between profile views. It would also be useful to be able to show crossing objects as well. With a similar screen to the one for sections.
Be great if alignments/profiles was also an option In here as well!
We all get these from time to time. Unfortunately Civil 3D is rather vague about what is causing this error.
or 
^^^^ I HATE YOU ^^^^^
I can tell you empirically that the primary cause almost 99% of the time is a boundary that has been added to a surface somewhere along the chain that needs to be cleaned up.
A few people will suggest using things like MAPCLEAN and WEEDFEATURES to fix over complicated boundaries lines and breaklines and these methods do help. But they don’t always work.
A great method for fix this is to use the OVERKILL command. It will remove overlapping segments that are duplicates within a polygon. Commonly this comes from output from other software!
If you still have no luck try a method that I have used for years. Simply “STEPPEDOFFSET it out and then STEPPEDOFFSET it back in” maybe 0.5m or so.. (note: occasionally you may need to offset it back in 1 mm different, so back in 0.499m)
I have over exaggerated this to explain the issue, but here is what an offset does to a messy line with overlaps and duplicate vertices
Just whatever you do, don’t go extracting the triangles and re-adding them to a surface!!!!
I started writing this, realised it was getting incredibly long and stopped…
There is a distinct problem with “scalability” in Civil 3D. As modelling becomes more complex, as inevitably it does, handling of batch operations and multiple objects is hindered significantly by a lack of simple functionality to handle them in the core product. In turn, precious hours are wasted.
I am very interested to hear what can be done on the development side to deal with this problem? The changes for some of these items seem rather simple..
See below examples….
This is just a small handful of things you have to do “one at a time” inside Civil 3D. A simple function added would allow you to do multiple operations at once, saving an operator hours of time! But yet, we have to live with it!
(Having 20 plugins and/or 3rd party apps to deal with this is not a solution!)
1. Create Reference using Data shortcuts. You can create multiple data shortcuts, but you can’t “Create Reference” to multiple data shortcuts.
2. The volume dashboard can add multiple surfaces at once. But only remove one at time. Not to mention its lack of sorting or basic organisation functionality like, the ability to change multiple surface styles at once.
3. Synchronizing Data Shortcuts can only be done on mass. Or one at a time. It would be ideal to be able to choose the objects I wish to synchronize in the toolspace to save processing time.
4. Additionally while synchronizing there is no way to specify in the “Object Name Change” box to update the name of all change objects
5. Settings Objects to rebuild automatically. Currently you can only turn them on/off one at a time. Very time consuming. There is a lot of work that can be done here. Particular for more complex models that need to be changed. Rebuilding can take a very long time and you may want to delay it until you have made enough changes.
a. Adding a “Global Rebuild” On/Off Feature. This would allow a quick and dirty solution to changing complex models without the wait time..
b. Adding the ability to turn on/off rebuild for civil 3d objects in the prospector/properties box. And even “save rebuild state” so you can restore certain states for particular modelling operations.
6. In the Profile View Properties – > Profiles Screen although you can select and edit multiple profile styles etc. You cannot add or remove profiles
7. Additionally in the “Create Surface Profile screen” Only one alignment can be given profiles at a time.. Plus profiles that were previously created can’t be removed?
8. Corridor Targets – You can only do them all or one at a time. It would also be particularly useful to “copy/paste” targets between items.
9. “Set Width or Offset Target” and the “Set Elevation Slope Target” – In more complex drawings your alignment list can get quite long. A tick box that filters out “alignments/profiles that aren’t related to this corridor” would be very useful. Not having to press the “add” button everytime and just pressing enter would be also quite useful.
10. Can only add one DEM file to Surfaces at a time.
But you can do it in the point cloud creator?
In my opinion the GUI functionality is inconsistent and broken and needs a major overhaul. Relying on third party developers to solve these problems by creating little apps that perform these operations is also not good enough. Quite often the API is not available for these functions.
I do hope that good apps that reflect “core functionality” should be bought or reproduced and incorporated into the product regularly. Not left to be discovered on an “as needed basis”
Regards
UPDATE: You can do this even easier with the “Stage Storage Basin Tool” available in my free tools package here
https://ceethreedee.com/ceethreedee-tools
It is quite easy to do perform a stage storage analysis of a simple basin or dam water. This is because all the volumes are compared to a flat elevation, one flat surface (water level), one irregular surface(ground surface).
But what if you want to know the stage storage elevation of a dam wall or a stockpile, i.e two irregular surfaces).
Well you can essentially use the same technique as described here, but you will need to compare the two stage storage analysis’s to get the final answer.
Keep reading to find out how or if your feeling lazy watch the video here.
Basin Stage Storage (Flat to Irregular)
Stockpile Stage Storage (Irregular to Irregular)
By turning our two irregular surfaces into two separate stage storage calculations to a common flat surface, we can then subtract one from the other to form a stage storage of the stockpile.
Firstly we need to create the common flat surface, the best technique is to find the Max RL of the design surface, by looking at the Surface Properties.
On this stockpile the max RL is 1560 . So, I’m going to create a flat plane at 1560 m and add it to a new surface called “CALC LEVEL”
Now we need to limit our calculation to the design extent
So you will need to create a surface that clips the existing ground to the design surface boundary.
Now you have all the surfaces you need, you can create the two volume surfaces to do the stage storage,
Extract the stage storages for both of them using the technique described in my post here
You will now need to do a simple subtraction between the two stage storages to form a combined stage storage like below.
The finished result it is quite clear. Looking at the area it starts narrow at the bottom, increases to full width where the toe meets the ground, then reduces in size as it goes back down to the crest of the stockpile. The change in volume also reflects with the increase in area.
Do a final check with a volume surface at the end to see if your correct.
I have been having some serious performance issues lately with my DELL precision M6600, which is almost 5-6 years old now!
I finally found a way to determine if it is my hardware or my workflows. Quite pleased to say it was my hardware and I am not crazy. But here is how I found out!
Download the Passmark Perfomance Test tool from link below (Free 30 day trial). These guys test over 600 000 rigs or something like that daily and after you complete your test you can compare your results to people with a similar or identical rig. Very useful!
http://www.passmark.com.au/download/pt_download.htm
I tested using 8.0 when writing this.
1. After you load into the performance tool, go the system tab and take note of the key specs of your computer. You will need these to find other rigs similar to yours to compare to.
2. Go to “Baseline” Menu -> Manage baselines…
3. Now go the “My baselines” tab and delete all the existing baselines that get placed in by default
4. Then go to the “advanced search” tab and add in a few params. I added my cpu and clock speed and my model type
5. Tick on as many baselines as you can see match your specs. You may need to play around with the search params. You can add up to 16 baselines.
6. Now run the Benchmark! Make sure you close any working applications. If your on a laptop, make sure you plug your power supply in.
7. You will get a nice little bar and some popups while it runs.. Even a jet flying around..
8. When your done you will get a score like so.
9. After you finish uploading you will get a popup with a link .. RECORD THIS LINK, As I haven’t been able to find it later! And its useful to be able to send to others etc..
10. You can now see how your computer benchmarks against other rigs with similar hardware. I ran this test on an old desktop I found to replace my laptop. My laptops results are further below… Absolutely woeful!
11. Laptop results
Every now and then we find ourselves in a pinch for data. I don’t know how many times I have had nothing but a PDF to go on..
Well, it appears that a PDF is lot more useful than I first thought. Particular If it’s a vector PDF, you can usually tell if it is by zooming in and out on the PDF and you will see all the linework generate separately.
I won’t lie, I haven’t found a free tool to do this yet. But over at DOTSOFT Tools an application called PDF2DWG http://www.dotsoft.com/pdf2dwg.htm for 95 US sheets does get the job done very nicely.
I’ve actually bought the entire toolpac package that comes with PDF2DWG ($245), good value if you ask me. You can find the tool in the ribbon after installing, along with a host of other useful ones.
Select a PDF, even a multipage one
Lots of options here as well. Detect line weights, removing little raster images (particularly use for PDFS generated by GIS programs) and even the ability to convert image-based pdfs to linework (can’t verify how well this works though)
Hit process and voila! Massive time saver, that can pull you out of a “not enough data” situation very quickly.
We are often exporting volumes from our models and for a lot of designers and drafters it is an adhoc affair. Engineer asks for volumes, so you make a few volume surfaces quickly, export volumes into excel, format a bit and then send. Some of the slightly more organized types might even save the excel spreadsheet into their modelling folder in case they need to use it again! But more often than not you will be asked to do this several times over the life of the project. So why not come up with a decent system for handling this process?
I would like to present a more efficient method, that not only is easy to update and manage but will improve the performance of your modelling files as well.
The workflow is quite simple, it may take slightly longer to setup. But I promise, you will thank yourself later. They key element been the use of the volumes dashboard.
A few simple rules to follow to ensure you maintain a nice link.
1. Never create all your volumes in the modelling DWG. Create them all in a separate DWG using data shortcuted surfaces (The odd one is fine).
2. Don’t manipulate the raw data you copy from the volumes dashboard (other than a sort). Link to it from another table in excel.
3. Don’t “Cut data over”/ Copy Data over the top in excel. Otherwise your links break!
Volume surfaces quickly increase the size of modelling dwg’s and will decrease overall performance when working in them. Unless you don’t work in your modelling DWG’s very often, which I highly doubt, keep your volumes surface in a separate dwg and data shortcut all the surfaces you need in. This also makes it easier to extract all the volumes you need in one hit rather then prowling around your dwg’s looking for quantities.
Once you have created your volumes DWG and you have data shortcutted the surfaces you need in. Start creating Volumes Surface Pairs. I strongly suggest maintaining a simple but consistent naming system. My system is as follows
<identifiers>-<object>_<material_name>
So for example:
OP2-NTH-ROAD_gravel
OP2-NTH-ROAD_base
OP2-NTH-ROAD_ subbase etc..
This makes your life a lot easier when creating links in excel. It also helps prevent the desire to shoot yourself due to confusion later on :p.
Now you have pairs, it’s time to setup an excel file. My pairs looks like so:
Right Click on any surface in the dashboard to “Copy to Clipboard”
Open Excel, an begin by creating two tabs “Volumes”,”Data”. Data is where we will copy the raw data from your volumes dashboard (copy your raw output now). Volumes is where we will create the links to the volumes dashboard data so it is easier to update later.
Your data is now on the data tab. Do a sort on it (Volumes Dashboard doesn’t have a sort function!)
Your data should sort by surface name! This will save headaches later when you want to update the table or add new surfaces.
Now switch over to the Volumes tab and start creating a table like the one below. With various identifiers you need for each material volume you want to calculate. In the last column (2nd last in my case) you want to link the QTY back to the “data” tab that contains your raw pasted volumes dashboard data.
Now this table you create will eventually contain all the volumes you want, but not exactly in the best format for visualizing. This last step can be quite confusing for a lot of people. So hopefully the video link at the top helps.
Because the table is arranged in a “basic record format” like Microsoft Access or any SQL etc. we can use this table to create “Pivot Tables” and “Pivot Charts”.
Firstly covert your table into a “Named Range” by using the format as table function
Now select anywhere in your nicely formatted table and go to Insert -> Pivottable.
You will be confronted with a blank screen and most likely see all your column headers on the right.
By drag-droping your tables headers into the fields as required you can make your table display exactly as you need it. (I highly suggest watching the video to see this in action)
But for example say I wanted a table to display the materials as the column headers, the time as rows and calculate the quantities with respect to these columns. I could do the following
Then you will get this 
But you can adjust these to suit your needs. Better, you can adjust to suit other people’s needs. You can create as many pivot tables as you want to display different views of your data and they are all stay linked back to the original source..
Now when it comes time to update your volumes from Civil 3D all you have to do is copy your volumes dashboard output… sort and paste over the top in your data tab!
The end result wonderfully formatted, dynamic tables. That can update almost at the click of a button…
| Component | Time-Height | Embankment | Storage | Decant Rock | Floor Cut | Floor Fill | Wall Excavate | Windrows | Minewaste | Dry Tailings |
| 3 – NORTH | Month 00 – 487.82 m – DOWN | 16,600 | 500 | 5,900 | 5,200 | 6,100 | 500 | |||
| Month 06 – 487.82 m – DOWN | 39,900 | 500 | ||||||||
| Month 06 – 489.92 m – DOWN | 27,700 | 500 | ||||||||
| Month 12 – 493.02 m – DOWN | 116,500 | 60,800 | 1,000 | 600 | ||||||
| Month 21 – 493.02 m – DOWN | 101,500 | |||||||||
| 3 – NORTH Total | 160,800 | 102,200 | 2,000 | 5,900 | 5,200 | 6,100 | 1,600 | |||
| 4 – SOUTHEAST | Month 06 – 489 m – DOWN | 125,100 | 600 | |||||||
| Month 18 – 489 m – DOWN | 325,100 | |||||||||
| 4 – SOUTHEAST Total | 125,100 | 325,100 | 600 | |||||||
| 5 – MINEWASTE | Month 18 – 497.7 m – DOWN | 545,600 | ||||||||
| Month 24 – 497.7 m – STACK | 405,900 | |||||||||
| Month 30 – 497.7 m – STACK | 600,800 | |||||||||
| Month 36 – 497.7 m – STACK | 390,700 | |||||||||
| 5 – MINEWASTE Total | 1,943,000 | |||||||||
| 6 – DRY STACK | Month 12 – 485.2 m – STACK | 190,600 | ||||||||
| Month 18 – 485.2 m – STACK | 45,100 | |||||||||
| Month 24 – 487 m – STACK | 47,200 | |||||||||
| Month 30 – 489 m – STACK | 46,000 | |||||||||
| Month 36 – 491.8 m – STACK | 52,300 | |||||||||
| 6 – DRY STACK Total | 190,600 | 190,600 | ||||||||
| Grand Total | 285,900 | 527,300 | 2,000 | 196,500 | 5,200 | 6,100 | 2,200 | 1,943,000 | 190,600 |
UPDATE: Before following this outrageously long, but complete guide to exporting for slope W. Consider buying the Exchange App here for $25
http://www.redtransitconsultants.com/app/export-profiles-dxf-use-slide
Otherwise…. read on.
We are often required to take the analysis of stability/seepage outside the Autocad environment to horrible 3rd party applications like SlopeW. To do so can be rather cumbersome, as these products usually require intensely simplified DXF sections for import.
So here is my method for bringing in section data for analysis in Slope W/Seep W.
1. I am going to assume you know how to create section views/profile views!
2. I recommend keeping all your analysis sections in a separate DWG to your model. Link it all back with data shortcuts. Then when your design updates and you have to redo your stability analysis you can create the sections easily again.
3. Its important that all your sections get created at coordinates close to 0,0. This makes it easier to import into Slope/Seep.
4. Once you have all the sections you need, make sure you have them displayed with a section/profile view style that only displays the datum, border and the profiles themselves like so:
5. Explode them twice
6. Then rejoin any lines you need together and trim if necessary. (Most of the time you don’t need to do anything)
7. Wblock these exploded lines out to a separate dwg, close your current dwg and open the exploded output. (this removes all the civil 3d layers)
8. Slope W doesn’t like lots of points. So we need to filter these out using WEEDFEATURES.
9. Start by weeding vertices close by to each other, then finish by using Angle. You want to get your vertices below 200 if possible.
10. Slope/Seep prefers closed polygons as these can be converted to regions to assign materials quickly. To do this, my trick is to convert all your polylines into parcels. You can tell if any of your regions aren’t not working. Because there will be no label in the centroid of your boundary.
11. Let’s say you have a few problems! If you select parcel labels in the area, you can see where the problem areas are. This region selected here has multiple boundaries.
12. Some areas might not be joined anymore, particularly if you used ANGLE or LENGTH to WEEDFEATURES. These gaps will need to be fixed manually. (If you have a lot of sections, consider exploding everything and doing a PEDIT, JOIN, fuzz distance of 0.5/1, then reconvert to parcels and check again)
13. Now you can create the regions that will be used to import into Slope/Seep. Just SELECTSIMILAR on all the parcel labels and EXPLODE. You will now have all the regions you need to wblock out to SlopeW.
14. Check their properties to make sure they are all closed before using! UNDO and move parcel vertices until you have it fixed!
15. Once you have all the regions, move them so that the very left most part of the section’s X value is distance starting from 0 and the Y value matches the elevation of the datum like so. Mine is EL 1145
16. Wblock to 2007 DXF format with the name of your section and import into Slope/Seep
17. You should now be able to import into Slope/Seep for analysis
18. Don’t forget to change your Y scale to suit your elevation
19. Let the analysis begin!
Amazing how this one slipped past me… Not even sure if this is only in 2015..
However, when you extract a feature line from a corridor. You can create a dynamic link back to the corridor (See below). That’s right… A “feature line” can be extracted from a corridor and when the corridor rebuilds, it updates itself!!
BUT WHAT IS SO AMAZING ABOUT THIS? …….well… CORNER OVERLAPS IN CORRIDORS CAN BE A LOT MORE DYNAMIC!!… read on below.
Say you have a tight corner in a corridor you can’t get away from..
Rather than extracting a feature line and having to move it every time your corridor updates..
You can now extract (tick the dynamic box).. create your grading… add it to your corridor surface.. but,,
Maybe I realign my corridor slightly. No problem.. The feature line and the associated grading goes with! Wonderful..
1. There is no way to sort or “re-order materials” in either the main dialog. OR the Criteria Dialog. Very frustrating!
2. Structures added manually can’t be deleted (this is definitely a bug!)
3. When creating large criteria or editing manually. It would be good if the “delete” key worked and multiple lines can be selected at once and deleted. As having to go up to that red cross can be very time consuming when editing large criteria etc. Particularly when everytime you delete something the selection moves completely away from where you were working.
4. Find/replace functionality on the names used in the criteria would also save a lot of time as well. You want to use the criteria on a different area of your design and all you need to do is change a suffix. Otherwise the “map objects by name” doesn’t work (find replace functionality in every civil 3d list box would save a lot of time)
5. It would be excellent if shape codes could be split somewhat by a surface. So (area volume in shape code above <selected surface>/area volume in shape code below <selected surface>. This negates having to create – 4-5 extra surfaces to calculate complex geometry represented by a shape.
