Tag Archives: Civil 3D

Drawing Management

Stream Bing Maps/Aerial/Street straight into your drawing…

5 Comments

So many people have never seen this ribbon before in Autocad Civil 3D 2014.

Probably due to the fact that it is not loaded due to a bug in Civil 3D 2014.

It’s really annoying because we are all often asked to display aerial photos into our drawings and it should be as easy as two or so clicks.

EDIT.. by the way, this doesnt plot in 2014, it will plot in 2015 though! You can use the free method explained here to get around this

So if you can’t see this ribbon, here is how to bring it in..

1. Copy the attached CUIX into c:\Autocad\CUI
Download Geolocation.cuix here

2. Type CUILOAD and select the CUIX located at c:\Autocad\CUI\geolocation.cuix

3. Now just assign a coordinate system to your drawing (use MAPCSASSIGN or the drawing settings tab in propsepector)

4. Select what type of background you want (you will need to create an Autodesk Account if you don’t already have one)

5. Then Pow – Bing Imagery straight into your drawing!

Regards

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Drawing Management

Using Sheet Views Creatively – Managing Material Lists in Autocad

If you not using any dynamic referencing for your materials. or having problems managing repeating items in your drawings. Read on

See the screen shot below of my sheet views list from one of the jobs I am working on.

Whenever you have a bunch of materials been called out. Unit 1,2 etc… I have been using sheetviews to link them back to my drawings. Saves a whole bunch of time when it comes to fixing it all up later!

All I do is create an empty layout view under the category “materials”.

I also posted a screen shot to show you how much of the drawing can be controlled from this magical little list.

All you need is a Sheet Set… and comment below if you want to know more

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Modelling

Daylight Transitions in Civil 3D – Alternative Methods

2 Comments

You can’t really transition in a way that is simple, like 12d, LDT, MX etc.

You can change the slope easily, but not transition easily! I.E Cubic, Linear transition etc.

A few methods you can use include the following.

Use the Superelevation editor??

Click on the subassembly that you want to transition (The Daylight) and select a super elevation mode say “Left Outside Lane”.

Then select your corridor and add a superelevation view

Then go through the cumbersome tabular editor to populatd the grades on the graph.Should look like so.

The finished results looks a little like so, which is somewhat alright, but still not nice, as the transition is linear. And we get jagged edges on the contours.

Use the Override Stations Method.

Select the corridor and go to the section editor

Select the Parameters Editor and modify the grade.

Then apply to the station range I want.

Still only gets me halfway there, as there is no transition options!!, the only way to force the transition from here is to change the sampling on the corridor reducing the quality of the transition anyway!

Do It manually by working out the location on the surface you need to widen to. But that is just not realistic!

Use a fixed link and link the grade in the fixed link to the daylight link. Also horribly cumbersome, but gets the best result.

Draw a Profile that represent grade so (elevation of 0.4 = 40% etc.)

Add a link with elevation target to your assembly like vertical elevation. Make sure it is added before your daylight link or this wont work

Next Select your Assembly go to its properties and select the construction tab, you need to link your daylights slope to your fake links elevation

Finally target the elevation profile with your new elevation link and watch the magic happen.

Looks the best, and it is dynamic, but extremely infuriating to setup.

Kapanther

Original Post Here

 

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Drawing Management, Modelling

Importing 12DA files doesnt work?… Try This

UPDATE: *.12daz files are just zip files. Rename it to <YOURFILE>.zip and extract the *.12da file within

If anyone has been trying to use the 12DA import extension for Civil 3D and it isn’t working. Read on!

I have been having problems importing latest 12DA files. It doesn’t import anything for some reason.

A simple change to the 12DA files encoding fixes the error. Get NOTEPAD ++ Download Here

Old 12DA files encoded with “UTF-8 without BOM” will work. However new ones encoded with “UCS-2 Little Endian” won’t convert them and save as shown below. All working again!

Extra Bonus (courtesy lem_1020)

“Saved this way it actually allows you to open new version 12da projects in old 12d model versions also.”

Kapanther

Original Post Here

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D-General/A-note-for-People-Importing-12DA-files/td-p/4470095

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Modelling

Alternative Stage Storage Technique – Civil 3D Tables

13 Comments

UPDATE 2: My new tool complete obsoletes this process.. Stage storage basin tool is available in my free tools package here
https://ceethreedee.com/ceethreedee-tools

UPDATE: Feeling Lazy. Watch the Video.

This deals with basic “basin” stage storage calculations. For more complex stockpiles etc. Read this post here

Download lisp file from this link download COT

UPDATE: instead of using COT.lsp. Try the free “Table Exporter” App from the autodesk exchange from here. Only works in 2015 unfortunately 🙁

It will dump what ever table you select straight to excel though..
exporttable1exporttable3

I see a lot of people still using this outdated tool in Civil 3D for calculating stage storage! For those who calculate stage storages read below!

Please stop using it! Although it is possible to get a relatively accurate result from it. There are a number of problems that I will merely bullet point below.

  • Can only have one contour at each level to get stage storage curve. (although you can sum them together in excel)
  • If contours are not closed this can create errors in the calculation.
  • Multiple islands and “flat areas” (i.e benching) can be easily miscalculated. Who has benching in their designs! :p
  • Higher Intervals reduces accuracy!
  • Not to mention it is cumbersome!

Civil 3D has always had the ability to do accurate stage storages, I will demonstrate below. (*with the assistance of a lisp!)

Download lisp file from this link download COT

1. Create a Volume Surface comparing Water Level or Final Tailings level etc. and your completed design. (Yes you can calculate tailings stages as well!)

2. Drop down elevations in the analysis tab at the intervals you wish to calculate your volumes at. (use Range Interval with Datum)

3. Create a surface legend table that includes “Surface Range volume” and Surface Range 2d area)
SurfaceAreaVolume

4. Copy table to left or right and explode twice, then use the attached lisp routine to convert to an autocad table.

5. Export Table to CSV as shown above and then open in excel. You will need to sum the areas and volumes from the bottom up to get the correct results.

Finished Result, sum up the volumes from the lowest elevation, (so the bottom up). or reverse the order and sum them from the top down..

Elevation (m) Plan Area (m²) Cum. Area (m²) Volume (m³) Cum. Volume (m³)
102 5,872 143,202 280,514 1,432,735
100 5,751 137,330 268,936 1,152,221
98 5,969 131,578 257,244 883,285
96 13,903 125,609 240,933 626,041
94 26,862 111,706 200,242 385,108
92 42,463 84,845 126,689 184,866
90 31,232 42,382 51,424 58,177
88 11,149 11,150 6,752 6,753
86 1 1 1 1

You will notice that unlike the old stage storage tool that can vary in accuracy especially with larger intervals. This method is exactly right down to the triangle.

Comment below if you want to know more

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