My article, “Collaboration in a Multi-Disciplinary/Multi-Firm Environment,” goes in depth on different methods of saving, exporting, modifying, and sharing Civil 3D files with other software users such as older versions, vanilla AutoCAD (and AutoCAD LT), AutoCAD WS for the web and mobile platform, and Navisworks.

There is a small discrepancy in the article. In a set of images comparing two different file sizes, the same image was used twice where there should have been over a 50% increase in file size. Not a big issue, but it certainly doesn’t properly illustrate the concern I was trying to represent. Give it a read, soak it all in, and come back here to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it. Thanks!

Last year at AU I was a lab assistant for 2 classes, attended a bunch more, took part in the Blogger and AEC socials, and worked the Avatech Solutions / IMAGINiT Technologies booth. If you were there, I may have seen you and so the reverse. This year, I’ve been lucky enough to have 2 class proposals selected to instruct! So, if you are heading out to Autodesk University 2011 in Las Vegas, make sure to check out the classes listed below that I’ll be presenting. To make it a little easier, once you’ve registered for the conference and are signing up for classes, just find the name “Bryan Tanner” in the instructor pull-down list to find my classes.

Below, you will find a list and links for all the posts I wrote on the Civil Solutions Blog. I won’t repost them here, as Google tends to fault you in the search results if it finds duplicate content, and I just think it would be better ethically to send you where the posts were originally published. So with no further ado, here they are:

• Label Curb Elevations the Easy Way In Civil 3D – 2/16/2011
• Upload, View, and Share DXF Files in Google Docs – 2/23/2011
• Get Rid of Those Pesky Contour Label Lines – 3/2/2011
• Getting Started with Civil 3D Reports – 3/9/2011
• View Civil 3D Drawings in Other Applications – 3/15/2011
• Customize Your Civil 3D Reports – 3/18/2011
• Protecting Your Civil 3D Styles – 3/21/2011
• Discover Topobase Tools Within Map 3D 2012 - 3/22/2011
• Life is Suite! Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suites are Here – 3/22/2011
• The Civil 3D 2012 Version Comparison Matrix – 3/22/2011
• The Map 3D 2012 Version Comparison Matrix – 3/22/2011
• Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D – 6/19/2011
• Pipe Network Staking in Civil 3D – Part 2 – 6/16/2011
• Change Parcel Area Units – 6/23/2011
• Civil 3D Subassembly Composer All Grown Up – 7/7/2011
• AutoCAD and Civil 3D Updates and Hotfixes – 7/14/2011

The 3 methods for generating your survey staking file covered in this post will include copy/paste plus cleanup from the Panorama, using the Pipe Network Alignment for generating a point file for just the horizontal data, or taking the extra step to include pipe/structure invert vertical data utilizing Feature Lines. All these will be covered in addition to several differing options available along the way. That makes this quite the novel of a blog post, but the process can be quite simple if you just pick out the method and options you prefer.

First things first, go ahead and draw your pipe network in the project if you haven’t already.

With the pipe network created, use the Civil 3D alignment tools to “Create Alignment from Network Parts.”

Select the first and last structures in your pipe network (or any and all structures that bound the network) and hit to create the alignment. Define the alignment however you wish with whatever styles and naming options apply for your standards.

When you are done, select “OK” and it will bring you directly into the “Create Profile…” dialog. From here, sample the proper alignment and surface to create the profile for the pipe network. Select “Draw in profile view” and choose the options within the profile view creation dialog that apply to your standards (creating the profile and profile view are unnecessary for the purpose of creating a survey staking file, but is included as an assumed step most will take during design).

With all the items sampled and style options chosen, place the profile view in your drawing. Even without the profile, we can already use the alignment created to generate Civil 3D COGO points based off of the alignment geometry or vertexes for the structure locations and rim elevations.

As an alternative, it is possible to use the structure and pipe information within Civil 3D to create an NEZ point file without having to generate COGO points. The following steps will explore this opportunity, but it will be up to you to determine if it is a worthwhile or preferred process.

From the pipe network layout tools, select the “Pipe Network Vistas” button to open up the Civil 3D Panorama.

From the structures tab of the panorama (and subsequently the pipes tab for invert information), highlight all rows of information, right-click, and select “Copy to clipboard” from the short cut menu.

Open up Microsoft Excel and paste the copied information into the spreadsheet. From here you can remove any columns and rows that don’t contain coordinate or elevation information.

With the spreadsheet “cleaned up” you can save it out to a .csv file for uploading to a data collector. (Alternatively, you can save it to any number of available formats, so long as it is a compatible file type.)

When the file is saved, you can open it in Notepad to review the results and check the accuracy. It should look like a standard NEZ point file as does the example below.

Regardless of using alignment geometry to generate COGO points in Civil 3D for export or copying and pasting structure information from the panorama, you should get the desired results for coordinate information for staking. If you don’t copy the invert coordinate and elevation information from the panorama, however, we still have to explore how to do so within Civil 3D using intelligent objects and automated point creation.

First, create a feature line along your pipe network. You can create it from an alignment (as I’ll show) or use the “Create Feature Line” option to draw the geometry. Using the alignment automates the process a bit upfront, but requires some cleanup on the backend. Drawing the feature line geometry is a more manual process, but eliminates the need to remove extraneous vertices (otherwise known as PI’s for feature lines).

For creating the feature line from an alignment, define the feature line styles and settings.

Make sure to set any weeding factors (if any at all) and select “OK”.

With the feature line created (whether from the alignment or manually drawn geometry) select the pipe network profile view and choose the “Project Objects To Profile View” option from the contextual ribbon.

Pick the feature line from the drawing space.

Confirm the projection style for the objects. This is mostly irrelevant as we are just using the feature line as a guide, not for displaying on construction documents.

If you produced the feature line from the alignment with a dynamic link, make sure to go into the feature line properties dialog and uncheck the box for “Dynamic Link”. This will allow you to adjust the elevation of the feature line separately from the alignment.

If you generated the feature line from the alignment and applied any weeding factors, you may still have some cleanup on the feature line. This isn’t entirely necessary, but will reduce the amount of manual editing you’ll have to perform to remove the COGO points that would otherwise be created between structures. In that, select the feature line and select the “Delete PI” icon from the contextual ribbon and follow the prompts at the command line and remove the intermediate vertices between structures.

From the example below, you can see what the feature line looks like once it has been modified.

With the feature line vertices limited to just the structures, pan down to the pipe network profile view and select the feature line (which should line up with the existing grade elevations of each structure).

Begin grip editing the feature line within the profile view to match the invert elevations of the pipes. If there is a drop in the influent and effluent inverts and you want that to be represented within your pipe staking points, you will have to add PI’s to your feature line to accommodate enough vertices within each structure to account for the pipe inverts.

Once the feature line elevations have been adjusted in the profile view, go to the “Create Points” toolbar or the points dropdown within the “Home” ribbon tab and select the “Automatic” point creation method within the “Miscellaneous” category.

You will then be prompted to select the geometry you want to generate the COGO points along, which in this case will be the feature line we have adjusted both horizontally and vertically.

After the feature line has been selected, you will be asked to give the COGO points a description. Type the raw description within the command line and hit several times until that description has been applied to all the COGO points generated along the feature line vertexes.

With the points created, make sure they have been added to a point group or create a point group to include these pipe network points. These could be combined into the same point group as COGO points generated from the alignment geometry to represent the structure locations and rim elevations.

Reviewing the pipe invert points in the drawing, you can see from the image below that the elevation of the structure invert is several feet below the existing ground elevation directly next to the structure. This is a quick visual check to ensure that the point was generated properly.

After all structure rim and invert points have been created, select the point group from the Prospector tab of the Toolspace, right-click, and choose “Export Points” from the shortcut menu. You will now have a pipe network staking file for uploading to your data collector.

Until recently, the only options available were to install a 32-bit version of the Autodesk software package or somehow convert the .mdb or .xls files over to an ODBC or SQL database which could be read in 64-bit applications. Well, with some recent revelations, I think there may be a new solution. That solution lies in the software creator that caused this problem in the first place: Microsoft.

When Microsoft decided that they wouldn’t develop the Jet engine any  more (which was all the way back after the release of Windows 2000), they gave it a deprecated status. This meant that no new developments would be made for it. Additionally, this was a pretty good sign that it would eventually be unsupported as well. Well, that became apparent with Windows Vista and 7 64-bit. They dropped Jet, but that’s not really what we want. We just want workable, usable Access .mdb and .xls files for our 64-bit Autodesk software. I think that solution is here.

When Microsoft developed Office 2010, they also created a 64-bit version of it. With that came a 64-bit version of Access. So what are we to do, but open up all our legacy, 32-bit .mdb files with Microsoft Access 2010 64-bit and update them for compatibility with all our other programs? The process will require installing an additional database engine, but I think th is a minor task overall.

Something important to note, though, is that this is all completely theoretical at this point. I just came across this information recently and don’t have an Office 2010 installation to test this on yet. I believe the process is sound, however, and I’d like to offer you the resources utilized in coming to this conclusion. Check out the following links for more information on updating your .mdb Access databases and .xls files to 64-bit and using them with your design software.

- Check this link out for info on why Jet isn’t supported in 64-bit
- Read the information on this page for utilizing Microsoft Office and Access 2010 64-bit for converting your databases.

If you discover anything else (or prove my theory inaccurate) please comment below. This issue is a pretty big problem industry-wide and your input may be a critical step in getting past it.

So why is this happening and how can you speed up your process? Well the reason this happens is because you probably have several hundred or even thousands of Layers in your drawing and/or several Layer Filters which are compounding the issue further. When working on any operations in AutoCAD (or any of the vertical products such as Civil 3D or AutoCAD Architecture) that require an “update” of the view within model or paper space, the program will attempt to reload and recalibrate all of these layers and filters in the drawing.

So that was the “why” this is happening, so now let’s explore the “how” to resolve the issue. The over abundance of layers and filters is the cause, but you likely don’t want to go sifting through your CAD Standards and start paring down layer names. That would be absurd. However, there is a simple way to control how AutoCAD handles this process. Within AutoCAD there is a system variable called SHOWLAYERUSAGE. By setting SHOWLAYERUSAGE to “0″ (zero), the program will stop trying to reprocess all the layers and filters every time you zoom, pan, regen, or any other “update” process. A simple solution to a very annoying problem.

To be thorough, however, I must mention it is always a good idea to PURGE your drawings of extraneous layers, blocks, dimension styles, etc. in order to keep the file size as small and workable as possible. Going another step further, utilizing the Command Line prompt for -PURGE and cleaning the REGAPPS (or Registered Applications) will also help your drawings process much better. There are dozens more operations for maintaining your files such as AUDIT, RECOVER, RECOVERALL, etc. which all have their place as well. So as you can see, SHOWLAYERUSAGE is just one of many commands and system variables you should have in your AutoCAD tool box for improving speed and productivity in your drawings.

Please leave any drawing maintenance tips and tricks you might have in the comments section!

First of all, there is a huge change in Civil 3D 2011 that has the most dramatic affect on your workstation build: it is now offered as a  64-bit native program. What does this mean for you? You can now utilize more than just 3 GB of RAM for running Civil 3D and there should be a significantly lower amount of memory issues (if not gone all together). Autodesk has also streamlined the core code of AutoCAD and Civil 3D to provide a more stable user experience — something us users have been requesting for years.

Now that we understand Civil 3D 2011 is fundamentally different than 2010 in terms of how to budget dollars and cents on a workstation, let’s examine what components are utilized the most from the software (All suggestions are for a desktop workstation with what I would consider the most important component on top. Adjustments are necessary for function and compatibility with mobile workstations due to form factor and battery drain):

• Motherboard – This is a PC component most build reviews neglect. Motherboards support all components of your system and can be the biggest bottleneck to performance. A quality motherboard can quickly save you money when you upgrade your workstation. If you lease your systems and/or have contracts with Dell, HP, or other manufacturers specifying a motherboard isn’t really an option, though.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – ASUS P7P55 Supercomputer Motherboard
    • Supports Core i5 and i7 chips
    • Supports nVIDIA SLI and ATI Crossfire GPU setups
    • Supports up to 16 GB of 1600 MHz Dual Channel DDR3 RAM (2133 MHz overclocked)
    • More than enough Serial ATA, PCIe, USB, Firewire, LAN, etc. ports to go around
    • Configured for easy access to components when installed
    • Pricey, but worth it in the long run
• Operating System – Okay, so this isn’t a hardware component, but it controls everything that your hardware does and how your CAD software performs so it does weigh at a high importance.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (or Enterprise  64-bit for corporate environments)
    • Improved stability and performance over XP and Vista
    • Utilizes a heavily developed and tested 64-bit platform
    • Conforms to all needs of corporate network and IT needs
    • Ability to improve performance of multi-core chips with “Turbo Boost”
    • Isn’t as unnecessarily pricey as Windows 7 Ultimate
• CPU – Civil 3D is a processor heavy program and the CPU is the heart of all things going on in your computer. With all the choices between Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Extreme, i7, i5, i3, and all the AMD Athlon and Phenom chips…this isn’t an easy decision to make.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – Intel Core i7 chip with Minimum 2.8 GHz and “Turbo Boost”
    • There are a lot of options even within the Core i7 offerings
    • Base processing speed is important as Civil 3D won’t utilize multiple cores
    • Multiple cores still come in handy when multiple programs are open
    • “Turbo Boost” redirects multi-core power to improve single-core speeds when needed
    • The Core i7 Extreme is nice, but the i7-920 can easily be overclocked to 4 GHz or more and there are other great options being released regularly
    • Optimized for 64-bit operations
• RAM – Now more than ever the on-board memory for your workstations is key for performance. With Civil 3D 2011 being natively 64-bit, you can really push the envelope with your installed memory and continue to see a performance boost. You won’t be utilizing all the RAM for daily tasks, but when you are rebuilding corridors and working with LiDAR points, every bit of extra memory will be appreciated.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – Minimum of 8 GB of 1333 MHz Dual Channel DDR3 RAM
    • The more RAM the merrier and the higher the clock speed the better
    • Too many manufacturers running short-term deals to pick a specific product
    • Utilize all motherboard RAM slots equally for best price/performance ratio
    • The “sweet spot” for Civil 3D right now is between 8-12 GB of RAM
    • Be careful when overclocking RAM, especially with cheap brands
• Hard Drive – Your software is installed on the hard drive and when you run out of RAM for processing, the hard drive takes on the overflow. Think it is important now? A large amount of storage isn’t the only thing you should consider as disk spin speed is an important factor while running programs.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – 1 – 10,000 RPM HDD with a minimum of 80  GB storage and 1 – 7,200 RPM HDD with a minimum of 500 GB storage.
    • 10k RPM drive gives the best performance while running a program
    • 7,200 RPM drive provides bulk storage at a decent read speed
    • Combination of hard drives gives best value for speed and storage
    • 7,200 RPM drive (or a 3rd drive) can be used for backup as well
• Video Card – Whether you call it a GPU, Video Card, or Graphics Card it serves the purpose for taking what your PC is processing and rendering it on your monitor(s). The GPU isn’t as important a component in your Civil 3D rig as it might be for a gaming computer or someone doing video editing (or 3Ds Max), but it does hold value.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – Minimum of 256 MB nVIDIA Quadro FX or ATI Fire GL
    • More than 256 MB is nice if you have the budget, but not necessary
    • 2 Dual DVI, Display Port, or HDMI outputs is a must
    • Start with a “smaller” GPU and expand later if necessary with SLI or Crossfire
    • I prefer nVIDIA over ATI, but the field is split on which is actually better
    • There is an ongoing argument if workstation video cards are really necessary and I won’t dispute either side…except that a maxed out GPU isn’t needed for Civil 3D so why not get a quality, mid-range workstation card?
• Monitors – And I mean monitors. One of the easiest performance boosts you can give yourself is an upgrade to dual monitors. If you don’t use a setup like this yet, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. No, it doesn’t double your efficiency, but it does offer a great increase in productivity.
  • Indydrafter’s Choice – 2 – widescreen monitors at least 20″ diagonal
    • I prefer around a 22″ monitor for price/purpose (though 24″ is nice)
    • An expensive “full color gamut” IPS monitor isn’t necessary for Civil 3D use
    • It takes patience to find monitors with a narrow bezel, but so worth it
    • Get monitors with adjustable heights, tilt, and rotation for best ergonomics

Well, that’s about it. I could continue with cases, optical drive, and many more components, but they simply don’t affect your Civil 3D user experience that much. Though, it is worth mentioning that a comfortable keyboard and mouse can go a long way in improving your productivity and preventing soreness throughout the day. Also, consider that you’ll need an adequate power supply unit to provide enough juice to all those components you installed.

What did you think? Do you have any suggestions to add or critiques of what I’ve provided? What order would you place the importance of the components in? What kind of budget are you working within for your next workstation build/purchase? Maybe there is a pre-configured manufacturer workstation model that fits into the descriptions I’ve provided…what company and model is it? Talk about all this and more in the comments area below.

Here’s Autodesk’s System Requirements:

One of the most used commands in AutoCAD is UNDO (Ctrl+Z). However, that isn’t always the most efficient or useful tool especially if you are selecting items for a command. One tool that I would equate to UNDO is utilizing Shift+Left Click to deselect drawing entities in your selection set. Sometimes this is necessary because you’ve accidentally picked an unintended object, but it can also be utilized when it is just easier to select a large group of  items and deselect a few.

Herein lies the problem, though. By default, in Civil and Map 3D, if there is an aerial or background image loaded, Shift+Left Click will actually select the image instead of deselecting the object you are targeting, even if that image is on an “off” layer. This was an intentional feature for AutoCAD Civil 3D and Map 3D, as the only other way to select an image is to zoom out and pick the image frame. This can be very cumbersome when dealing with 300 MB aerial photography files that need to process everytime you zoom or pan significantly. Luckily, whether you like this feature or not Autodesk has given you the choice of setting your preference.

That choice isn’t inherently easy to find, though. In previous releases (2006, ’07, ’08, and ’09 to my knowledge) you could enter the command IOPTIONS and edit the settings within the mouse action options. However, that changed with the 2010 release of AutoCAD Civil 3D and Map 3D. Now, the command has changed to MAPIOPTIONS and the dialog is a little different.