AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 Update 3 available

Please read AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2010 Update 3 Readme file before installing. This update resolves Ciivl 3D, Map 3D and AutoCAD issues.

Download update

Point Table with Station Offset Data

In Civil 3D 2011 it is not possible to create a dynamic point table with station and offset data. However it is possible with 3rd party software. http://www.quuxsoft.com/

If purchasing 3rd party is out of the question the tip below will provide a point table with station data that is not dynamic. This is possible by exporting an XML report to word and importing it to Civil 3D. Exporting to various formats provides efficient workflows for import back to Civil 3D.

Note: NET reports can be saved in several formats, including HTML, Adobe® PDF, Microsoft® Word Document, Microsoft® Excel Workbook, and Text Document. If Microsoft® Office is not installed, than the options for Word Document, Excel Workbook, and Text Document are not available

First let locate the toolbox icon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Select the toolbox icon on the left to customize reports.

Locate the Toolbox tab and right click Station Offset to Points

Unfortunately this command will include every point in the drawing. If the point numbers are known you could select each one or remove the unwanted points. An easier workflow is erase points from the current drawing (to be safe do a save as before removing points). Erase the points that are not to be included. I wanted to include all points 100’ from the alignment so I offset the alignment 50’. Connected these lines to form a polyline and then offset the polyline another 50’.


Once the area is established the points were selected and erased. Below is what the drawing looked like before creating the report.

 

The secret to creating the report is exporting it word format.  

This is the report created in word. Notice it is customized to ADSK Solutions. This was accomplished with the red toolbox icon earlier.

Simply select report, copy it and select paste special in Civil 3D.

Once the table is in Civil 3D select the report and change the text to any font style using properties. The table isn’t dynamic, but it is relatively easy to create and desired results are obtainable.

Data Shortcut Workflow Solu-around

Create a layer filter in the Civil 3D template to automatically turns off all xrefed objects that are duplicated once data shortcuts (references) are established. This is accomplished by customizing the properties of the layer filter to match objects layers that are set in the drawing settings and object styles. The secret is to include this symbol in the filter property and include only the object layers that are available through data shortcuts.

I have enclosed my layer filter properties below and the objects drawing settings for you to reference.

If this tip is accomplished correctly it establishes an efficient workflow, easier for new users to adopt and users do not have to remember all of the layer names. The properties of this filter must be customized to match custom settings and layers for the template.
      

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Below describes data shortcuts in more detail and how the above tip is helpful.

Data Shortcuts are imperative to Civil 3D and provide a solution for sharing data. They are called DATA Shortcuts because they allow users to share data like Surfaces, alignments, profiles, pipe networks, and view frame groups from one drawing to another. As Civil 3D has evolved so have data shortcuts. They are essential on any project that requires multiple drawings. Like AutoCAD, Civil 3D stores information inside the drawing. Information for an object can only be obtained in the drawing that the object was created in, unless a data shortcut or vault is used. (Vault is a document manager tool and is an alternative to data shortcuts.)
As users become familiar with Data Shortcuts new workflows for Civil 3D are introduced. In general, engineering companies will create a base or overall drawing with existing topo and create a surface from existing features. This base drawing is than copied or xrefed into a new drawing for engineering to begin design. For this example we are going to do a save as. Now we have an engineering overall drawing with the existing surface in it. Alignments, profiles, and a corridor are created in the engineering base drawing. To get multiple members of the project team involved a new drawing is created for utility design. Before you create the new drawing create data shortcuts of the surface, alignments, and profiles.

To design utilities in ‘plan’ view we need the topo plan. The engineering base drawing will be xreferenced to ensure changes are updated. Notice when this occurs the existing surface, alignments, profiles and corridor show in the current drawing. These objects are showing, but do not provide data. To place the utilities in profile view the data for the surface, alignment, and profiles will be required. To obtain this data create a reference. I wish these were called data reference to avoid the confusion with xreferences. Once the references are created the new objects are in the drawing with the exception of profiles. Create profile view command to obtain the profile objects in the drawing. Now all objects are duplicated and the xrefed objects can be turned off. A simple solution for accomplishing this is to create a layer filter in the Civil 3D template that reflects layer names in the drawing settings or object style layers and include the xrefed symbol for those layers. This provides an easy solution for new users to understand and this workflow is more efficient.

Data Shortcut 2011 new feature and 2010 undocumented synchronizing

As Civil 3D has evolved so have data shortcuts. The new 2011 version finally supports synchronizing drawings to projects (shortcut folders). Please see below for 2010 data shortcut synchronization (unsupported) solu-around.

2010 users can also apply synchronization, but it is not supported.

AssociateShortcutProject,

AssociateProjectToDrawings

If these commands don’t work enter ShortcutAssociateEnable at the command line.

This command is stored in the registry and can be applied to multiple computers at once by locating ShortcutAssociateEnable and setting it to 1.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\Profiles\<>\Civil\DataShortcut\AssociateShortcutProject

Data Shortcut Practical Joke

Make sure you are familiar with this before it gets you.

It has been awhile since I have played a practical joke on anyone. You remember what Ctrl+0 does? I hope so because it removes everything on your screen except your pull-down menus and command line. What about Ctrl+9? Yep that removes the command line. I have really had some great ones over the years. I don’t remember how it was done, but you could set AutoCAD back in the DOS days to only draw white lines no matter what the user did and I have always enjoyed setting every layer in the drawing to NO PLOT. Heheheheh!

Now it’s your turn to have fun. Simple type shortcutnode at the command line in Civil 3D 2011. It INSTANTLY removes data shortcuts from the prospector. I guarantee this will invoke a call to support. If I gambled or had a tip jar I would bet support can’t get this one on the first call. To bring data shortcuts back to the prospector simply type shortcutnodes and enter 1. This also works in 2010, with a more dramatic affect; data shortcuts won’t disappear until the user closes the drawing and opens a new drawing.

Have fun, but don’t forget to set this back to 1 for the user before going home.

Undocumented AEC style commands Civil 3D 2011

Everyone is discussing the new undocumented style commands in 2011. They are AECCIMPORTSTYLES and AECCIMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS. I have finally sat down to test both of these. I had very high hopes and anticipated these commands would allow users to open any drawing or template and select a group of styles or settings to pull into a master dwg or template. Unfortunately it is meant to import all of your styles from one drawing or template to another. I do encourage the use of AECCIMPORTSTYLES, but be careful. It will override / update any existing style with the same name automatically. It is always cool to find undocumented features, but we have always been able to drag and drop individual and groups of styles from one drawing to another. To import all styles from one drawing or template to another in 2011 or prior versions simple create a new point style. Select the marker tab, check Use AutoCAD BLOCK symbol for marker, right click in block area and select browse. Set dwt or dwg at the bottom and select source. Click ok and all styles are imported to the drawing. The only difference is this does not override existing styles that already exist in the drawing. Yes AECCIMPORTSTYLES is quicker, but it will override existing styles and it only works in 2011.

AECCIMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS I thought was going to be the command of the year. Finally I bring all of my default settings from one drawing to another. NOT SO FAST! I set my pipe network feature settings to label my pipes in profile to the top of the structure; I set label defaults and my object layers. Type AECCIMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS and nothing updated. This command only brings over a select few of command settings attached to styles. That is it. The name can fool you and now I see why it is undocumented.

Notes:

The drawing or template extension must be typed at the command line along with the name.

The drawing that is being imported must be closed.

Styles with the same name are overridden.

Steps above allow all styles to be imported for prior versions.

There are 3rd party solutions available to pull individual groups over one at a time.

Cursor pauses are annoying

Shortly after opening a client drawing my mouse continuously paused every time I moved the mouse over points. I thought this was due to QP being on at the bottom, but it continued after I turned it off. I also noticed a couple of hundred point styles and about that many labels styles. I blamed that until I opened a new drawing with NSC template and imported all of these styles. I soon realized it was because of the points in the drawing. To remove annoying pauses from points type CUI at the command line. Locate rollover tips, and unselect display elements for cogo points. To turn all rollover tips off at once type it at the command line and enter 0.

Civil 3D 2011 VBA conversion dialog

Shortly after opening Civil 3D 2011 you will open your existing 2010 files and the dialog box below is displayed.

Below is an explanation of each option, the short version is to convert to .NET if you started using Civil 3D in 2009 or 2010. I have downloaded the VBA module to remove the error every time I open a drawing in a previous version and I convert VBA-based subassemblies to .NET to achieve optimal performance when generating corridor models.

The 1st option – recommended for 2009 and 2010 users

Convert the VBA content to .NET, this will enhance performance (corridor design). It is not recommended to convert the data if the pipe rule set was modified in Civil 3D 2008, or earlier versions of Civil 3D because you will lose any VBA changes you made to C3DPipeNetworkRules.dvb.

The 2nd option – recommended to remove error message and for 2008 or later dwgs.

I would only suggest downloading VBA for anyone using VBA, tired of receiving the message or are working with modified rule files from 2008 versions. If you have downloaded VBA Modules you can still convert to .NET by simply typing _AeccConvertVBARulesToDotNet at the command line for pipe rules and _AeccConvertVBASAsToDotNET for Assemblies and subassemblies.

The 3rd option – not recommended

The only reason I can think of, would be if you can’t download the VBA data or not going to save the drawing in 2011. I was hoping this option would allow opening drawings in 2011 and still sharing my drawings with 2010 users, but it didn’t prevail. Like prior versions once the object data is saved in 2011 it shows as proxy objects in prior versions.

*Civil 3D Object data must be exported as XML and imported for previous versions to recognize them for editing.

*Not sure what version the pipe rules were created in? Download VBA, the error message will not be displayed and the only thing you may notice would be some performance when applying rules. Besides a single network can have a mix of parts that point to VBA-based and .NET-based part rules.

The Ribbon, and the Quick Access Toolbar

The first time I opened Civil 3D 2010 and saw the RIBBON my head spun around like the girl in the Exorcist. Remember that movie? I will spare you the pictures of it, but I’m not kidding; everything I learned up to that point in Civil 3D had been moved or modified. I couldn’t believe it, and I didn’t see any advantage at the time. After taking a deep breath and spinning my head back to the forward direction I have become a custom to it. Pick any Civil 3D object and the ribbon automatically arranges commands to help you find the correct tools.
Now, I was taught back in the DOS days that the fewest amount of clicks made users more efficient. So using the ribbon choose the modify tab, actually pick any tab except for Home. Notice the layer option is gone. It will take one click to select home and another to get back to layers. An easy way to set the most common commands is to modify each ribbon or easily assign them to the access toolbar.

Default Quick Access Toolbar

 
 
 
 
 
 

Simply right click on any command and add it to the quick access toolbar.

 

Modified Quick Access Toolbar

Instantly apply description key file to update points

I recently taught a class, and it reminded me of all the little commands that I have taken for granted or practically forgot about until prompted to remember. I  plan to post at least one per day and eventually post them on my website into categories to share with you and to help me remember all of the little commands that save us time.

 





The pictures speak for themselves, edit point description, right click; apply description keys and the point styles are updated instantly.