Civil 2011 File Management

We have just started to try and use C3D 2011 for all our civil work such as corridors, pipe network, etc, however I find when you get that amount of information into a dwg for a subdivision with all the design info the computer really chugs down.

Our previous SAP for projects was to have a base dwg with the legal and all design info and xref'd into the final coversheet dwg.

I'm just not sure how to handle the file management of the scale of what civil 2011 requires.

Thanks for your advise and input.

make an individual directory for each project so dwgs are grouped for a start rather than one big directory with everything. If size is a problem pull the long and cross sections out into a seperate dwg delete from master you can always recreate. We have done this on big jobs end up with 3x10mb dwgs

Hey BigAl,

sorry, I must be a bit slow this morning, but when you mean an individual directory is it having pipe networks in one dwg, corridors in another, surfaces in another, etc, etc,? And everything is referenced into a master (base) dwg?

No keep your master as just that with all the design info in it. As you create say long sections etc which are produced by the software and not drawn by you, these can be cut & copied to else where to reduce the master file size. These can be xrefed back in or remain stand alone.

Unless the project is really big we keep everything in one dwg.