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Civil 3D Nightmares


BIGAL

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I agree with organic CIV3D has some good stuff but has some nightmares, Styles being the biggest problem. 8 pages of info. We had a TBM lable style block and wanted smaller only took 2 hrs to change whilst I figured out what each line did.

 

I personally had a meeting with a rep from Autodesk about 20 yrs ago when the grading editor was first created. A simple question was can we have cut=fill sure just repeat till you get the answer. The other software that we used it was an option and had been in the software for 3 years.

 

Looking back as I have said before being involved in Civil software sales 20 years ago we really are no further down what I would call a truly interactive design where you see your model in 3d grab a design alignment alter its parameters see in a 3d sense up dates at same time your other stuff in the layouts cross and long is updating. For those interested our 3rd party supplier is working on change your vertical design and the cross sections no matter were in dwg will update.

 

Were still using 2013 and happy have 2015 sitting on shelf ready to go awaiting corporate pc updates. If your old enough can you remember excel on a single floppy disk the other floppy was the operating system. Look at the overheads now with windows.

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I agree with organic CIV3D has some good stuff but has some nightmares, Styles being the biggest problem. 8 pages of info. We had a TBM lable style block and wanted smaller only took 2 hrs to change whilst I figured out what each line did.

 

Styles are a nightmare. Even if you find how to change/set them up then when you go back to them a few months later there is so many options that it is hard to even do what you have somehow managed to do before.

 

we really are no further down what I would call a truly interactive design where you see your model in 3d grab a design alignment alter its parameters see in a 3d sense up dates at same time your other stuff in the layouts cross and long is updating.

 

12d can already do this when you utilise computators and chains. Make a design recalc chain which will update all the functions, super alignments, tins, contours, cross sections, long sections, etc at once (and export to dwgs at the same time if desired also).

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Thanks Organic I guess what I was saying the way in which we view a design has not changed to much you have a Long sect and cross sect and a plan where is the pretty picture version like a holograph view. Look ar Revit And Architure how far they have come from flat 2d plans.

 

3droadcross.jpg

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I agree. I don't think I've ever seen a series of cross sections presented in perspective view like in your screenshot either.

 

The only time I view a 3d model is when checking a surface for accuracy. All construction documents we provide are still 2d cross sections/long sections/plans as you said. What we are doing a lot more of now is proving 3d machine control files for the contractors for their graders, diggers etc where they upload (or more often the contractors come to us and we upload it to their machine as they struggle with them) the design file direct to the machines inbuilt GPS and then grade/trench directly to those design levels using machine control.

 

The inherent risk in this though is that all the guys on site then think they are surveyors and can set out everything themselves. I had a job today where the contractor thought the design was screwed (they were not using machine control on this job although setting everything out themselves with their laser levels); went out to the site and they had made a fundamental surveying 101 error (and I'm no surveyor although they were so wrong it was instantly noticeable)... the other risk is that if the design is wrong/not perfect, there is no where to hide when you are proving the design file directly for machine control setout and construction.

 

edit: typo, should have been 2d, not 3d

Edited by Organic
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Re machine control I worked for Topcon its amazing had chance driving a grader the controls are a left-right arrow thats it, so you do not get lost. The movement of the blade was impressive going from -3% to +3% and watching it rotate with me doing nothing. But bottom line screw the model and grader will head for China.

 

2nd our 3rd party add on now drives cars at cross sections so can check bottoming out when turning in it would be nice if you took my 3d cross sections and one starts blinking hey you have scraped the Ferrari again.

 

secret 3d cross sections "Rotate3d"

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Re machine control I worked for Topcon its amazing had chance driving a grader the controls are a left-right arrow thats it, so you do not get lost. The movement of the blade was impressive going from -3% to +3% and watching it rotate with me doing nothing. But bottom line screw the model and grader will head for China.

 

Yes, it certainly forces the designer to ensure the model is accurate and that the design works from the onset.

 

2nd our 3rd party add on now drives cars at cross sections so can check bottoming out when turning in it would be nice if you took my 3d cross sections and one starts blinking hey you have scraped the Ferrari again.

 

I presume that is ARD. We've got a few guys here using it although I haven't seen that feature yet. Why do you need to check vertical clearance on a road design, should your vertical geometry/vc's not ensure clearance is not an issue longitudinally? Or are you fully modelling the driveways as well and checking vertical clearance when entering a driveway from the road?

 

I've used AutoTrack (now Autodesk vehicle tracking or whatever Autodesk has renamed it too) before to check vertical clearance (along a 3d polyline) when going from positive road crossfall to steep negative grade driveways etc although found it a bit of a hassle. I prefer to just manually check using paper & pen and the paper based clearance templates.

 

secret 3d cross sections "Rotate3d"

 

Thanks, I'll check it out some time.

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Re Scraping We have to check the vehicle entry into a property from the road and make sure they dont touch. We have a dirt road and are now constructing it over time the car scrapes away the dirt till it just misses but is not a acceptable shape longitudinally when being rebuilt and having kerbing.

 

Organic In ARD its part of the cross section viewer to see a vehicle and it moves across the profile. You can customise the vehicle shape also. The check is good in that it is normally at 90 deg so its the most extreme check as a car normally enters with a slight angle.

 

A side note 2 comments I wrote a vehicle check a few years ago copies a car along a pline. 2nd worked within a company with the principle of ARD for many years.

 

The rotated cross sections maybe usefull for some form of presentation.

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Look at Revit And Architecture how far they have come from flat 2d plans.
They have definitely came a long way. Remember, ACA got all it's concepts from Revit, it's merely applied in an AutoCAD environment.

 

Big Al, I see posts like this quite often and I can sympathize. I once was yearning for more with AutoCAD and then I found AutoCAD MEP. I then yearned for more and I found Revit. I even find myself yearning for more with Revit and one day there will be a program developed that will make Revit look like it's archaic. I have no clue on Civil 3D but having worked at a civil engineering firm previously I've heard all the gripes, and like Organic many people prefer plain AutoCAD because why use something that is supposed to have lots of functionality when it's very counterproductive?

 

I've seen you for years posting code and making your life and other's lives easier. You've been doing this a long time and I don't see you being as contempt as many others around here. My point is I see that you "want more" out of your design software.

 

I wonder if a totally new type of platform is, or has been in the works for the civil guys? The same we've seen with Inventor/SolidWorks over AutoCAD, or Revit over AutoCAD, and other robust CAD applications that have risen through the years. I'm not talking about another AutoCAD core with a fancy add-on, I'm talking about a totally new type of platform altogether. From my limited amount of knowledge and perspective, it seems like it's time for civil to have their time finally, as I've seen other trades have through my 12 years of a CAD based career.

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tzframpton your on the mark the Civil design seems to be the last to get smart, just like people say why cant we see our model with special glasses well Autocad tried that 30 years ago.

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I wonder if a totally new type of platform is, or has been in the works for the civil guys? The same we've seen with Inventor/SolidWorks over AutoCAD, or Revit over AutoCAD, and other robust CAD applications that have risen through the years. I'm not talking about another AutoCAD core with a fancy add-on, I'm talking about a totally new type of platform altogether. From my limited amount of knowledge and perspective, it seems like it's time for civil to have their time finally, as I've seen other trades have through my 12 years of a CAD based career.

 

I don't see what shape any such 'totally new platform' for civil design would take though. You would still have to have the same functionality of alignments, DTMs/surfaces, cross sections/assemblies/templates, strings etc as every civil software package has today.

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I don't see what shape any such 'totally new platform' for civil design would take though. You would still have to have the same functionality of alignments, DTMs/surfaces, cross sections/assemblies/templates, strings etc as every civil software package has today.
Organic, of course you don't see what shape a new platform would take. You're not a software developer. I have no idea what shape it would be either. All I know is it must be something different altogether, since AutoCAD alone or AutoCAD with "extras" still hasn't done something for your industry even though it's been on the scene for decades.

 

Sometimes the only way to get something new is to start with a clean slate.

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