New to Civil 3D

[jquackenbush]

I work for a municipality that has just stepped into the real world, and has picked up Civil 3D.

 

I have very little training with it and was hoping that I could get some advice on some online training sites and/or tutorials.

 

I have been going through the 'help' within Civil 3D and have found them helpfull.

 

We use the program for plan and profile dwg of municipal infrastructure.

 

The next question I have, which again just looking for some tutorials on, is setting up our GPS and Civil 3D to allow line codes and auto line drawing. I have figured out the coding that civil 3D requires, however, is there a way to have the lines come in on different layers? The way I have it set up now brings them all in on the same layer and I have to change them.

 

 

Thanks for you help

[BIGAL]

1st question where are you in the world

 

2nd have you set up a code library so that it recognises you field coding when importing your survey data ie get lines, blocks, breaklines and layers. Depends on 1st question someon may have a dwt tha would be usefull as an example ours has 600+ layers and 200+blocks to handle all codes used.

[jquackenbush]

We are located in southwestern Ontario.

 

I will need to set up everything from scratch. Does 3D already have layers and blocks as a default that I would program the data collector with, or do I set it up in the data collector and in turn change everything in Civil 3D?

 

I am looking at the easiest and quickest way to get started, and then change and modify everything as we go to what we like.

 

I have completed a bit of research for training courses and have come up short. Is there companies out there that I can hire to do in house training, and possibly help with all the initial set up?

[BIGAL]

Definatley try local companies who may sell you their set up generally your Autocad dealer should have done this for you already , did you just buy civ3d from cheapest source ? If so not a good idea you really want an experienced dealer to support you particarly at early stages.

 

Hmmmm trip to USA.

[Bill_Myron]

Civil 3D is ready to go out of the box. You just have to know how to use it.

 

The biggest part is integrating all your past standards into Civil 3D styles. Trial and error will play a major role in this. You could always hire someone who knows the program to do this for you, but I think the best solution wouild be to do it internal. That way you know how things work and interact between each other. You would get to know the program in depth and use more of its features.

 

This way, you are investing in your own company and not someone elses.

 

As for the training course, I have been to many. I find they are very dry and straight forward. Mostly they jsut run through the tutorials that come with Civil 3D. Mostly a waste of money in my opinion. Do some looking around and you might find someone that trains in house and specific to your business. They may even help set up your styles and workflows.

[BIGAL]

One of the flaws with civ3d is the ability to create styles simply it does not have say a export and import to say excel, as an example your field code library needs to be created as part of the styles, code=tree1 = block called tree1 and goes on layer trees.

 

There is a 3rd party product out there though that allows this to be done may be worth purchasing if your starting from scratch sorry can not remember its name.

 

Our dwt is around 1mb as I said 200+ blocks 600+ layers

 

You need the Dwt really set up to suit your local area requirements ours is set to country and local code system, Australia & metric

 

Ask nicely here some one can probbly help you out offer a few dollars, it really does take hours to make the down side is no style your layer zero blows out.

[caddcop]

One company is http://www.steltmansoftware.com/

They have a family of tools, but I am a huge fan of the Migration tool

It converts a Land Desktop Descriptor key file to a civil 3D descriptor key file, creating all of the point styles needed. The default one in Civil 3D does not.