some other day!  Boy, having not worked in metric in a metric year (?), i feel like a noob.  But that’s for a different day. Today’s note is for those that might not have worked in metric and are just starting.  Specifically, i’ll talk about pipe networks.  You can use the ootb metric pipe catalog and have 2010 build a full part list for you if you dont have one.  But the snafu comes when you want to try out the spiffy new feature to dump your network into storm sewers to analyze the system. Yeah, you can’t with metric pipe networks. Not directly anyway.

Alright some details. First, select a pipe or structure in the network to be analyzed. You must do this first. In 2010, the context ribbon for pipe networks appears. Towards the right end, you will a group called Analyze with a button for storm sewers. Clicking that will give you a drop down list; import file, export to file and edit in storm sewers.  Naturally, we want to pick edit in storm sewers.  This saves the network to a STM file which then opens in Storm Sewers.  Enter our metric job and this process stops dead right here.

The problem, it seems, is that storm sewers by default will open in english units. Yes, you can open SS and set the units to metric (SI), jump out and try the command, but that doesnt work either.  The only way to get the command “edit it storm sewers” to work, even with SP2, is to set the DWG to be imperial units. Period. 

Well, that option didnt work for me, i have a hard enough time working in metric that going back and forth during the process would REALLY confuse me.

So, the alternative is this:  simply use export to file and import and open SS yourself.  This process still creates the native STM file and updates c3d on import. It’s just a bit more manual labor.  Yeah, i know. Civil 3d is such hard work!

Good long morning to everyone.  Lots to catch up on. But first, a message from yesterday’s events.

Our standard new machines are Vista 64 with blah, blah….  More important to this story is that we are only loading 2010 to these new machines as they get introduced.  The only snafu is that there is one project in our vault (which is adms 2010) that hasn’t moved to the 2010 DWG format yet; it’s in testing. So, for the time being, any work has to be done in civil 3d 2009. No big deal right? So i run our base 2009 image install, which is silent, and come back to 2009 goodness ready to go.

Want some freakin’ awesome plugins to autocad (and related verticals) for free?  Check out the Autodesk Labs Plugin of the Month link below. They have 2 plugins out now!

Clipboard Manager for AutoCAD (October 2009)
This plugin can be used with AutoCAD to manage multiple clipboard entries, storing and renaming them for later use.

Offset in XREF (September 2009)
This plugin can be used with AutoCAD to enable the OFFSET command to work with externally referenced drawings. The plugin has been tested with AutoCAD 2007 onwards. The plugin enables the standard OFFSET to work with externally referenced content instead of responding with the “Cannot offset that object.” message.

How cool are those plugins? Sweet right? Check the link below every month for a new plugin. AND, if you’re super nerdy, the code is included in the download for you to fiddle with; cause we all like fiddlin with stuff.  The only gotcha is that you have to be using v2007 or newer to use these apps.  Please tell me you’re not on r14?

Autodesk Labs Utilities Plugin of the Month Updates.

Enjoy!

Good morning all.  Today’s topic is merely to add definition to an otherwise dead horse (long debate about how to “best” orient model space views). For those not familiar wth the debate – it boils down to using either Dview or UCS Rotate. In the firms i’ve used autocad and the vertical applications, we’e chosen Dview…..  Anyway, not why i’m writing today.

Alright, get to the point mcfly. (See, i really am self depricating).  There are some discussions being had on the autodesk groups that, while entertaining, need to have the facts identified a bit. In other words, i wanna clear my good friend, Dview’s, name. It seems that folks think that Dview will cause incorrect views because they think blah blah happens….  Well, like anything, its how we use it that doesn’t cause those issues.

“What happens with old school grading…”

Everyone’s heard the paradigm that Civil 3d is a shift in thinking for civil engineers. Is it really? Haven’t true engineers been working this way for a long time, and we simply adapted to our toolset over time?

Now before people shoot me funny looks or weird comments, let’s define a few things.  A “true engineer” is someone who has received either a PE license or has so much experience should have a license.  One of my first experiences with this type of person was unexpected. He wasn’t licensed and had been a “designer” for longer than i had ben alive. How did he design?

Yes, he drew contours and such for drafters. But, to get those contours, he first created spot shots all over the place. Did he add those sweeping proposed contour tie-ins? Nope. Couldn’t justify it. He would say something to the effect of “why add something to the design that i can’t replicate in my head?”

My young jedi mind was confused. I just figured they used those curves to indicate 2 “soft” surfaces coming together. After much time, i think i came to realize what he meant – i have a 3:1 slope down from a known point, not a 3:1 slope with a 200:1 “elliptical” slope within a foot of tying to existing ground. How would you even stake that out as a surveyor?

Where am i going with all of this. The point was, He was thinking three demensionally all the time. From a macro project level all the way down to individual spot grades along property lines. It’s this vision that forms the basis for design. Yes, i said it – civil engineers DESIGN stuff.  Civil 3D is merely a tool in that design process. Does it do it’s job? For the most part, yes. It fails because of our industry practices and politics; always chasing what this person wants or that agency “needs.”

Stepping out a bit, we see that effect is slowly changing. Primarily because of BIM and the larger architecture community driving the change. Hopefully, some of the larger civil engineering firms will help facilitate this change along with the various vendors like Siteops adding innovation.  To the future!

Hello all, back early this time.  An application popped up on my radar in the last few months and I wanted to get a few opinions on useage, apparent or actual. The application is called Landxplorer. A mashup of CAD, BIM and GIS data types into one virtual visualization.  Additionally, there is a “Studio” edition to do some modeling natively. Let’s figure it out together….