Being Civil

Using Process Monitor for Troubleshooting

Some of the more difficult cases to solve are the ones that are caused by a conflict with another application, or a rogue permission issue.  These are typically computer-specific, or perhaps specific to one’s network environment.  Two of Microsoft’s gurus (Mark Russinovich & Bryce Cogswell) have released a utility called Process Monitor.  This is a real-time visual of what is going on with your machine, and is a great tool to help troubleshoot these issues.

Autodesk and AutoCAD Civil 3D highlighted on NPR's Morning Edition

Hey all, I just had to include this mention.  For those of you outside the United States, National Public Radio is "a privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization, [and] serves a growing audience of 27.5 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 860 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations."

This morning they featured Autodesk and Civil 3D in a story about "virtual, shovel-ready projects" that are taking off in various countries around the world as part of government-sponsored economic stimulus packages, and how Civil 3D is a key component to this effort.  Listen to the story.

Our own David Fagerman, an Applications Engineer and subject matter expert in the transportation sector and Kevin Stewart, Industry Solutions Manager for Transportation are interviewed in the story.  Cool!

 

Deployment for 2010 version - where are my tool palettes?

If you are one of those “lucky ones” to have created your deployment directly from DVDs you may notice that tool palettes are displaying fine but some Civil sub-assemblies and assemblies are missing from the palettes. This appears to be the issue only with deployments created from DVDs but not if Civil 3D 2010 is installed as a stand-alone.

 

Performance tweak for 32-bit XP or Vista with 3GB switch enabled

Back in January, Justin wrote a great post on "The basics of RAM and 32/64-bit environments."  I wanted to add another tip for those of you on 32-bit Operating Systems who have enabled the 3GB switch and still have some problems.  This will not solve all issues, but may provide some relief.  If you just set the 3GB switch, you force the OS to allocate a full 3GB of virtual memory for application use, and the OS (kernel) is limited to 1 GB.

By setting the /userva switch, you give the OS a bit of space back.  This can be useful if you are running into display issues with your graphics card, as some video adapter drivers with onboard RAM need more than 1GB of kernel address space.  Or we have found sometimes drawings that would not open with just the 3GB switch will open successfully if you tweak it back a touch using /userva and give the OS a bit more breathing room.

The Microsoft Documents are here:

• Windows XP 32-bit (don't worry, it says for Windows Server 2003, but is also applicable to Windows XP 32 bit).

• Windows Vista 32 bit

Microsoft recommends setting the variable between 2800-2900 for optimal performance.

Our Technical Solution for enabling the 3GB switch on XP and Vista 32 bit OSs is here.  (Note for Vista, all it is doing is setting the UserVa setting to 3072; you can set this value lower, as mentioned in the Microsoft document link above).

Rotating individual Labels

Not that settings such as Orientation Reference or Rotation Angle in Label Style Composer don't do their job but there are situations such as the one my customer experienced yesterday. Customer asked if it’s possible to rotate individual (alignment) labels 180 degrees. Changes in style are applied to all objects so the short answer was - "No." Besides the (unpopular) "explode label" and set it on new layer and rotate, there is another way to work around it.

If we create new style to be a copy of the existing style in use and edit Readability Bias to 180 degrees, then apply that new style to the selected labels we'll have what we need - 180 degrees rotated alignment labels. So, here are the steps:

Extensions available for Subscription customers

So I believe most of you are on Subscription, yes?  Another of the benefits (besides being able to download your software electronically and work with us here in Product Support) is the release of Extension content.  What do we have currently for 2010?

There is also content for prior versions, check it out.  Users in France even have a roundabout creation tool!  For a more detailed description of these Extensions I'll send you over to my good friend Jack and his post on FromTheGroundUp.

Unknown command when Importing Google Earth Mesh

In 2010, if you tried to import a Google Earth Mesh from the Ribbon, you may have been greeted with this:

Not to worry, it’s an easy fix.

1. Open your CUI
2. Expand Ribbon > Tabs > Civil 3D Insert
3. Click on “Civil 3D Insert Import & notice the Preview appear on the right side
4. Click on Google Earth on the right side
5. Back on the left, click on Google Earth Mesh
6. Now back to the bottom right, you can see the Command name and Macro
7. Change the macro and remove the AECC so that it just reads:
   • ^C^C_ImportGEMesh
8. Hit Apply and then OK.

That should do it!

The Art of Troubleshooting

This weekend while I visiting my parents, my Mom asked me to give her bicycle a quick tune up.  While taking it for a spin, I kept hearing this noise on each rotation.  I like my bikes to be super quiet, so this immediately got my full attention.  And after all, it was Mother’s Day.  I started testing.  Big ring?  Small ring?  Was it the front wheel or the back?  Loose spoke?  A creaking bottom bracket?  It took me a few minutes but I finally found the cause. 

This got me thinking about what it is exactly that we do here at Product Support, how we resolve cases, and the process of troubleshooting issues.  Regardless of the issue, there is a often a common theme of troubleshooting that can be used.