Being Civil

Binding a Raster Image in AutoCAD...

Not too long ago one of our customer asked me this question, how can I bind a raster image in AutoCAD?... As you probably already know raster images can only be referenced into AutoCAD drawings. If you send the drawing to someone else, you must send the image file also, if not you will end up with a broken reference.
One way to get it done is inserting the image as an OLE object.
Go to the Insert Tab and look for OLE Object or just type INSERTOBJ on the command line.
Choose "Create New", and then choose "Paintbrush Picture".

Next, Windows Paintbrush should open up.

In Paintbrush, choose from the ribbons -> Paste, then Paste from...

Select your existing image file (JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF, etc.)

Close Paint and save your AutoCAD drawing.

Check Out features BEFORE you attempt to edit in bulk!

"Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." Remember that from algebra class? This memory aid is helpful to understand the order of operations required to get the correct answer when solving algebraic equations.

Similarly, when it comes to working with FDO, sometimes, it's all about order of operations.

The following workflow, innocent as it is, will result in a freeze/indefinite hang:
1. Connect to an FDO data source in AutoCAD Map 3D.
2. Select many features (I selected 809 points)
3. In the AutoCAD Properties Pane, try to "globally" edit the value of one attribute for all of your selected features.

Sadly, even if Auto Checkout is enabled, you're just not gonna get anywhere. You'll likely have to End Process for acad.exe in Task Manager.

Now, augment your workflow by adding a step:

Photo © Eric Gevaert

1. Connect to an FDO data source in AutoCAD Map 3D.
2. Select many features (I selected 809 points).
3. Hit Check Out (same as running MAPCHECKOUT).
4. In the AutoCAD Properties Pane, try to "globally" edit the value of one attribute for all of your selected features.
Result: almost an immediate change!
Finally, be sure to Check In your features by clicking the button or by running MAPCHECKINALL.

Lesson: if you follow order of operations, you're almost guaranteed smooth sailing!

Text… Custom Linetypes!!!

Sometimes we have the need to create a new custom linetype to denote different lines in our drawing, like water lines, gas lines, fences, etc… For those of you that have some custom linetypes with text and have been moving this LIN file alone from older releases, here is something that you may not know.

When we talk about text custom linetype we need to consider: Text Styles, Scale, Rotation, X offset, and Y offset. Probably the rotation is being the most painful one, because is not the same to draw a line from left to right, that from right to left…. So we end up with things like this...

Here is how this line looked like until 2010:

*AUTODESK, BeingCivil ---- ADS ---- ADS ---- ADS ----

A,.2,-.2,["ADS",STANDARD,S=.1,R=0.0,X=-0.1,Y=-.05],-.25

But since 2011 Autodesk did something really nice for us… they change the rotation parameter, and give us the ability to manipulate this factor in a different way, introducing U and A, beside the original R. What this mean to us?
R=value
R= specifies relative or tangential rotation with respect to the line.
U=value
U= specifies upright or easy-to-read text.
A=value
A= specifies absolute rotation of the text with respect to the origin; that is, all text has the same rotation regardless of its position relative to the line.
So in any AutoCAD based software, this is how my custom linetype with text looks now.

Here is how this line looks like since 2011:

*AUTODESK, BeingCivil ---- ADS ---- ADS ---- ADS ----

A,.2,-.2,["ADS",STANDARD,S=.1,U=0.0,X=-0.1,Y=-.05],-.25

Remember, text styles can be annotative as well, so that is another thing that you could consider when creating and working with text in custom linetypes.

Here is the location on Vista and Win 7:

C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\C3D 201X\enu\Support\acad.lin

Computer Freezes After Open, Save As,...

Sometimes some issues should be classified in rather “bizarre” category if there is a tag for it. Many times hangs and lock-ups are bad signals that may be related to bad installation, application conflicts, graphic related issues or just bad files…but not always. A few days ago we have received one report from a customer who was experiencing lockups any time he tried to run OPEN or SAVE command. This customer did some homework and made sure the system is up-to-date, graphic drivers are also updated. CMDDIA and FILEDIA were set to 1 (you would be surprised how many of these we see).

So, what is bizarre about this one is that the issue is not with program, installation, bad driver or whatever,... but the fact that user was running multiple screens (very common these days) gave us this wild idea. One of the common reasons for dialogs not to show up, acting as there is a lock-up while in fact program is waiting for user response, is because the dialogs are displayed off screen. Put it this way, if you have multiple screens and you have different resolution settings, you may have your screens mapped differently causing some dialogs to show off screen.

So let’s see how we can check if this is the case.

Object Properties Missing After ProjectWise Is Installed

This week I learned about an issue that I would like to share with you. I don’t think many users will be affected by it, but I thought it was worth sharing because there was no information I could easily find online. The credit for this post goes to a customer of ours (Kevin Sabo – Thank you, Kevin) who raised the issue and was able to confirm a solution for us.

Basically, everything was working fine until they decided to install Bentley ProjectWise SS3 (we were noting this version 08.11.09.122 but other may apply, as well). In case you were not familiar with ProjectWise, that is Bentley’s content management and collaboration tool similar as Autodesk Vault). Now, fast forward...Ever since then they lost their AutoCAD object properties functionality. The way to access properties was by typing CH in command line, but then wanted to know what caused it and how to permanently resolve it. Luckily the issue was immediately noticed but uninstalling ProjectWise and reinstalling it with integration for ProjectWise switched off did not help. The reason for this is that the version of TLB file found inC:\Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise V8i SS3\Bin\RealDWG was not for the version of AutoCAD we were using.

To see how to resolve this issue continue reading.

1. Close Civil 3D
2. With Windows Explorer go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\ and copyaxdb18enu.tlb file
3. Now, go to C:\Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise V8i SS3\Bin\RealDWG
4. Paste axdb18enu.tlb file
5. Restart Civil 3D and confirm that Properties are now populated.

 

I hope this helps some out there.

CATCHMENTS FAIL TO EXPORT TO SSA

You might have been stumped as to why some of or all the catchments from Civil 3D would not export to SSA using the “Edit in Storm and Sanitary Analysis”.  You will come across this issue if you have selected the Time of Concentration Method for the Catchment Properties as TR-55 and did not provide the corresponding slopes to the Flow Segments (i.e. slopes for the Sheet Flow, Shallow Concentrated Flow and Channel flow segments) as the default value assigned by Civil 3D is zero slope. 

The flow path has no time of concentration as the slope of the flow line is zero.   A time of concentration of zero does not export since there is nothing to evaluate. Hence you may want to expand the Catchments from the Prospector tab, right click the Flow Path and select Edit Flow Segments to modify the slopes to a non-zero value.

Another pre-requisite is that, the catchments have to be referenced to a pipe network structure; hence you want to make sure that each catchment is referenced to a structure as shown below:

Hope this helps. 

 

 

Corridor Top link label tip!

Somebody asked me this not too long ago… Is it possible to not show the word “Horizontal” on my cross section views when adding labels to the top link code using rise:run if my slope is 0 (zero)?

The word “Horizontal” will show automatically every time that the top surface is represented with a horizontal line, like the bottom of a ditch.
So here is what Matt B. from our QA Team came out with…

Take Your Labels to the Limit!

By default, the maximum number of labels displayed with Data Connections is 2000. This is to help systems not get bogged down when rendering labels on screen or when plotting. This max value also affects the Save Current Map to AutoCAD (AKA MAPEXPORTCURRENTMAPTODWG) command, so that the output stops at 2000 MTEXTs.

The way to override this is to create a registry key with the value of your choice for MAX_LABELS. The following TS, written originally for the 2008 release of AutoCAD Map/Civil 3D, is still valid, and is still valid on 64-bit systems.

Increasing maximum number of Display Manager Feature Labels displayed
http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS1077666

Take Your Labels to the Limit!