Being Civil

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Extracting AutoCAD Solids or Bodies from Corridor Models

The Extract Corridor Solids command provides functionality that allows you to extract AutoCAD solids or bodies from AutoCAD Civil 3D corridor model shapes and links.

These AutoCAD entities can then be used for analysis and visualization or with other applications that are unable to directly interact with the AutoCAD Civil 3D corridor model.

You can choose to extract several types of AutoCAD entities: AutoCAD Bodies, AutoCAD Solids and AutoCAD Solids (Swept Solids)

You can find this in the Toolspace -> Toolbox tab -> Miscellaneous Utilities -> Corridor Solids -> Extract Corridor Solids.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Corridor Targets in Xrefs

Now working with Xrefs files in Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 more powerful than ever!!!

Objects like 2D and 3D polylines, feature lines, and survey figures can be selected in xrefs as corridor targets; you can select the objects in the xref either graphically or by layer.

Really Important to keep in mind… Corridor targets in xrefs might be lost if the xref is unloaded and the drawing is saved and closed (or saved as another file). However, if the xref is unloaded and then reloaded within a single drawing session, the specified corridor targets are preserved.

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…

Why My Corridor Surface Contours Are Not Displaying Correctly

By now we all know that Corridors and Corridor Surfaces are dynamically linked and that changes would propagate as soon as your corridor or surface used as target in corridor is changed. However, there is one exception to that rule which could cause some possible trouble. That is if surface object is locked.

How do you know if surface is locked? Well, in prospector tab you should to see  icon (lock). To demonstrate one issue that you may encounter, take a look at the contours in the image. You will notice that the contours are kind of sticking out, right? To give you more confusion, you the cross sections may be showing the modifications you have made to the assemblies but the proposed contours are not updated correctly.

 

Add Custom Subassemblies To Your Tool Palette

Some of you may have completed adding your custom subassemblies onto your tool palette already so; in that case you may skip this post. But in case there are some users others out there wanting to do it and are wondering how - this may be an article for you.

Before I start I’m going to fast forward assuming that you have all your subassemblies created, with images and all that. It is worth mentioning the default location for Tool Palettes (C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\C3D 2013\enu\), although you may have it set differently. Here is how to add custom subassemblies that you may have received from your contractor, development or you created it by using Autodesk Subassembly Composer.

Quick Tip: Civil Objects disappeared after using the Section Editor?

Have you ever noticed after editing your corridor in the Section Editor, then closing the Editor that everything in Model Space doesn't look quite right? Civil Objects seem to be missing, and the drawing appears empty? This may occur after an improper shutdown of the Corridor Section Editor. For example a sudden close or crash when working in the Editor.

What appears to happen is the Plan view in model space needs to be reset. Simply type in the command PLAN, then hit ENTER, ENTER. This should bring Model Space back to its original state and all your objects should be present and accounted for.

Corridor Surface Contours Not Matching Target Surface?

You may have noticed that occasionally when creating your corridor surface that the contours from the corridor surface sometimes do not "match up" as expected. Contours will never “perfectly” tie in because contours are not the TIN, they are an approximate representation of the TIN. We are modeling surfaces, so it performs an exact match from edge of TIN to edge of TIN.

As you may have noticed in your corridor some places can seem worse than others. This is due to the frequency set in the corridor parameters. A very wide frequency will cause the surface creation to interpolate between those intervals, and if the terrain varies quite a bit between those frequencies, the interpolation can produce less than desireable results. Although the results appear to be incorrect, it is just Civil 3D doing the best with the information provided. The trick to resolving this issue is to shorten the frequencies in these areas and you will see your contours begin to tie in to existing ground much better.

Moral of the story: tighter frequency=tighter contours

The fodder of this post was obtained from a conversation with the one and only Jason Hickey. Thanks Jason!

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 New Features: New Create Corridor Dialog

 

This is going to be a short and sweet blog post. If you remember in Civil 3D we had two options in Create Design pane of the Home ribbon-Create Corridor and Create Simple Corridor. Now Create Simple Corridor is removed and it is all combined into one and only: Create Corridor.

If you also remember how in Civil 3D 2012 and earlier, we had to invoke this command, then pick our Alignment, Profile and Assembly before we get into a Create Corridor where we needed to do other things such as targeting, selecting style, etc. In Civil 3D 2013 it is all combined in one dialog which now looks like this.

Now in the same dialog you can see and choose your Alignment, see all your Profiles and Assemblies and even Target your surface.

Other difference is the dialog that follows (see second image). Look at the picture and notice that the dialog includes station frequency, selecting regions from drawing and lock regions. More about this you may be able to read on Being Civil in the nearest future.

 

 Happy Friday!