Being Civil

FDO Provider OSGeo.SHP.3.7 Not Registered

No need to panic here...

AutoCAD Map/Civil 3D 2014 shipped with some updates to the FDO Providers. Some of those updates were not reflected in the providers.xml file that comes with the program, so when some users run MAPIMPORT or MAPEXPORT, they get a FDO Provider ### Not Registered error message.

The current solution (and it seems to only affect users that have a previous release of Map/Civil 3D installed) is to replace your providers.xml file with the one attached here. Download providers.xml

File is generally located in:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Map 3D 2014\bin\FDO or
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014\bin\FDO

A Hotfix should be posted soon to autodesk.com.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Create sections of projected AutoCAD Solids

Now you can control how sections of projected AutoCAD Solids are displayed…

You can do this by selecting the Section check box in the projection style.

The projected solid is drawn so that it represents the actual position of where the sample line crosses the solid.

Please keep in mind that if you clear this check box, the projected solid is drawn as if the sample line crosses the centroid of the solid, regardless of the actual position of where the sample line crosses the solid.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Round-Tripping Data Between AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 and 2014

One of the cool new things in Civil 3D and other AutoCAD based programs is the ability to, how we call it, "round-trip data" between different versions. If you remember, it was said numerous times before that Civil 3D is not backward compatible program, meaning that the drawings once saved in a new version were automatically upgraded and there was no easy way back. Now this is about to change. The reason I did not want to mention it earlier in our introduction to Civil 3D 2014 is that it comes with some caveats. Please be patient.

This (long) post will try to describe the behavior of certain features when an AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 drawing is edited and saved in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 and then subsequently re-opened in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Hotfix 3

In a continuing effort to provide high quality products, Autodesk has released AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Hotfix 3 which fixes or addresses a variety of issues discovered by customers and by Autodesk's internal testing team. 

This Hotfix does not include previous Hotfixes or Service Packs for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013. In order to install AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Hotfix 3 you must have already applied AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Service Pack 1.

As a result of detailed information from customers who used the Customer Error Reporting Utility, a number of problems were identified and fixed. These fixes include stability improvements under Windows 8 and updates to how Vault manages circular references.

You can obtain it from here: DL21513411

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.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Data Shortcuts

One of the new features I'm positive you will like it is the ability to share referenced objects. How many time it happened that you received your drawing to realize with missing references? Too many times, I suppose. Well, in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014, the behavior of data references for object types (except for surfaces) has changed! When you insert a reference to a data shortcut into a drawing, and then you save and close the drawing, the object is now saved in the drawing. This was not the case before, as you remember. Now, if you re-open the drawing that contains the reference, the reference is only validated and synchronized if the source object has changed.

To demonstrate this I created a brand new drawing and then referenced EG surface and a couple of alignments for other drawing. Notice them all listed in Data Shortcuts node and in Prospector.

Now, I saved it all and e-mailed this drawing to myself to be opened on other machine. Once I opened it I was able to see my 2 alignment ... and they do show up as Alignments, but you will also see that they are coming from Data Shortcuts and that I may be asked to synchronize (note that yellow exclamation point there suggesting that the object may be out of date).

The exception are, as noted before, surface objects, due to the potential size of the surfaces. Since synchronization only occurs if the source object changes, an object in a drawing that relies on a data reference is only marked as outdated when an actual change to the data has occurred.

So this way it is much easier to share your drawings with references than ever before-even when source drawing is not available. Same will happen if you open your 2014 drawing in 2013 version. Cool stuff, huh?

 

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: Overview

Year after year around this time you may come to expect some more information about the new release of Civil 3D 2014. The same is true this year. Being Civil will try to familiarize you with the new features and show you how to use them in form of series of posts titled “AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 New Feature: <title>”. To make things easier for you we created a tag “Preview 2014” on which you can click to get all these post grouped as we create them.

As always the best thing we could suggest you is to have your eyes open, sign up to some of the RSS feeds from other blogs, websites, including those writing about core AutoCAD and Map 3D. For other Autodesk’s blogs see this link. But the best starting point would be help menu which is as also available online.

The first thing you may notice when you install it is that the name appears slightly different. Now it’s called Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014, note that Autodesk in front of Civil 3D 2014.

There are several areas where you may see some improvements and we will talk about them in the next several weeks in greater details. So please stay tuned.

This year the big item is pressure networks and data shortcuts, but there are some other important improvements as well.

• In Civil 3D 2014 we can now create and edit pressure network from objects in the drawing
• Add pressure networks to section views and display crossing pipes in profile view
• Extract Corridor Solids
• Assign pay items to pressure networks
• Quantity and Material Analysis
• Project Management Collaboration and Data Exchange
• Pressure Pipes can be data referenced
• Data references are now saved in the drawing
• Improved Workflows with InfraWorks (previously known as Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler or AIM)
• Import and export Survey queries
• Annotation options for pressure networks and Plan Productions
• And more

As I said earlier we’ll talk about them in details in the weeks to come. Stay tuned.