Being Civil

ASPX file failed to run at URL: httpr://localhost:80/TestASP/testASPNet.aspx

When installing Vault some of you may have seen this error message during Pre-check. I certainly have. My co-worker from Data management team and a fellow blogger, Andy Spivey pointed me to this article and also showed me how to do it. So I am sharing it with you. The message is:

“ASPX file failed to run at URL: httpr://localhost:80/TestASP/testASPNet.aspx”.

If you looked throughout our knowledge base you may have stumbled upon thisTechnical Solution which can give some clues. 

Until this message is resolved your installation is stopped. The link may point to a help article suggesting making sure to open ports and have IIS. If you tried all that and still got the same failure during pre-check then you are about to resolve it by continue reading this article.

From Vault to Data Shortcuts v2.0 (2012 Version)

If you are one of the regular readers of Being Civil you may remember the question how to move from Vault projects into Civil 3D Data Shortcuts. Another situation where similar workflow may be useful would be if one user or contractor doesn’t have Vault but would like to get data out of it. Roughly a couple of years ago I wrote a post From Vault to Data Shortcuts. With the introduction of other flavors of vault you have learned that some things will not work the same way as before for several reasons that are behind the scope of my intent to share this with you. Main one is that the project.xml file that used to store information about Vault project is not used anymore.

Obviously, this made the first post about moving to Data Shortcuts obsolete for 2012 version. With great help of Rob Todd, a long time Autodesk veteran, I am about to share a revised workflow or “From Vault to Data Shortcuts v2.0” with you. As always, Thanks, Rob!

Here is what we need to do. Let’s imagine that we don’t have Vault and have no plans to have it, but our Client is using vault for storage of their projects and we are craving for their data.

Within Vault there is a functionality which allows exporting of Vault project to ZIP file. Simply right-click on project name will give the option. So now, that ZIP file went through the Data Superhighway and reached us. To summarize:

From the Civil 3D 2012 and Vault AEC Collaboration/Professional/Workgroup 2012 environment:

1. From Civil 3D 2012, export the Vault 2012 project to a ZIP file
2. Send the project ZIP file to the non-Vault environment

This is where the real workflow begins…after the jump.

Vault: Reference cannot be created ...

Although this is just partly my merit because I got the discussion rolling, the real credits need to go to a group of developers led by Anil Chintamaneni  (Eddie Ng and Anthony Zhou). The issue came as one of our clients wanted to upgrade Vault 2011 to Vault 2012 and noticed that he could not create reference Civil 3D objects through Vault. So he could check-out, check-in with no problem, but when he tried to reference them he got a message stating following:

Refreshing content did not work, either. I did my best trying to figure out what could cause the issue and how to resolve it, but nothing I tried gave me what I needed. So I reached for the above mentioned team of experts. After some research, testing, debugging, black magic and other types of exorcism they did, I was finally provided what I was looking for - something I was about to share with all of you.

This Vault database has not been configured for use with Civil 3D

In order to keep up with ever changing technology trends here at Autodesk we are implementing something we call a “refresh”, a process where we replace old computers with new machines running the latest operating system, better configuration and more power. This time it was my turn to get new machines. You can imagine how excited I was that 2 years passed and my computers are getting a well-deserved retirement. As you can tell that also bring us in a state of mind where multitasking is a must since you guys are keep calling, asking questions, and do whatever you can to keep us busy. This brings me to something I see only when installing and configuring new programs. In fact, tens of programs, utilities and tools I installed last week.

This time I tried to install Vault Collaboration on my shiny Desktop PC. I followed all these best practices we constantly preach, and it all went fine until I was greeted by this message:

See more after the jump.

Support for Vault (2011 or later) and Virtualization

For a while we were saying that Autodesk Vault is not supported in virtual environment. Now it is all changing. Our friends from “Cracking the Vault” blog site published a blog post announcing support for Autodesk Vault 2011 and 2012 support for Virtualization. If your Vault is running on Virtual machines you may want to see this article. Also I highly recommend checking this blog for a wealth of useful information targeted for our ever growing Vault customer base. Please find it here: http://crackingthevault.typepad.com/crackingthevault/2011/04/autodesk-vault-and-vmware.html

 

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 Preview: Vault Flavors Explained

With Civil 3D 2012 now being sliced and diced some vault users may ask what is happening with Vault. You may heard some rumors about it. Today I will try to help you understand the changes or maybe throw more confusion. There are now 4 flavors of Vault in a Vault portfolio. It is important to know that these versions can be looked as upgrades from lower versions. So, for instance Vault Collaboration has Vault base and Vault Workgroup in it, plus more. 

The first one is Base Vault which looks pretty much like AutoCAD Vault with options shown in ribbon. This is a free version that will allow basic file management tools. Autodesk Vault a.k.a. Base Vault (free version) is pretty much the same as AutoCAD Vault where users can see a ribbon with Vault tools. If user installs this version he/she will not see any features in Prospector tab.

See the rest after jump.

Vault and Survey Database

 

I recently got asked few questions about Survey Database and Vault and how the two communicate. Questions like “How do I replace Survey Database in the Vault?” and “I got corrupted Survey.SDBX file and would like to restore it?” or “Can I delete the old Survey database and import FBK file into new Survey Database and replace the  corrupted one?” then “What will happen if the file is replaced, will it be able to find project association?”

Well, short answer for all these question is “yes, you can” and “easily”. It’s no secret, that there are some people out there that use Vault for storage of Survey database files for all versions of them. You also know that Vault can sore other types of files, not just drawings or points, you can even add Field book file (FBK) if you wish. In the following paragraphs I will describe what happens in the background during this workflow. This will most likely answer some of those questions above. You will also notice that Vault treats Survey.SDBX file pretty much like regular drawing (DWG) file.

New Subassembly Creator on Autodesk Labs!

On Monday, December 6th, Autodesk Labs released a new Subassembly Composer Technology Preview for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011. This standalone program provides a way for users to create custom subassemblies from within a easy to understand interface. Once your subassembly is created, you can import it into AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 for use in corridor creation.

From the Autodesk Labs page:

Subassembly Composer has an interface that is designed to ease your workflow:

• The flowchart provides an intuitive view of the subassembly logic and is easily modified using drag and drop.
• The graphical preview displays the subassembly geometry and can be used to simulate how the subassembly behaves with different target values.
• Selection in the flowchart and preview are synchronized making it easy to find and edit the properties of a subassembly component.
• Subassembly Composer works directly with PKT files that can be imported into Civil 3D. No more hand-generating .atc files!

The technology preview release provides a strong set of subassembly functionality for corridor modeling:

• Define points and position them based on several positioning methods.
• Define links between points.
• Assign codes.
• Define targets and input parameters.
• Specify conditions for daylight and simple expressions

 

Let’s take a look at just what we can do – let’s make a subassembly! We’ll start off simple, but this will still be a pretty detailed article. Follow the link to learn more!