Want To Double Pick or Right-Click Edit?

One of my favorite classes at Autodesk University 2006 (last week) was given by my friend David Garrigues. During the class he described how he had created a CUI with custom Right-Click menus (many commands per object type) and the ability to Double-Pick on an AECC object (Alignment, Surface etc.) and bring up the object's Properties Dialog Box, instead of the AutoCAD Properties Palette. This gives users of this CUI a quicker way to create, edit, interact with, and control their Civil 3D objects. The images to the left show what you see if you bring up the right-click menu while selecting a Surface and Feature Line respectively.

During the class, David mentioned that he would make this CUI available. The simplest way to do so was for him to post it in the "Content Sharing" section of the "Civil Engineering Community" website. It is located in the "Utilities" area of "Content Sharing". It is titled:

"Double and Right Click CUI"


You must be registered and login to the site in order to download this CUI.

Download it and follow the instruction from the readme file to get it installed properly. I have already done so and it makes life a bunch easier.

Thanks Dave!!

Cul-De-Sacs Fix in SP3

Dan Philbrick, Autodesk Civil 3D Software Development Manager, mentioned in his blog, in the Civil Engineering Community, that Service Pack 3 fixes an issue that has existed when trying to design cul-de-sac corridors with arcs in the centerline alignment.

If our baseline was run around the cul-de-sac bulb entirely as one alignment and had as its target an centerline alighnment with an arc, the assemblies would not solve correctly and leave a flat teardrop shaped gap in the middle of the corridor. This did not happen if the centerline alignment was a tangent (straight).

The necessary workaround was to create two alignments around the bulb of the cul-de-sac each targeting the centerline alignment with the arc.

With the fix provide by Service Pack 3 we no longer need to create the two alignments and can accomplish this goal with one alignment if we so choose.




I went back through the ...README.htm file to see if this was mentioned. I could not find any mention of it. Either way this is a very good thing.

Too bad my Autodesk University "Cul-de-Sacs Are Not a Dead End" class handouts were already submitted. Oh well, I will just have to mention that that was fixed.

New Webcasts CD

I happen to hold in my hand a brand new CD which contains webcasts recorded between August 1, 2005 and July 31, 2006. This CD contains 42 recorded webcast sorted in the following groups:

Civil 3D General (19 webcasts)
Compatible Products (3 webcasts)
Customer Success (3 Webcasts)
Pipe Design (1 webcast)
Production Drafting (4 webcasts)
Road and Transportaion Design (8 webcasts)
Site and Subdivision Development (4 webcasts)

Additionally there are...
15 Customer Success Stories
6 White Papers
and information about the "Civil Engineering Community"

This CD replaces a CD that had webcasts from August 1, 2005 and January 31, 2006 (18 webcasts). So that means that this new CD contains an additional six months worth of webcasts(24 additional webcasts).

I have always been a BIG fan of the webcast CDs and DVD because I can view them at any time without internet connection. Click above to request yours.

Oh, and did I mention that it is FREE.

We Wish, Jeff Shares

Jeff Mishler, of Santa Rosa, CA, has created some lisp & VBA routines that he has made available for all to benefit from. The most recent one that I have seen addresses a request that someone had in the Civil 3D discussion group. They asked for a routine, similar to a Land Desktop command, that would "list all available point numbers". Jeff's routine named FreeNums does just that.

Jeff has also created a routine that is currently being shared in the Civil Engineering Community. The lisp routine named "Alignment Tooltips tools.lsp" turns tooltips on/off for all or selected alignments. (You have to be registered with the community in order to download this file.)

Rotate_Markers allows users to to rotate the marker and labels of selected points. (For this one you will have scroll down and find the code in order to copy and paste it and save to a .lsp file)

Lastly, the Rebuild_All_Corridors (copy and paste required here as well) routine rebuilds all selected corridors or if none are selected it rebuilds ALL corridors.

I would personally like that thank Jeff for being generous enough to share these tools, and his talents, with our entire community.

He shared with me the fact that he usually monitors the Civil 3D Wishes Discusion Group, and the fact that he looks for code/solutions/workarounds for just about every wish. So, if you have a wish for a command or capability in Civil 3D do not hesitate to ask for it in the Wishes Discussion Group. Best case someone (ie. Autodesk, Jeff, or someone him) will answer your wish. No need for a genie.

The Tips Are Coming In

There are now 20 tips for Civil 3D in the Civil Engineering Community. I have found these are helpful for learning or recalling tips and tricks. As with just about everthing in the community pages, we can rate the usefulness of an item with a 5 star rating system.

Here are a few tip titles (along with their current ratings):

Increase performance when working with surfaces 5 STARS
Improve Drawing performance 4 STARS
Logging into Vault automatically 3 STARS
Importing LandXML data 4-1/2 STARS
Quick Profile 5 STARS

Note: In it's first week over 700 members have joined the community.

Civil 3D Community Now Live!

This portal was created to be a central hub for ALL Civil 3D resources. Members will have access to lots of useful content.

There are already some templates, a Caltrans Roadway Design Standards XML and a Curve Solver Utility similar to what many people have requested in the Civil 3D Wishes Discussion Group.

Click on any of the links to get to the site. Then register and you will have access to it all.

Coming Soon - Civil 3D Community

Autodesk is about to open a new section of their website. It is intended specifically for the Civil Engineering Community, which also happens to be the title. There visitors will find sections titled...

Tips & Training - tips, tricks, tutorials, training, how-tos, and workarounds
Content Sharing - area for sharing templates, styles, reports and utilities
Blogs - Two NEW Autodesk blogs** and links to many existing blogs
Discussions - links to existing peer-to-peer groups
Online Resourses - links to C.E. sites: jobs, 3rd party apps, directories
My Network - Establish industry contacts, meet users
Events - links to user groups, reseller events, seminars, and workshop

A similar site has existed for the Manufacturing Community and has been quite successful. I have interacted with this new site and know that it will become a very important resource for us (the Civil 3D user community). I look forward to it going live soon (hopefully within two weeks).

** The two NEW Autodesk Blogs are "The Dave and Dan Show" Dave Simeone, Civil 3D Product Manager, and Dan Philbrick, Civil 3D Development Manager, will have their own forum, and "Wicked Cool Stuff" by Anthony Governanti, Civil 3D Technical Marketing Manager. This site may cause hysteria among Anthony's fan club members.

Civil 3D 2007 - Project Management Webcast!!!!

There are several reason why you will want to attend this Friday's 1 hour Civil 3D Webcast at 9:00 am Pacific time, 12:00 pm Eastern time. Not the least of which is the subject... "Project Capabilities in Civil 3D 2007". This is the first of two webcast related to this subject.

The Autodesk website describes the session as covering Vault, Vault Explorer, installation of Vault components, logging into Vault, creating projects, and other related topics.

It will be presented by Mark Scacco, President, Engineered Efficiency. Mark has a long history of being a very important resource in the Civil Engineering/Autodesk User community.

In order to benefit from the many enhancements to Civil 3D in a project environment we will need to use Vault. It is a separate application that is integrated with Civil 3D 2007 and is perhaps the most unfamiliar part of migrating to the 2007 product.

Lastly, these webcast are FREE and they are recorded for later viewing.



Upcoming topics include:

5/26/06 – Project and Data Management in Civil 3D 2007
6/2/06 – New Pipe Design and Drafting Capabilities in Civil 3D 2007
6/9/06 – Civil 3D 2007 Site Grading
6/16/06 – Civil 3D 2007 Tips & Tricks
6/23/06 – Increasing Productivity with Civil 3D 2007
6/30/06 - Civil 3D 2007 Corridor Modeling

Criticism?

Today, I had an interesting comment made to me while demonstrating Autodesk Civil 3D 2006. The gentleman began by saying..

"Angel, if there is one complaint that I have about you..."

which of course would peak anyone's interest. I was wondering where this was going? When he followed up by saying...

"...it is that you make it look too easy."

He finished by stating that he knew his users would not be there very quickly. I acknowledged that this of course was not the result of overnight learning. I have put effort into learning and using.

But, neither was it impossible. The software can do what we were seeing it do, and generally more easily than one would first believe.

The questions all boil down to, when does a group of users make the decision to do many things in a more efficient manner. Then when do we act upon that.

We are on the precipice of a new era for many engineering companies. The decisions made today, will change how we have traditionally done things. There are methods and mechanisms that need to be re-evaluated and redefined. We know that for many the future (the near future for some) involves a change. We need to be open minded, and those that are tasked with deciding when, need to be well informed.

Lastly, of course, those that are asked to provide the instuction, (like us here at KETIV Technologies) need to understand the responsibility to the entire engineering community. If we do are job well, there will be many happy users and companies, and the word will spread. If we do not, the entire industry can be held back because users will get a bad impression of the tools.

To instuctors I say, you are not just representing yourself, your company, or even Autodesk. Your success helps the entire industry. An industry that lays down the infrastructure that makes the rest of our lives more livable and comfortable. I wish you all well.

Now, back to hopefully, making it look easy.

Change of Wedding Location

No, this has nothing to do with any nuptials. This is also not directly related to the use of Civil 3D. But, anyone who has visited the Autodesk Civil 3D Discussion Group has probably seen or even been the recipient of James Wedding's advice.

It turns out that after about nine years in engineering production in Dallas, Texas, James is leaving to partner with Mark Scacco at Engineered Efficiency, Inc. Where in the past, his focus had to be Jones & Boyd first, Civil 3D Community second (well, maybe not second). It seems that the entire Civil 3D Community will get to benefit from more of James' attention.

It seems to already be evident in the current disscusion group threads that James is able to provide more needed useful advice.

Lastly his signature links to www.civil3d.com. It will be interesting to find out what this site will ultimately contain (you can vote if you wish. Click on title of this post above to get to the site).

Discussion Groups

For those of you that may not be aware, online Discussion Groups allow participants to "discuss" the topic of that particular "group". Autodesk has for many years hosted discussion groups for many of their products.

This allows users of these products to post question or problems, provide answers to others, present wish list items for consideration, and the ability to network.

There are a couple of ways that one can view the discussion groups. The first method is to use an internet browser. The title of this post is linked to the online discussion group for Autodesk's Civil 3D. Another method is to use a news reader such as Outlook Express. This method allows you to find, view and download for offline viewing, conversations (threads). It also allows you to mark those that are of particular interest.

The most important aspect of discussion groups is that they bring together users from around the world. We can either gain by their answers to our questions or learn from the issues that they may be having. Oh, and of course that all of this information can be searched to address our needs.

The Civil 3D discussion group is a FANTASTIC way to keep abreast of the product. The increased volume of discussion within this group is a clear indicator of the increased interest and use of Civil 3D. Best of all it is FREE.

Note: After monitoring these discussion groups for a period of time you may notice that some post'ers comments are more useful than others. Look for Autodesk'ers like Dave Simeone - Civil 3D Product Manager, and Dan Philbrick - Civil 3D Engineering Manager. James Wedding's comments, among many other's, are also very helpful.

We owe a debt of gratitude to all who contribute their knowledge, and time, and by doing so, make the entire user community BETTER!

C3 - Civil CADD Consortium

There is a group of Southern California civil engineering companies that have organized in order to better serve their own co-workers/users and ultimately their clients. This group is the "Civil CADD Consortium". The slogan is "Promoting Civil Engineering Excellence Through Collaboration".

The main idea is that Local Office and Corporate Level CADD MANAGERS from different companies, large and small, meet and share their experiences and challenges with one another. The collaborative nature of this group is very genuine and profound.

Needless to say this group has gained Autodesk's ear. This is the "AUGI" for the Civil Engineering community of Southern California.

If there are similar organizations in your area I encourage you to look into them. Aside from the obvious business networking benefits. The ability to develop friendships with people in similar roles is both gratifying and worthwhile.

I mention this group for two reasons...

1. Today on the agenda is an in-depth review/analysis of Civil 3D 2006

2. More importantly, I have the good fortune of being a member of this group. I wish to thank each and every one of them for their contributions to the group.