Civil 3D Pressure Pipes

Civil 3D 2021.1 introduced several new features including a new compass when creating a pipe run.  This is excellent news, but depending on your modeling requirements, it can cause an issue if you leave in a new setting.

In the examples below, the parts list has no bends, and they are not needed for this design.  The pipe runs as required to be drawn like a polyline.  While working with a customer, I ran into this issue, but I could not find the solution, and surprisingly, neither could Autodesk.  Thanks to my esteemed colleague, Colin Gaudet for discovering what turns out to be a very simple solution.

2021.0

This is the behavior from 2021.0 and it is the expected behavior.

2021.1

This is the behavior after installing 2021.1.  The compass indicates that there are no bends and it will not allow any angle to be drawn, only a straight line.

The Setting

There is a new setting to allow pipe runs to be “snapped” to known bend angles.  Turn off the new setting to return to the expected behavior when there are no bends.  The compass remains, but it now allows any angle to be drawn.