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    • Uncover CTC’s Project Cleaner tool from BIM Manager Suite

    Posted on by Rikki Kenzhebayeva

    In case you were unable to attend SolidCAD and CTC’s webinar last week here is what you need to know…

    When working through general project cleanup, there are many tedious tasks. Deleting unused views, removing imports, cleaning working schedules… the list goes on.
    Instead of doing this all manually, perhaps a free tool that can help automate this process. These are tasks we all should be doing in project models on a regular basis, and when sending or receiving models from others. Who has the time to do this without automation?

    Project Cleaner 

    • Removing user duplicated working views can frequently enable purging of unused documentation elements, reduce file size and speed model performance
    • Allows BIM manager to easily manage unwanted or unneeded views, sheets and schedules in the project without re-organizing the project browser
    • Using ‘Options’ can enable sorting of views and sheets in meaningful ways to enable rapid decision making about view use and value.

    Join SolidCAD and CTC’s Shawn Zirbes to explore Project Cleaner from BIM Manager Suite. This webinar will demonstrate how Project Cleaner from BIM Manager Suite can speed up this task for free with a simple to use toolset.
    Click here to Register

    Uncover CTC’s Project Cleaner tool from BIM Manager Suite

    Posted on by Rikki Kenzhebayeva

    By Mughees Altaf , Account Manager — AEC Productivity Tools at SolidCAD

    In case you were unable to attend SolidCAD and CTC’s webinar last week here is what you need to know…

    When working through general project cleanup, there are many tedious tasks. Deleting unused views, removing imports, cleaning working schedules… the list goes on.

    Instead of doing this all manually, perhaps a free tool that can help automate this process. These are tasks we all should be doing in project models on a regular basis, and when sending or receiving models from others. Who has the time to do this without automation?

    Project Cleaner 

    • Removing user duplicated working views can frequently enable purging of unused documentation elements, reduce file size and speed model performance
    • Allows BIM manager to easily manage unwanted or unneeded views, sheets and schedules in the project without re-organizing the project browser
    • Using ‘Options’ can enable sorting of views and sheets in meaningful ways to enable rapid decision making about view use and value.

     

    Join SolidCAD and CTC’s Shawn Zirbes to explore Project Cleaner from BIM Manager Suite. This webinar will demonstrate how Project Cleaner from BIM Manager Suite can speed up this task for free with a simple to use toolset.

    Click here to Register

    Civil 3D Assembly Sets

    Posted on by Rikki Kenzhebayeva

    Have you ever saved and used Assembly Sets within the Intersection Wizard for saving your custom assemblies for future use?  Have you ever had issues with them not appearing to work properly every time you use them?  Have you ever wanted to share them with other team members?

    This document will shed some light on why; and what you need to do to make them work every time.

    Intersections

    Civil 3D intersections are complex corridors containing many assemblies, regions, and baselines.  Creating and editing them without the Intersection Wizard takes skill, time, and patience.  There are up to 8 assemblies required for a typical intersection and creating them is also time-consuming and prone to errors.  The image below shows a corridor which contains just one intersection, complete with all of the baselines, regions, and assemblies applied.

    Assembly Set Basics

    If you’re not familiar with them, Assembly Sets can be accessed and saved from within the Intersection Wizard when creating a new intersection or when Rebuilding Corridor Regions for an existing intersection.  You simply create new assemblies or edit the ones that Civil 3D creates for you, and then export the set for use on future intersections, so you don’t have to recreate the assemblies every time.

    The Assembly Set is saved as an XML file initially stored in its default folder…
    C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\C3D 2020\enu\Assemblies\Metric

    The Problem

    There are technical support cases where the user has indeed exported an Assembly Set, but the proper assemblies do not appear after the set has been selected.  In the image below, the custom set was selected where all the assemblies were renamed to MPK…  As you can see, it appears as if an out of the box set was selected; no MPK assemblies are listed.

    The Solution

    There are 4 different scenarios where Assembly Sets are used.  One for each of the two corridor types, selected within the intersection wizard…

    One for a T intersection…

    And one for a cross intersection.

    If you open the Assembly Set XML file with your internet browser, you will see the 4 scenarios listed and the assemblies applied to each scenario.  In the second image below, note the AssemblyName is set to MPK Primary…

     

    When you save the Assembly Set, only the current corridor type is exported, only 1 of the 4 scenarios.  The next time you use the Assembly Set, if that corridor is of a different type, your custom assemblies will not be applied since that corridor type has not been exported.

    To ensure your custom assemblies are used in all 4 scenarios, you must go through the intersection wizard 4 times, one for each scenario and export the Assembly Set for each of them.

    • Create a cross intersection and specify All Crowns Maintained.
    • Create a cross intersection and specify Primary Crown Maintained.
    • Create a T intersection and specify All Crowns Maintained.
    • Create a T intersection and specify Primary Crown Maintained.

    Select the same XML file each time, the exported scenario will overwrite only the applicable section of the selected XML file.

    Introduction to BIM Project Suite

    Posted on by SolidCAD

    In case you were unable to attend SolidCAD and CTC’s webinar last week here is what you need to know…

    Shawn Zirbes, a Guru for everything CTC, uncovered how the BIM Project Suite allows Autodesk Revit users to automate routine tasks, manage large numbers of content files, generate database information and much more in a lot less time, all within the Revit environment.

    BIM Project Suite is meant for everyday users of all skill levels and used by firms of all sizes. To learn more about the some of key functionalities of the suite, watch the full webinar on our YouTube Channel.

    DIALOG

    Posted on by SolidCAD
    Success Stories

    DIALOG

    DIALOG believes that their passion for design should improve the wellbeing of our communities and the environment they share. DIALOG’s multi-disciplinary team of 700 includes architects, interior designers, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, urban planners, and landscape architects. They practice across the US and Canada from studios in San Francisco, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto.

    DIALOG’s multi-disciplinary team provides their clients with a comprehensive and collaborative approach to design. Their team can overcome the challenges of increased complexity within design and planning with their diverse perspective and expertise for greater efficiency.

    For years, DIALOG has worked on various projects including: designing for urban vibrancy, health and wellness, transportation, education, arts and culture, residential, retail, and commercial. Their vision has always been to think outside of the box and adopt new design technologies that will improve digital collaboration, improve communication among their team and clients, and provide quality services on any project.

    Project Profile

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    Civil 3D Viewports

    Posted on by SolidCAD

    A little tip today.  Have you ever zoomed out within a profile viewport and your surfaces and alignments are not there?  The two viewports shown below are nearly identical except the one on the bottom doesn’t display any Civil 3D plan objects, such as the surface and alignment.  Why is this?  No, layers are not frozen or off in the lower viewport.

    Civil 3D has its Plan Production feature which automates the creation of Paper Space layouts, typically for plan and profile construction drawings.  The way it has been implemented is that your drawing template (DWT) will contain a sample paper space layout containing pre-configured viewports.  And those viewports are required to have set a specific property called Viewport Type.

    In the image above, the top viewport is set to Plan and the bottom is set to Profile.  When the viewport type is set to Profile, Civil 3D plan objects such as surfaces, alignments, and corridors are not displayed.  This is presumably to conserve performance, but if you’re unaware of this feature, it can be confusing.

    Reconcile the Differences Between Parameters live in projects without Destroying Data

    Posted on by SolidCAD

    Let’s talk about Revit families. Are your Revit users pulling families from manufacturer websites, then having to spend project time individually reconciling the differences between the parameters used without destroying existing data?

    Downloaded Revit family content introduces shared parameters into a project that are often times different from the parameters used in the company’s schedule. These differences often cause schedules to display incomplete or inaccurate data requiring tedious, individual fixes.

    BIM Project Suite 2020’s Parameter Jammer uses a two-step process to swap the parameters in the family to reconcile the differences between the parameters without destroying your existing data, saving users time and headaches. The first step swaps parameters that can be safely identified as a match, while the second allows users to map, add or omit parameters that do not need to be swapped.
    Parameter Jammer is user friendly, and was designed so that Revit users who are unfamiliar with the family editor can successfully prepare a family to be scheduled; it also:

    • Uses the schedule to derive parameter needs; and
    • Allows the end user to push parameters into a non-standard family.

    Maximize your Revit project team’s time with Parameter Jammer and the entire BIM Project Suite 2020 by downloading a free software trial and scheduling a demo today.

    CTC BIM Projct Suite 2020 – Invisibility Advisor

    Posted on by SolidCAD

    Find improperly displayed elements in Revit with Invisibility Advisor. Part of the BIM Project Suite, this tool can also identify the cause of invisibilty as well as offer useful information and links to relevant knowledgeable articles for each issue.

    Common Challenges

    Revit users may spend 2-4 hours a week on average resolving object visibility issues

    Revit has various ways of finding objects, and users rarely check all

    Often invisibility can be controlled by multiple factors and multiple users

    Solution – Invisibility Advisor

    Invisibility Advisor searches through almost 60 different factors affecting an object’s invisibility

    Advice is offered to assist with understanding why the object(s) were not visible

    In many cases, an instant ‘Fix’ option is available to resolve the visibility issue automagically

    The Invisibility Advisor can remain on screen while you work, so visibility solutions are available at your fingertips

    ROI

    At even 1 hour per week time savings, Invisibility Advisor can save an average firm $3400/year/Revit user

    For more information visit CTC Productivity Tools to learn more, and download free trial.

    Workaround: Civil 3D XREF Structures Do Not Resize

    Posted on by SolidCAD

    My friend and customer, Ben Cartmell from Koers & Associates in Parksville, has brought to my attention a method, of which you may not be aware, for working around a limitation within Civil 3D.

    The limitation is when a drawing containing Civil 3D structures is XREF’d.  The image below shows two viewports in paper space with pipes and structures that have been XREF’d in model space.  The structures are annotative and they should be the same size within the viewports, but they are not.

    There is an easy workaround for this problem.  The file being XREF’d in the example above was saved in model space.

    • Open the file.
    • Switch to paper space.
    • Save.

    Reload the XREF and those structures now appear the same size in paper space.

    Feel free to experiment by downloading these two drawing files.