Tag: Civil 3D Add-ons

Are you designing a pond with a sloped bottom?  If so, you may be interested in this technique.

To watch the short video demonstrating the complete quick step-by-step process, click here.

Earthworks Processor is a great tool in the CTC CIM Project suite for automating hours of surface creation and manipulation for the purpose of calculating dynamic and accurate earthworks quantities. With the use of a finished grade surface, existing grade surface, and simple closed polyline “regions”, Earthworks Processor will create 6 different surfaces including a stripping surface, earthworks volumes surface, and a subgrade surface. As well as offer bound volume outputs in the form of tables and labels.  

Today I want to talk about an alternative use for EWP. A dynamic way to calculate volumes and map profiles of points of interest from borehole data. This data could be anything from tops or bottoms of contaminant plumes to bedrock mapping, to volumes of loam that cannot be used for backfill. Borehole data of such points of interest is generally represented in depths from the existing surface, not elevations, and it can be tedious to get correct elevations mapped out.  

EWP only requires the existing surface and some closed regions identifying depths of the unsuitable backfill (in this case). I have mapped this out as depth contours in the capture below. 

These depth contours are derived from the borehole data, but without manually calculating, there is no efficient way to turn these depths into true elevations.

EWP can take these depths and run them through its processing to produce surfaces relative to the varying elevations of the existing surface as well as get you accurate volumes that will be dynamically updated as new borehole information is added to the design. In this scenario it’s the polyline region with the depth of 0 (or the extents of the unsuitable fill) that will give us the volume of unsuitable fill that we are looking for.

This whole process from mapped estimated depth contour polylines to dynamic volumes and surfaces is about 5 mins. The power and ROI of EWP is even more apparent when additional borehole information is added. Depth contours are modified, and EWP is rerun, and surfaces and volumes are updated in seconds.

I would like to acknowledge Jae Kwon, another Civil Technical Consultant on our SolidCAD team for this alternative EWP workflow. I hope this blog post earned your time today and helps you save time on future projects as well.

We are pleased to announce that our partner CTC Software released Civil 3D CIM Project Suite, version 22.0.3. It is now released and can be accessed on the CTC website.

Below are release notes:

Label Genie can save you a ton of time by creating all sorts of useful labels quickly. Here’s 15 examples that you can use right now.

Descriptions of the settings are included, but to really get up and running quickly Label Genie template files and the sample DWGs have been made available as well. Simply copy the .lg files into %AppData%\CTC\Label Genie then open up Label Genie. They will then show up in the dropdown box in the Label Genie template section.

If the labels you are creating are for design purposes, you may want to set their layers to a non-plotting style that you can ignore, or a layer that you can just freeze without affecting others.

Labelling for Corridor Design (*Corridor Design.dwg)

1.      Label Assemblies (*Assembly Name.lg)

Make it easier to which assembly is which at a glance by label their names. The labelling is done with a field, so that if the assembly name changes, a simple regen will update the label.

• Type = Multiline Text
• Anchor Object = Assemblies (Layer filter = *)
• Formatting, contents = (Assemblies).(Name)
• Formatting, Y offset = -4

2.      Label Alignment Names (*Alignment Name.lg)

When doing corridor work, we may want to see alignment names at a glance. This is especially true if setting up a lot of labels with the Corridor Mapper, for instance. Label the alignment names at regular intervals, oriented with the lines to avoid having to check the property palette constantly.

• Label Type = Multiline Text
• Anchor Object = Alignments (Layer filter = *)
• Anchor Point = Vertices (Interval = 100, rest unchecked)
• Formatting, contents = (Alignments).(Name)
• Formatting, orientation = To Objects
• Formatting, Y Offset = -0.5

3.      Label Feature Line and Polyline Layers (*Feature Line Layer.lg / Polyline Layer.lg)

Continuing the theme of adding some labels to corridor target objects, we can label feature line (and polylines) layer names at intervals. For feature lines, you may want to switch the Contents to the feature line’s name instead of the layer name – depending on how you like to use feature lines.

• Label Type = Multiline Text
• Anchor Object = Feature Lines (Layer filter = *)
• Anchor Point = Vertices (Interval = 100, rest unchecked)
• Formatting, contents = (Feature Lines).(Layer)
• Formatting, orientation = To Objects
• Formatting, Y Offset = -0.5

If you have a lot of polylines for use for horizontal target condition subassemblies, you can label those as well, to make it easier to see what layer names they have. They tend to be shorter, so instead of intervals, midpoints might be more appropriate.

• Label Type = Multiline Text
• Anchor Object = Feature Lines (Layer filter = *)
• Anchor Point = Vertices (Interval = 100, rest unchecked)
• Formatting, contents = (Feature Lines).(Layer)
• Formatting, orientation = To Objects
• Formatting, Y Offset = -0.5

Labelling for Presentation (*Presentation.dwg)

Sometimes, we need to fill in some objects in the drawing for conceptual presentation. At the conceptual stage, we can forego precise placement and mass populate objects such as trees, lights, and structures quickly. These objects, in turn, can be exported to InfraWorks for even greater visual impact.

4.      Place Tree Blocks at Back of Lots (*Place Trees.lg)

First, we can place some trees at an interval at the back lot line.

• Label Type = Blocks
• Anchor Object = Feature lines (Layer filter = _LOTS BACK, C-PROP-BNDY)
• Vertices = Interval 60
• Format, Block Definition = Deciduous Tree
• Format, Scale = 60

5.      Place Lights (*Place Lights.lg)

Lights are place along the right of way with an offset at intervals.

• Label Type = Blocks
• Anchor Object = Feature Lines (Filter = *ROW*)
• Anchor Point = Vertices (Interval 100)
• Formatting, Block Definition = SL
• Formatting, Scale = 30

6.      Place Building Footprints (*Place House.lg)

Next, we can place some house block representing structure footprints in lots.

• Label Type = Blocks
• Anchor Object = manually select a row of side lot lines at the North end of subdivision
• Anchor Point = Vertices (Begin of Object)
• Formatting, Block Definition = House
• Formatting, Scale = 0.8
• Formatting, Orientation = To Object
• Formatting, Rotation/X Offset/Y Offset = 270 / 40 / 30

Measuring and Quantifying (*Measure and Quantify.dwg)

7.      Dimension a Building (*Dimension Building.lg)

We can automatically apply dimensions to objects using the Label Genie. Let’s try it on a building footprint.

• Label Type = Dimensions
• Anchor Object = Polylines (Layer filter = A-BLDG)
• Anchor Point: Segments
• Formatting, style = Annotative
• Formatting, annotative = checked on
• Formatting, Orientation = To Object
• Formatting, Rotation / X Offset / Y Offset = 0 / 0 / -8

8.      Dimension Curb (*Dimension Curb.dwg)

We can dimension curb feature lines as well. Key to success is consistent stationing direction – always counter-clockwise or clockwise.

• Label type: dimensions
• Anchor object: feature lines (Layer filter = C-PRAVE-CURB-EOA)
• Anchor point: segments
• Formatting, style = annotative
• Formatting, orientation = to object
• Formatting, rotation / x offset / y offset = 0 / 0 / -8

9.      Measure Areas (*measure areas.lg)

Next, we generate area quantity labels for various hatching in the drawing. Note that labels are created in the centroids of hatches. This means that if you have an “L” shaped hatch, such as the grass in this drawing, the label may end up being outside the hatch. Some manual repositioning may be required.

• Label Type = MultilineText
• Anchor Object = Hatches (layer filter = *)
• Anchor Point = Centroid
• View Type = Plan
• Formatting contents =
  • (Hatches).(Layer)
  • <New Line>
  • (Hatches).(Area)
    • Field customization: Format = Decimal, Precision = 0.0, Suffix = sq. m.
  • Formatting, Style = Annotative
  • Formatting, display width = 12

More Labelling Tips On the Way

That concludes the first 9 of the 15 time-saving shortcuts using the CTC Label Genie. It can help us quickly generate labels that can help us find the design information we need, place blocks to flesh out a conceptual design drawing, and dimension and measure various objects.

Keep an eye out for Part 2, where we cover locating points and objects, as well as communication key surface information.

*Please email us at info@solidcad.ca to request the data sets.

We are excited to announce that our partner CTC Software released Civil 3D CIM Project and Manager Suites, version 22.0.1. It is now released and can be accessed on the CTC website.

This update saw a lot of fixes and enhancements to new products released in 22.0.0 and before.

Below are release notes: