There have been a number of object and feature enhancements made to Civil 3D 2013, but not all of them have gotten as much attention as Pressure Pipe Networks and Railway Alignments.
In today’s blog post, Application Specialist Matt Miyamoto takes a look at some of the less known new features of Civil 3D 2013 related to Assemblies and Corridors.
The first enhancement that has gone relatively unnoticed is the new Automatic Side Detection feature that is now coded into the stock SubAssemblies in the Toolpalettes. This new feature allows users to quickly add components to both right and left sides of their Assemblies without worrying about switching the Side Parameter in the SubAssembly Properties. It also avoids inadvertently adding a right-side component to the left side of your Assembly.
With Automatic Side Detection, once the initial components have been added (right lane and left lane); the corresponding SubAssemblies automatically conform to match the side they are attached to. You can now build the right and left sides of your Assembly simultaneously with relative ease.
Another enhancement made to 2013 is the Simplified Corridor Modeling Workflow. In previous releases of Civil 3D, there were always two options for creating a Corridor object; Create Corridor and Create Simple Corridor. Regardless of which command was used, the same type of Corridor object was generated.
In 2013, the process has been reduced to a single Corridor command, and the command dialog has been enhanced to allow users to directly specify the Alignment, Profile, Assembly and target Surface in one place. This process previously involved a series of Command prompts and selection either from the drawing or from lists. Having everything in one dialog simplifies the process, makes it more efficient, and helps to reduce errors encountered when target surfaces are not selected in the initial process.
Although these aren’t the biggest features added, they are definitely worth paying some attention to when you’re working in Civil 3D 2013.
For more information on the software solutions, training and consulting Ideate provides, please visit the Ideate, Inc. homepage.
Matt Miyamoto
ENI Manager & Senior Application Specialist
Matt is an ENI Manager and Senior Application Specialist in Ideate, Inc.’s Seattle office. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and is a licensed Civil Engineer. Prior to joining Ideate, Matt worked as a civil engineer, using Civil 3D on a variety of projects including site development, roadway improvements and infrastructure design. With over 10 years of experience in the civil engineering industry, Matt now provides training, consulting, technical support, and implementation strategies for organizations transitioning to Civil 3D. Matt is an Autodesk Certified Instructor (ACI), as well as an Autodesk Certified BIM Specialist: Roads and Highway Solutions. Additionally, Matt is and Autodesk Certified Professional for AutoCAD, and AutoCAD Civil 3D. Find Matt on Twitter.