In my previous post about sculpture vs. modeling, I mentioned a group that really latched on to the modeling aspect and had early success with our training material.

I received an email from my friend the project manager today that I must share.

A little setup- this is a small site plan that I am helping out with some conceptual layout, but the PM wanted one of her newly oriented interns to take a stab at it with Civil 3D first.

From the PM:

“I think she just figured the template thing out, after a frustating day yesterday.”

And attached drawing that looks like this:

I realize this isn’t the most complicated site plan, but it is a thing of beauty. There are no drawing errors, no topology issues. The drawing is tight, well done and clean. It is also very attractive.

Why?
1) One day of frustration is about 1/100th of the days of frustration I experienced while trying to master parcels. I was a good 4 months into it before I could produce a plan that was this tight, this error free and this well labeled.

2) None of the label styles nor object styles in this drawing are default. I left them a starter .dwt with a few extras in it, but each one of these was created from scratch by the intern. Now, perhaps you say “big deal”, but the first few Civil 3D label styles you create are difficult. Consider also that I did NOT teach them how to make styles during my two days- we just did some overview skills.

So why is this so darned inspiring?

Because it says to me that it IS possible to dive into Civil 3D and get stuff working well. If you have an open mind, get some baseline training and commit yourself to seek coaching and learning DAILY- all things are possible.