I’m sure a lot of you with subscriptions have download the new Civil 3D 2011 and have started playing with new new features. I have provided a list of other smaller new features that have also been added. Make the jump to check out some gems.

1. New visual styles have been added to the visual style manager. ( X-Ray, Hidden, Shades of Gray Wireframe, Shaded Wireframe, Shaded, Shaded with Edges, and Sketchy. You can view these styles in the Views ribbon under the View contextual tab.

2.  The User Interface and Show Toolbars features have been added to the View contextual tab also. The User Interface allows you to control View Cube, Navigation Bar, Show Motion, Text Window, and Drawing Status Bar. The Toolbars feature is something that will come in handy for those techs and engineers that love their old 2009 toolbars. This features will allow you to add those toolbars. The category of toolbars include: AutoCAD, Autodesk Seek, Civil, Express, Taskbaseeribbon, Toolbasedribbon.

3. Create Section Sheets has been added in the Output contextual Tab / plan production ribbon. In addition, the export has a new look.

4. The Import HEC-RAS feature has been added to the Insert contextual tab.

5. One great new feature some people will like is the Visibility Check feature. This feature includes

• Point to Point: used for sight distance check or validity of terrain at intersections and curves. This can be used for road design. A good rule of thumb when the command ask you for height of eye is to use 3.75’ and 0.50’ for height of target. The red arrows represents that the target can not be seen from the height of eye. The green arrow represents that the target can be seen from the distance assigned.

• Zone of Visual Influence: allows your to assign hatch pattern when you need to determine if a vertical object, such as traffic light or a tower, can be seen from within a certain radius. This feature can also be used to determine how far a driver can see from a stop line at an intersection.

• Check Sight Distance: this feature basically calculates sight distances along a roadway to ensure that the horizontal road design meets the required minimum sight distances. C3D will graphically highlight the areas that do not meet the minimum values. This will definitely come in handy for road designs. The command will ask you for  minimum sight distance and you typically would want to use your project city’s design and construction standards for this input.

• Drive: This feature is really amazing. It allows you to simulate driving through a 3D model using the Drive command. In order to used this feature you must have a profile and corridor ( or feature line, or 3D polyline). You will be able to select the visual style and design speed of your animation drive video. I must warn you though when you run the video it will eat up a lot of you memory and will bog you down slightly.

6. Toolspace ribbon in your Home contextual tab has added the prospector, settings and toolbox commands to the user interface.. This will allow you to control the display of these features and commands.

7. As you all know, one of the new big features that came with C3D 2011 was the Point Cloud features. You can find this feature  in the Civil 3D workspace /  Modify contextual Tab / Ground data ribbon.

You can also find Point Cloud commands in the Tool-base Geospatial workspace / Insert contextual tab / ground data ribbon and Create contextual tab / point cloud and 3D surface ribbon.

I hope these new features will come in handy for your designs.