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Underutilized Profile View Graphics (HATCH)

November 15, 2011 / Jonathan Stewart / One comment

I’ve found, while working with customers, that one very useful component of profile views has been underutilized since its addition in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010. This component I’m referring to is the profile view hatch. The initial perception users have of this component is that it is only used to show cut and fill locations between an existing surface and a proposed surface. But, that’s not the only use. When creating multiple proposed surfaces that are based on material (ie. Paving), this component adds an additional dimension to profile views. Reviewers and contractors can now see an added entity that helps in deciphering the vertical scale and location of underground utilities. In this post I’ll share with you an easy way to use this graphic which will add more meaning to your profile views.

See the rest of this post…

Category: Civil3D2010, Civil3D2011, Civil3D2012, Pipes, Profiles, Styles, Surfaces /

Don’t Be Encased in Manually Drafting

August 5, 2010 / Jonathan Stewart / 8 comments

One of the main benefits of using object based design is having the ability to make the “drafting” a much more efficient task or bi-product of the design. A basic drafting entity shown on plans is the location of concrete pipe encasements. These encasements are usually required when utility crossings don’t allow for enough vertical or horizontal separation or if the fill height is too shallow and may need structural support. A typical concrete encasement on a sanitary pipe is nothing more than a concrete poured surrounding, a minimum of 6 inches thick around the pipe, for a required minimum length. When they are needed to be shown on both plans and profiles, I see many users taking a lot of time to draft these concrete encasements “manually”.

Civil 3D gives us users another, (not so obvious), option. In this post, I’ll share with you an idea of using the Pipe Network tools to give us a better, (I think more fun), way to add these encasements to your projects.

Category: General, Partbuilder, Pipes, Profiles, Styles /

Profile Transparency Commands

February 14, 2010 / Mark Spatz, P.E. / 4 comments

Do any of the following questions sound familiar?

1. I have a location in PLAN view and I want to know where that is on my PROFILE?

2. I want to come off a PVI at a certain percentage, go to the next PVI and come off it in the opposite direction at a different grade, and where the two cross set a new PVI or adjust an existing PVI?

3. I want to set my PVI at an exact station and elevation but can’t snap to, or offset, any of the profile grid lines in Civil 3D; why is this soo hard?

After the jump learn how the Civil 3D profile Transparency Commands can help you accomplish these common tasks.

Category: Fundamentals, Profiles /

Keep Your Pipe Network Structures Out of The Sea

October 21, 2009 / Jonathan Stewart / 5 comments

Have you ever went to Draw Pipe Network Parts in Profile View only to have the Profile View become a “Sky Scraper” or in the case of setting the Profile View elevations to user specified, not have any of the pipe network parts show at all? (That’s because they’re lost in the Sea, Right? Well not really, they just have an elevation that is 0.00 or less.) Sea Level, get it? OK, maybe that was a stretch.

Has it been so early in the design process that your co-worker wants to get started on the Storm Sewers design before you’ve even touched the PG surface and they want to get started preliminarily on the pipe calcs. and you’re afraid to define any Pipe Networks until you get the PG finalized or at least close to done?

I’m going to make an educated guess that some of you have. This topic might be somewhere out in Blog Land or Discussion Depths, but I occasionally see this happen to a few users. Hopefully this post will help those few and/or it may just create an additional item to your list of best practices. Make the jump for a tip that may just stop any of those from ever happening.

Category: Best Practices, Civil3D2010, Pipes, Profiles, Surfaces /