Archive for Civil3D2010

Polylines, Alignments, and PI’s

You’ve created an alignment from a polyline, but upon inspection, there are no PI’s (line extensions) at any of the curves.  Why?  And, how can can I get ‘em?  Read on…

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Civil 3D Annotation Scaling Revisited

One of the most frequently-asked questions in the Civil 3D discussion groups has to do with how scaling works for Civil 3D labels and tables.  The question usually comes up phrased as “How come my text looks good in modelspace, but is huge (or tiny) in paperspace?” or “How come my Table columns overlap in paperspace?”

At first glance, Civil 3D labels and tables seem to scale much like Annotative Text.  However, Civil 3D Labels and Tables were capable of their auto-sizing behavior long before AutoCAD got Annotative Text, and do not use the Annotation Scale at all.  Instead, Civil 3D Labels size according to their own rules.  Read on for more…

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Displaying Lat/Long in Decimal Minutes

We recently had a client request that we display the Latitude and Longitude of Cogo Points formatted as degrees and decimal minutes.  This format seems to have become a standard display format of many hand-held GPS units.  Unfortunately, Civil 3D does not contain a built-in option for formatting Latitude and Longitude in decimal minutes.  No problem, I thought…  I’ll simply use some expressions.  But it turned out to be a much more difficult task than I expected…  Read on for the details.

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Customizing Civil 3D

One of the greatest strengths of Autodesk products is the extensive Application Programming Interface (API), which gives users the ability to customize and extend the functionality of the software. In the past, some favorite techniques included using Visual Lisp or VBA to create any needed customizations. However, technology has been changing, and with Civil 3D, we need a somewhat different approach…

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Fry Your Brain with SITEOPS® (Repeat)

(Yes, I’m repeating this post. There’s another seminar tomorrow, register here.)

One of my favorite feelings is when I can watch a demo and feel my jaw drop. Civil 3D the first time, iPhoto with Face matching, Sketchbook on the iPhone. The past few years, I’ve always made a point to visit SITEOPS crew at AU. I saw some of their stuff a few years back, and it was neat, but felt a bit of a one-trick pony. This year? I got my jaw dropped. We had a few minutes to chat, and I am just blown away by how much this stuff has improved in the current releas

So, want to enjoy a good smile and watch how design should be done? They’re hosting a webinar on Wednesday to discuss how their clients use SITEOPS in the site design process for schools, but I think you’ll see quickly how your company could use this. There’s a 10 minute demo here and check out the full webinar. Be sure to bring a napkin for the drool.

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