Anyone know Civil 3D?

Does anyone here use Civil 3D 2009?

Chase OldSparky, Viv...he's an expert with it.

Sorry Viv I'm a Machinist, SParky's your man

Dear Rickard5 and Allan Cullen,
Thanks for the lead guys.

Old Sparky! Do you know about grading? Like under a bridge?
Regards, Vivian

Viv...I sent Sparky a message telling him you wish his good counsel.

Mwhahaha.....

BTW...his name is Steve.....a very, extremely, helpfull bloke.

Well just
Me ke aloha
Aloha au iaoe
Mahalo nui loa

Dear Alan,
Thank you! You're such a sweetie. How can you possibly be excluded from anywhere?

Dear Rickard,
You sweet talker you! What else do you have up your ACAD sleeve.
What? This is not the Tavern or the Lounge. I knows how to watch my p's & q's.

OXOXO to you both!
Regards, Vivian

Sorry for the delay . . . I've been hiding over the holiday and can't log in here from work.
Before dumping a bunch of Civil 3D jargon upon you I must ask, how much experience do you have with Civil 3D? The interface is an absolute BEAR until you become familiar with it. This is especially true for experienced Land Desktop people.
Grading is not the most stable Civil 3D feature, but it can be done without too much torture.

Hi Sparky,
I've had 2 days of instruction on the basics and corridors and 2 weeks of head-banging, 4-letter word reading and tutorials.
I tried some grading but can't get it right.
Thanks for answering.
Regards, Vivian

Hi Sparky,
By the way, I'm a structural drafter on ACAD 09 and have to learn C3D for a design build with contractors. Exciting.
Regards, Vivian

Hi again Sparky,
Just to define the problem a bit. We need to grade existing ground under (to match bottom of footing) and around our bridge abutments and to clear the underspans near the abutment. 4' clear around the abutment structure and slope is 2:1. After clearing about 4' below the underspans, it goes to match existing. I calculated about 7300 CY long hand for cut.

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Regards,
Vivian

vthi wrote:Dear Alan,
Thank you! You're such a sweetie. How can you possibly be excluded from anywhere?

Dear Rickard,
You sweet talker you! What else do you have up your ACAD sleeve.
What? This is not the Tavern or the Lounge. I knows how to watch my p's & q's.

Dearest Vivian,
Alan is never excluded from any Reindeer Games, He's like that little kid that's in EVERY Family Picture ever taken, Hamming (spam) it up! and like that Precocious little keiki, he's our Mea Aloha

And I have nothing up my "sleeve" except my undieing Respect and Platonic Love for our little Island Wahine and I think this Phrase sums it all up Ko Aloha Makamae E Ipo

I found this just for you


P.S. I'll watch your P'as and Q's any day of the year

Hmm . . . never heard of a tutorial for 4-letter words. They usually just come out natural . . . especially working with Civil 3D. Could be handy though come to think of it.
How do you get along with TOOLSPACE? It will become your best friend out of necessity no matter how much you hate the interface now. Definitely turn off the ribbon . . . there is nothing useful there for Civil 3D as yet and it will only bog things down as will the properties and layer manager pallets but if at all possible keep TOOLSPACE open or at least hidden in a flyout.
Scope of work . . . Are you helping out a team of users with some experience or are you blessed with the whole spoiled cabbage? You will need an existing surface or a proposed one to target your grading. If you are going to have to develop your own corridor we are in for a l o n g haul.
My old instructor has been holding Civil 3D classes at a couple firms in the Islands the past few months. He may have been working with this firm. Ask about Michael Farrell . . . if he has taught them, they will at least know what they are doing.

Dear Rickard,
You really know the way to my little thumper .
And Thank you for the pic!
Aloha e Mahalo, Vivian
ps Where'd you learn Hawaiian?

Hi Sparky,
Toolspace I can deal with. That's the one with Prospector right? Ribbons went out a loooong time ago. Even in my vanilla ACAD.
I am surely blessed with the whole mess! Hallelujah! NOT! My co-drafter is not even a little fan of civil even though I made him take the same 2-day class.
I got the xml file for the existing ground and I actually made a corridor for the upper deck of our first bridge. My co-drafter did a beautiful job on a 3d model of our bridge that fits pretty well.
I just can't seem to put the grading pieces together. Like I have a big hole where the bottom part of my grading is supposed to be. The slopes are fine except for a couple of glitchey places. And I can't figure out what I'm missing to show the new grading with the existing.
Michael Farrell sounds familiar. You wouldn't know what firm he's working with? I had Willy Campbell from USCAD. But he has since left.
Thanks again.
Regards, Vivian

vthi wrote:Hi again Sparky,
Just to define the problem a bit. We need to grade existing ground under (to match bottom of footing) and around our bridge abutments and to clear the underspans near the abutment. 4' clear around the abutment structure and slope is 2:1. After clearing about 4' below the underspans, it goes to match existing. I calculated about 7300 CY long hand for cut.

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Regards,
Vivian

Do you have any proposed surface for this project yet? If so, for now create a new site for the grading to isolate your work and not force updating the entire model while working on this area. Probably this is a good idea anyway for the future. OK, I am old AND slow and a refresh shows more information . . . make the new site anyway. It sounds like either your corridor or the existing surface is diving to zero in some critical areas - don't take it personal - it happens all the time especially with imported surfaces. The quick and dirty way to address this is to turn off the corridor and hover the cursor over the offending area. If the elevation starts diving the surface has the hole - just add a point at a reasonable looking elevation into the surface inside the hole (surface > properties > edits > add points). You need to change the display style of your surface to show surface points and triangles before you can add the point. After filling up the hole, turn everything back the way it was in your display settings and rebuild the corridor. If you still have a hole we will have to look at the corridor itself.
The grading itself can start out with just drawing a plain old line where you want the grading to begin. You can turn this into a Feature Line and let it derive the elevations along it from the starting surface. The prompts will lead you through the steps to get it into the correct site and get you started. There is a lot more this will get you to a good starting point and I am expecting more questions before you get to this point.
I will ask Michael who he was working with. Even after 3 1/2 years he remains only an SOS call away. He has provided a selection of tutorials covering a variety of Civil 3D tasks for free download. They are big files and some of the earlier ones are a bit rough but still good information.
http://www.primeservicesglobal.com/tutorials.htm

Hi Sparky,
Thank you! I will try this out and I will look at the tutorial link.
And yes, I think you're right about questions.
Thanks again.
Regards, Vivian

I noticed that this project has been pushed aside for now. Just let me know when you need any further advice and we can continue.

Hi Sparky,

My apologies and Thanks! Funny thing is this project got pushed (right choice of words! ) aside by itself. The problem I posted re text style is for the same project but different phase. Schedules (sigh). Always getting adjusted. (double sigh).
But I will get back to you.
Regards, Vivian

If those styles you are trying to change reside in Civil 3D labels, you may actually be in luck. You would still probably have to open each drawing but withing the project settings for styles one can change all of the label styles including all existing over rides with one operation. Caution - this will eliminate EVERY style over ride including any you might wish to keep.
Right click on the drawing name in the settings tab of ToolSpace. Go to "Label Style Defaults" and for the style specify the desired text style you have set in your drawing. Any over rides are indicated by a blue arrow in one of the next two columns. Clicking the blue arrows and APPLY will eliminate any of those over rides for every style in the drawing.

There is also one thing I would like you to try to fill up the holes in your surface. Since you seem to have more time you can try to export the point from the XML file into a regular point file. You can then use that point file to build a new TIN surface that will be more accurate than the XML that will also fill those holes properly rather than with a quick and dirty hack job.