Transportation

Autodesk University

For any of you attending AU in the coming week; both Alan and I will be Speakers/Co-Speakers of a couple of classes. We are teaching back to back Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler Classes. The classes are Autodesk® Infrastructure Design Suite: AIM to Please with Your Transportation Project, Part 1 & 2. Here are the links to Part 1 & Part 2, if your interested in reading or attending.

If you can’t make the classes, but are still attending we will be floating around attending other classes and hanging out in one or two of the lounges. We hope to see and meet some of you there.

You might also want to keep and eye on this Twitter Hash tag #digthisAU. Dana Probert will be doing some cool stuff at AU.

-Wes

Contractor Workspace

Adding to the construction/contractor type tools, Jerry Bartels has put together a simplified workspace for Civil 3D 2013. He has created a couple of ribbons, one that has Civil 3D tools grouped together that are more applicable to the contractor crowd, and another with commonly used AutoCAD tools.

The workspace can be downloaded from here. I’ve taken the liberty of putting it in an Application plugin. Simply run the self-extractor taking the defaults, then enter the following command: “ADDCONTRACTORWORKSPACE”. The contractor workspace will then be copied to your current .cuix and set active. Of course you can always swap back to your other workspaces from the CUI dialog or from selecting it from the pull down of the Quick Access Toolbar. To remove the workspace simply open the CUI dialog with the “CUI” command, then right click on the contractor workspace and select delete.

Here is a short video of Jerry explaining the custom workspace.

-Wes

X-Section to Surface

Sorry for the long gap in posting. Personally I've moved twice over the summer and have finally settled into our new home in Fayetteville, AR. I've got a bunch of new widgets ready to post. Let's start with a more complex tool.

This tool serves a bit of niche role. Let me start by backfilling with a little information. In the construction world we commonly see contractors reverse engineering surfaces from paper or digital cross sections in order to create digital models for machine guidance or for other needs like project estimation. This tool, in short, provides a way to take digital cross sections, specify an accompanying horizontal alignment and create a surface. Of course there is a little more to it than that, but I'll leave that to a video.

Here is the tool. I've packaged it up to use Application Plugins. Simply run the self-extractor taking the defaults and you should have a new command available called "XSECT2SURF". I've compliled it for both Civil 3D 2012 and 2013.

This tool will be the first of several things geared towards the  horizontal construction market. Any comments or suggestions with this tool or any other tool for the construction market would be greatly appreciated.

-Wes

Line by Bearing/Distance

It’s been too long since my last blog post. I apologize for that. I had a long run of traveling, coupled with selling my house and moving into a temporary apartment.

On to the tool. This is a LDD throw back. I had a customer wanting an exact replica of the Line by Bearing tool. This basically prompts the user for the quadrant, then the bearing, and finally the distance, then loops back to the beginning creating a line for each segment (All input can be done from the number pad.) When you exit the command the closing distance and closure is displayed. If time permits I’ll post a how to video in an edit.

I’ve wrapped the tool into an Application plugin. Simply take the defaults when running the self extractor and the command “BEA” should be available without having to netload the dll. I’ve compiled this for 2012 and 2013, all delivered in the same package. The tool runs on any AutoCAD based product including Map 3D and Civil 3D. You can download the tool from here.

-Wes

Civil 3D Grid/Ground Transformations Part 3. Drawing Data

Part 3 below focuses on some common issues when dealing with DWG and/or DGN drawing data.  In this post, we’ll deal with some DGN files that are in a regional/city/area ground system (Las Vegas Ground in this case).

-Alan

Roundabout Design Free Webinar

Savoy, TRL, Autodesk, and Design Pro Software will be presenting a 3D roundabout design workflow that helps speed up this iterative process.  Autotrack (Savoy), ARCADY (TRL), and Sign Design Pro (Design Pro) are three partner software products that link to the design model of Civil 3D and enable the ability to consider geometry, safety, turning movements, capacity/flow, traffic control, etc., all within the same environment.

Below is everything you need to sign up.  Hope to see you there!

-Alan

 

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Register now for the free 3D roundabout design live webcast by Savoy, TRL, Autodesk and Design Pro Software

Savoy will be joining with TRL, Autodesk and Design Pro Software to present a live updated demonstration of the 3D roundabout design workflow that was first broadcast in September last year. The system links AutoTrack Junctions, ARCADY and AutoCAD Civil 3D in real-time and we will be demonstrating how it allows the engineer to design and analyse roundabouts as a 3D model many times faster than using conventional methods.

The event will be hosted live from the Autodesk offices in Farnborough, UK over the internet.

There will be two webcasts scheduled to suit European and American time zones and you may use the links below to register for one of the events:-

UK & Europe Webcast

Wednesday 16th May, 2012 12pm - 1:30pm UK Time, 1pm - 2:30pm CET

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/923111906

Americas Webcast

Wednesday 16th May, 2012 7pm - 8:30pm UK Time, 2pm - 3:30pm (EST) 11am - 12:30pm (PST)

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/271823602

Swapping object’s symbology

I was approached the other day to write a little routine to change an object’s color, linetype, lineweight to that of it’s layer. Basically turning it from bylayer to matching what the layer’s symbology was set to. This probably sounds a little backwards to most, but a specific workflow was calling for it.

The code was short enough to post, thought someone might gleam something from it. For those of you who don’t want to compile, here it is for 2012.

-Wes

 

using System.Collections.Generic;
using Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices;
using Autodesk.AutoCAD.DatabaseServices;
using Autodesk.AutoCAD.EditorInput;
using Autodesk.AutoCAD.Runtime;


namespace sym2level
{
    public class MainSym
    {

        [CommandMethod("SYM2LEVELS", CommandFlags.UsePickSet | CommandFlags.Redraw)]
        public static void sym2Levels()
        {
            Document doc = Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices.Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument;
            Editor ed = doc.Editor;
            List<ObjectId> currentObjects = null;
            //get implied selection if there is any
            PromptSelectionResult psr = ed.SelectImplied();
            if (psr.Status == PromptStatus.OK && psr.Value.Count > 0)
                currentObjects = new List<ObjectId>(psr.Value.GetObjectIds());
            else
            {
                //if no implied, prompt for selection
                psr = ed.GetSelection();
                if (psr.Status == PromptStatus.OK)
                    currentObjects = new List<ObjectId>(psr.Value.GetObjectIds());
            }
            if (currentObjects == null)
                return;
            Transaction tr = doc.TransactionManager.StartTransaction();
            using (tr)
            {
                //loop through selected objects
                foreach (ObjectId objId in currentObjects)
                {
                    Entity ent = tr.GetObject(objId, OpenMode.ForWrite) as Entity;
                    if (ent == null)
                        continue;
                    //get Entity's layer
                    LayerTableRecord ltr = tr.GetObject(ent.LayerId, OpenMode.ForWrite) as LayerTableRecord;
                    //copy layer's symbology to entities
                    ent.LinetypeId = ltr.LinetypeObjectId;
                    ent.LineWeight = ltr.LineWeight;
                    ent.Color = ltr.Color;
                }
                tr.Commit();
            }
            //concluding message
            string count;
            if (currentObjects.Count == 1)
                count = " Entity's symbology.";
            else
                count = " Entities' symbology.";
            ed.SetImpliedSelection(new ObjectId[]{});
            ed.WriteMessage("\nChanged " + currentObjects.Count + count);
        }

    }
}

 

Civil 3D Grid/Ground Transformations Part 2. Survey Database

Part 2 below focuses mainly on the danger of having transformations turned on in Civil 3D when working with the Survey Database.

-Alan

Civil 3D Grid/Ground Transformations Part 1. Cogo Points

Let me start by adding my belated welcome to our blog.  Hopefully you have been enjoying some of the extremely handy custom tools that Wes has developed (I know I have been).  Thought I would add a little Grid/Ground “How To” series into the mix.  Below is the video for Part 1 that walks through a grid/ground workflow with Civil 3D Cogo Points.

-Alan

Autodesk Transportation Video

Awesome video showing some of the capabilities of Autodesk Software in the Infrastructure Industry.