Baselines in corridor surface boundaries?

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a limit on the number of times a particular baseline can
be used in the definition of a corridor surface boundary. That limit is
two, in my experience. Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, then the
question is: WHY????? Two is not always enough.

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental here. Perhaps not. The `help'
files (for almost every part of this application) are of NO help.

By the way, I'm using an up-to-date version of C3D 2005. (I'm STILL waiting
for the 2006 version to arrive!)

Thanks for your thoughts.

--- Evan

[Anonymous]

Evan,

There was a defect in Civil 3D2005 where the features lines for the boundary
were sometimes not selected when you picked them. This sounds like the
same issue. Please give this another try when you get 2006 installed.

thanks,

Dan
"Evan Williams" wrote in message
news:4835371@discussion.autodesk.com...
There seems to be a limit on the number of times a particular baseline can
be used in the definition of a corridor surface boundary. That limit is
two, in my experience. Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, then the
question is: WHY????? Two is not always enough.

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental here. Perhaps not. The `help'
files (for almost every part of this application) are of NO help.

By the way, I'm using an up-to-date version of C3D 2005. (I'm STILL waiting
for the 2006 version to arrive!)

Thanks for your thoughts.

--- Evan

[Anonymous]

Dan,

A defect?! A defect that prevents a simple and important operation from
working consistently? Oh, that's alright, then. No! We didn't invest in
C3D so that we COULDN'T do our work properly with it. I'm currently
attempting to be productive with this program on a simple set of subdivision
roads. This "defect" (among an appalling number of others) prevents C3D
from being a useful and efficient tool for my work This is just absurd!
And it is unacceptable to be asked to wait for the fixes for these defects
in the next release---when the work needs to be done now (or, rather,
yesterday) and the current version of the program claims to be ready,
willing, and able.

For the last couple of months, the focus of my workday has changed from
doing civil engineering design work to wrestling with the "defects" and the
arcane maze of idiosyncracies in C3D---way beyond what is normal or
reasonable for software transition. I regretfully feel that we've paid
multiple thousands of dollars for the dubious privilege of beta-testing this
product for Autodesk. In addition to the heavy licensing cost of this
beta-testing service, we've LOST productive and chargeable time in what we
do for a living---i.e., engineering.

Go to the Civil 3D product webpage. Do you see any indication that C3D is a
product in the late stages of beta development and is not yet ready for
real-world full implementation? That it is seriously bug-infested and can't
do all that it claims? All I see is self-congratulatory praise for this
amazing advance in a tool that promises to increase the productivity of
engineers and allied disciplines. It is being marketed as a fully
functioning miracle, heralding a new age for civil engineers.

"Shorten the road to done." "Speed. Accuracy. Flexibility." Having
wrestled with C3D, this sophistic advertising rhetoric rings hollow. I
could have easily finished that above-mentioned subdivision design a month
ago by using just AutoCAD (or some other CADD app), or even just manual
drawing instruments, paper, and a calculator.

An application like C3d should be viewed as a tool to assist in a process
(civil design) that is generally quite routine and well-defined. Instead,
with C3D, the tool itself becomes a set of problems to be solved, and the
civil design work, the real work, becomes a secondary problem. To me, this
seems like a classic case of what the Oxford linguist, Roy Harris, called
"Severeid's Law": THE CHIEF CAUSE OF PROBLEMS IS SOLUTIONS! Someone on
another thread mentioned "smoke and mirrors"---well, perhaps. It is
certainly a sign of a highly questionable tool---it gets in the way of the
real work rather than assisting it.

I suspect that some folks on this forum would think or say something like,
"get in the game; welcome to the real world; it's just an unfortunate fact
of life that software developers release products in semi-finished states
and fix them on the fly, as complaints pour in; stop moaning and deal with
it; etc..." I accept the realities underlying those kinds of comments to
some extent; and I know that I must work with those realities (or walk
away). And I fully acknowledge that significant time and effort has to be
made on our part to effectively harness software updates and transitions to
new products---that's what we've successfully been doing for many years.
However, there is a threshold beyond which the early release of a product
becomes a dishonourable practice. To me, that threshold is when the
product fails to do significant and essential things that it claims to be
able to do, and when much time must be spent dreaming up work-arounds for
those bogus claims, and when the list of problems grows several times daily.
Another prominent software developer (not Autodesk) appears to have set the
precedent for this practice, years ago; and, appallingly, it seems to be
becoming a standard for large developers. With C3D, Autodesk seems damn
close to being in that territory beyond. I am certain that I'm not alone in
thinking this (judging by posts in both the C3D forum and the LDD forum).

I have a little understanding of the immense task involved in developing
software like C3D, and my hat's off to the creative teams of people working
on it; but the decision to release a product before it can demonstrate its
own stated basic functionality is a different issue, and just makes the
whole operation look bad.

Dan, please know that this rant is not aimed at you. And in spite of my
obvious frustration with the product, I do think that there are some great
ideas being implemented in C3D. And I really do want C3D to function in
the wonderful manner that it claims to be able to. I want it to be the best
civil software out there---after all, that is what we have paid for, that's
what we have invested in. I also am not hostile, in principle, to user
feedback assisting the developer to make a better product---developers ought
to listen to the users for new functionality ideas and for ideas about
better ways to do things that already work. However, it is not unreasonable
to expect that the basic functionality that is claimed for C3D is actually
available in the product.

There are LOTS of other C3D irritations to mention (such as the overly
complicated and confused settings structure, the appallingly useless help
and tutorial files that almost force users to seek outside training, the
ridiculous lack of built-in report format options, the difficulty of
creating and customizing assemblies/subassemblies and the scant stock
catalog, the off-loading of basic tool creation as "customization" by the
user, etc.), but I'll rant-off and cork it, for now.

I sure hope that C3D 2006 delivers on the promise of functioning as
advertised.

--- Evan


"Daniel Philbrick" wrote in message
news:4835884@discussion.autodesk.com...
Evan,

There was a defect in Civil 3D2005 where the features lines for the boundary
were sometimes not selected when you picked them. This sounds like the
same issue. Please give this another try when you get 2006 installed.

thanks,

Dan
"Evan Williams" wrote in message
news:4835371@discussion.autodesk.com...
There seems to be a limit on the number of times a particular baseline can
be used in the definition of a corridor surface boundary. That limit is
two, in my experience. Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, then the
question is: WHY????? Two is not always enough.

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental here. Perhaps not. The `help'
files (for almost every part of this application) are of NO help.

By the way, I'm using an up-to-date version of C3D 2005. (I'm STILL waiting
for the 2006 version to arrive!)

Thanks for your thoughts.

--- Evan

[lwratten]

Gooday Evan

It seems that we are not alone with our dissatisfaction with product issued without appropriate environment testing.
We have the same experience with unexpected crashes.
The problem is it is not obvious when there is a software based glitch or a user or data glitch. Much time and lack of production (read income) is the result. Our support company feels for our difficulties but they also cannot help.
Frustration and employee dissatifaction grows and the vision of probably the best thing since sliced bread dims.
regards
lindsay

[Anonymous]

Hiya Lindsay,

It is both good and bad to hear about your experience. It's BAD because you
guys are having a rough time of it (like many of us, I am certain); to quote
the Duke, you "got it bad and that ain't good". It's GOOD because I haven't
heard many voices of dissent on this newsgroup actually calling Autodesk on
this particular issue of selling a pig's ear as a silk purse. It's one
thing to discuss problems with software on a forum like this in a
cooperative spirit of making the product better; that's quite excellent, and
I applaud Autodesk for providing that opportunity. It's entirely different
when the software under discussion is marketed and sold as a fully
functioning and trust-worthy package but turns out not to be. This is not
an complaint about C3D not having the collective functionality of LDD, Civil
Design, and Survey; it is a complaint about the software not even being able
to consistently demonstrate its own claimed functionality.

The issue that finally made me want to speak out on this-the flakey corridor
surface boundary creation routine-is a good example. After much struggle, I
got what I thought was a decent corridor model. This corridor is a local
road with a cul de sac at one end, a curve joining an existing road at the
other end, and a skewed t-junction somewhere in the middle. Should be
simple. I tried all kinds of different possibilities, with different
alignment, profile, and assembly methods, to get an intact corridor model
that would allow me to move on to the next stages-creating and exporting
corridor surfaces, creating x-sections with those surfaces, getting volumes,
etc. However, because of that flakey boundary routine, which a
representative of Autodesk casually mentions is a "defect" (as if that's
just alright and normal), the next stages were impossible. Where does one
go from there? Well, there are a few choices, but it should not be
overlooked that much time and money has been spent and wasted merely from
misplaced faith in Autodesk and their claims for C3D. It is pathetically
ironic that a TOOL-for that's exactly what this software is (it's not an end
in itself)-that is meant to make a job more efficient, actually makes that
job hellishly impossible. It's shameful.

(I think that corridor boundary routine is flakey for other reasons, too.
Messing about, trying to get that damn boundary to be "well-formed", can be
frustrating and time-consuming. Why not be able to use a closed polyline?
Why not have it more automated, perhaps with simple feature line options in
the dialog, even when more than one baseline is used? There is a lot more
to say about this routine and many others, but.....)

I am sincere when I say that it is NOT my intention to embarrass Autodesk
(they are managing that themselves); I truly wish and hope that C3D becomes
the excellent package that it is claimed to be. I would have hoped that
Autodesk would have provided the product managers, programmers, artists,
consultants, advisors, etc., with the appropriately sufficient time to
develop a (nearly) bullitproof application BEFORE it went to market. Not
doing so only shows contempt for their paying customers. It is too late for
Autodesk to demonstrate that courtesy to us with C3D; but I do hope that C3D
improves with age.

* *
*

Right. I've had a serious problem with random crashes, too. Just with C3D
(not really with other software, although some MS apps seem flakey, too).
Sometimes there are fatal error messages; often, though, C3D just vanishes.
Pooofffff!!!!! Gone! And the image on my desktop (a photo of Ludwig
Wittgenstein) is suddenly starring at me, as if saying, "...existence is
evanescent; what do you expect"!

I researched hardware compatibility issues pretty deeply, when I built my
computer. I have a feeling that the way WinXP and C3D together address
memory isn't completely stable. That's a guess. I've been using 1GB of
high quality RAM; I'm going to try adding another 1GB to see if the random
crashing diminishes. I've got that RAM working in dual-channel mode with my
mainboard. I haven't tried taking it out of dual-channel mode. Perhaps
there's an issue there? Anyone else's experience on this would be
interesting to hear.

Off-colour data certainly shouldn't crash the program. It might raise
flags, if good error checking practices are in place in the programming. It
should be fairly impervious to user error, too. A sign of a well-developed
application is how well it deals with the gamut of user behaviour.

Anyway, I hope that things improve with C3D2006. We still haven't received
our pakage, so I can't say at the moment. (Got Survey2006. Got ABS2006.
Are we the last one's on earth to get C3D2006?) I must say that, judging by
the large number of issues mentioned in the posts on this newsgroup, the
2006 version still has big problems. I just hope that even the basic tools
to get the job done consistently work all the way through the civil design
work flow. But check out James Wedding's 2005-05-06 post on the
"Autodesk.Land-Desktop" newsgroup (the recent "LDTCivil2006 thread"); it is
very interesting.

Cheers,

--- Evan



wrote in message news:4837901@discussion.autodesk.com...
Gooday Evan

It seems that we are not alone with our dissatisfaction with product issued
without appropriate environment testing.
We have the same experience with unexpected crashes.
The problem is it is not obvious when there is a software based glitch or a
user or data glitch. Much time and lack of production (read income) is the
result. Our support company feels for our difficulties but they also cannot
help.
Frustration and employee dissatifaction grows and the vision of probably the
best thing since sliced bread dims.
regards
lindsay

[Anonymous]

"Evan Williams" wrote in message news:4837136@discussion.autodesk.com...

"...There are LOTS of other C3D irritations to mention (such as the overly
complicated and confused settings structure, the appallingly useless help
and tutorial files that almost force users to seek outside training, the
ridiculous lack of built-in report format options, the difficulty of
creating and customizing assemblies/subassemblies and the scant stock
catalog, the off-loading of basic tool creation as "customization" by the
user, etc.), but I'll rant-off and cork it, for now."

Evan,

It would be more constructive for us if you list these "irritations" in
separate messages so that each one can be addressed in it's own right rather
than at the end of a long post, where they might get lost on many readers.
Giving specifics is more useful feedback than general statements such as
"confused settings structure," "difficulty of..." etc. If you give us more
details, maybe each issue can be addressed appropriately.

As for the help issue - each page of the help has a link near the bottom,
that says "Comments?" I request you to send in comments to our help team
via that link.

Thanks.

--
Himanshu Gohel. Civil3D Team, Autodesk, Inc.
Autodesk Civil3D Product Information <>

[mjfarrell]

Evan,
I nor any of my students have had any issue applying the
same centerline alignment multiple times as the baseline for
a corridor.

Admittedly the tutorials and web-casts are no manner to
acquire functional knowledge of the product. It can do most
if not all of it's advertised functions. Although I still wonder
why the material quantity XML report doesn't read the correct
unit when it displays volumes in the report.

Most of the users I have trained are doing reasonably well with
C3D. The interface is just so whacked, and the name change
and reordering of data (like the reversal of ALL entries in the
terrain model) for no functional reason. Take left side of template
vs right side of assembly a another instance.

I don't think that Autodesk really wants to address these issues.
I have openly invited them to hire me for a reasonable fee to assist them in offering a better Civil product, to no response.

[Anonymous]

Hi Himanshu,

I understand your point. However, that post was an exasperated expression
of consternation that C3D2005 turned out to be so buggy and unreliable. I
felt compelled to say something after being told by Dan that so fundamental
an operation as corridor surface boundary creation is known to be defective,
and after having wasted so much time (and money) trying to make it work with
that particular corridor (and its iterations). There's an important message
for Autodesk in that complaint (and in my response to Lindsay). The
paragraph that you quoted was really peripheral to my point, and I should
have left it out. Anyway, enough said. Let's kill this thread, and move on
to, as you say, more constructive things.

I can't say how the issues that I've had have been dealt with in C3D2006,
since I haven't received it yet. (Our subscription is in place. We've
received Survey2006 and ABS2006, but, unfortunately, C3D2006 seems to be
taking its time.) It makes sense to me to to wait to put C3D2006 through
its paces before I query things that may already have been handled. So with
ambivalent anticipation, I'm looking forward to checking out C3D2006.

Thanks, Himanshu.

--- Evan

"H Gohel" wrote in message
news:4839059@discussion.autodesk.com...
"Evan Williams" wrote in message news:4837136@discussion.autodesk.com...

"...There are LOTS of other C3D irritations to mention (such as the overly
complicated and confused settings structure, the appallingly useless help
and tutorial files that almost force users to seek outside training, the
ridiculous lack of built-in report format options, the difficulty of
creating and customizing assemblies/subassemblies and the scant stock
catalog, the off-loading of basic tool creation as "customization" by the
user, etc.), but I'll rant-off and cork it, for now."

Evan,

It would be more constructive for us if you list these "irritations" in
separate messages so that each one can be addressed in it's own right rather
than at the end of a long post, where they might get lost on many readers.
Giving specifics is more useful feedback than general statements such as
"confused settings structure," "difficulty of..." etc. If you give us more
details, maybe each issue can be addressed appropriately.

As for the help issue - each page of the help has a link near the bottom,
that says "Comments?" I request you to send in comments to our help team
via that link.

Thanks.

--
Himanshu Gohel. Civil3D Team, Autodesk, Inc.
Autodesk Civil3D Product Information <>

[Anonymous]

Evan,

As many indicated, even in R2005 there is no limitation of selecting
corridor featurelines as "corridor surface boundaries".

I did not see that issue so far and i could add them as boundaries to
different surfaces as many times as I want. If what you are facing is the
"select" command issue as Dan said, perhaps if you REGEN and select you will
succeed.

BTW - did you get your R2006? Please the functional enhancements in it -
your input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
--
Chakri Gavini
Product Designer
Autodesk Inc

----------------------------
"Evan Williams" wrote in message
news:4835371@discussion.autodesk.com...
There seems to be a limit on the number of times a particular baseline can
be used in the definition of a corridor surface boundary. That limit is
two, in my experience. Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, then the
question is: WHY????? Two is not always enough.

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental here. Perhaps not. The `help'
files (for almost every part of this application) are of NO help.

By the way, I'm using an up-to-date version of C3D 2005. (I'm STILL waiting
for the 2006 version to arrive!)

Thanks for your thoughts.

--- Evan

[Anonymous]

Hello Chakri,

I'm getting mixed messages, here. One the one hand, the boundary routine is
said to be defective, yet, on the other hand, it's not according to many
users. My experience sugggests that there IS some kind of defect, but
that's clearly not the experience of others.

Thank you for the REGEN suggestion. I tried it, but C3D seems to be
ignoring my daylight feature line pick when it's related to a baseline I've
used twice before. I tried several pick orders, puncuated by regens; but
each time came up short. I can get a well-formed boundary, but it misses
the daylight feature line along one stretch of road, in every case.

This discussion may be completely academic, in light of C3D2006. On the
other hand, I seem to be the only one having an issue with corridor surface
boundaries in C3D2005 (the only one who's said anything, that is). Could be
a previously undetected problem; could be something quite local to me (my
installation, my computer, my user behaviour, etc.) Perhaps I will send you
a version of this drawing, just in case you want to see what's going on. I
am
quite busy today with other things, but I will prepare one this evening
(PST)
and send it to you.

Regarding C3D2006: no, I haven't received it, yet. I really hope that it
comes
today. It's been just about four weeks since we received a subscription
email
notifying us that it will be on its way.

Thanks, Chakri. I'll be in touch later.

--- Evan


"Chakri Gavini" wrote in message
news:4839624@discussion.autodesk.com...
Evan,

As many indicated, even in R2005 there is no limitation of selecting
corridor featurelines as "corridor surface boundaries".

I did not see that issue so far and i could add them as boundaries to
different surfaces as many times as I want. If what you are facing is the
"select" command issue as Dan said, perhaps if you REGEN and select you will
succeed.

BTW - did you get your R2006? Please the functional enhancements in it -
your input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
--
Chakri Gavini
Product Designer
Autodesk Inc

----------------------------
"Evan Williams" wrote in message
news:4835371@discussion.autodesk.com...
There seems to be a limit on the number of times a particular baseline can
be used in the definition of a corridor surface boundary. That limit is
two, in my experience. Can anyone confirm this? If this is true, then the
question is: WHY????? Two is not always enough.

Perhaps I'm missing something fundamental here. Perhaps not. The `help'
files (for almost every part of this application) are of NO help.

By the way, I'm using an up-to-date version of C3D 2005. (I'm STILL waiting
for the 2006 version to arrive!)

Thanks for your thoughts.

--- Evan

[sasmo12]

Here is what I have found in both C3D 2005 & 2006.

I have a corridor with multiple centerlines. I have created a surface within the corridor. No problems.

I want to create a boundary for the surface and this where the problem comes in. Road one has two streets with cul-de-sacs intersecting it, on the SAME side. I try to interactively add the Featurlines. I cannot add the left outer line of road one more than once. The boundary creates overlapping segments, or I can only use the left outer feature line of road one until I reach the first intersecting side street. The remaining portion of road one is discarded.

Additionally, It appears that the macros used in 2005 are not compatible with 2006 and so I have to recreate all of my assemblies and sub-assemblies.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I haven't had the chance to get to know C3D2006 really well, yet, but I've
found that the 2005 subassemblies work in C3D2006---that is to say that they
do create the corridor model without endless VBA errors. You must change
the location path for each subassembly used in your assemblies so that
C3D2006 can access the 2006 code. This is well-documented in the C3D2006
ReadMe, and has been mentioned several times in the newsgroup.

Apparently the C3D2006 stock subassemblies have been enhanced in various
ways, so the received wisdom is to recreate the assemblies that you are
using with the 2006 subassemblies. I am going to try this with the drawing
that I've been having trouble with.

Yes, I'm still having this corridor surface boundary issue with my old
C3D2005 drawing opened in C3D2006. I am in the process of getting this
drawing to Dan and Chakri (work keeps getting in the way!). Hopefully, I'll
get it to them today.

Stay tuned.....

--- Evan



wrote in message news:4842718@discussion.autodesk.com...
Here is what I have found in both C3D 2005 & 2006.

I have a corridor with multiple centerlines. I have created a surface within
the corridor. No problems.

I want to create a boundary for the surface and this where the problem comes
in. Road one has two streets with cul-de-sacs intersecting it, on the SAME
side. I try to interactively add the Featurlines. I cannot add the left
outer line of road one more than once. The boundary creates overlapping
segments, or I can only use the left outer feature line of road one until I
reach the first intersecting side street. The remaining portion of road one
is discarded.

Additionally, It appears that the macros used in 2005 are not compatible
with 2006 and so I have to recreate all of my assemblies and sub-assemblies.

[tscheevel]

Win 2K SP 4
Civil 3D 2006
I have a similar situation in a drawing with 1 main alignment and a side road intersecting in a T intersection from the left.
When I select the left daylight line for the corridor surface boundary it draws the boundary for the entire length of the alignment. I then limited the station range of that segment, added the daylight feature lines from the side road and both radii, then selected the daylight feature line on the main alignment again on the other side of the intersection. The second time I picked the daylight feature line on the main alignment it was not selected. Even after multiple attempts. I was able to create a boundary by selecting the "daylight cut" and "daylight fill" feature lines on the troublesome segment of the corridor, then limiting the station range where they were applied. Not a big deal on this drawing because the alignment is only 950 ft long but impractical for a project of several miles with several intersecting side roads and entrances.

[sasmo12]

I have found a temporary solution. I had to create two hide boundaries, one on either side of the intersection. I have gotten the results I wanted yet, I have no outer boundaries in my surface.