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Calling all the Brits

13 REPLIES 13
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Message 1 of 14
NeilSpoon
1253 Views, 13 Replies

Calling all the Brits

I was wondering.....

 

How many Brits are on these boards? I am asking because my company (Capita Symonds) has allowed us to move from Bentley MX to C3D (or at least run it side by side for now). It appears Capita is setting itself up to be BIM-ready, though it seems it is up to the individual offices to push for a change in software and organise the appropriate training etc.

 

To my knowledge, the vast majority of British consultants are still using MX and there seems to be a reluctance to change ("we cant change because everybody else is using MX", etc). Now that the British government is keen on rolling out the BIM approach, things might finally change.

 

Because of this, I pushed for C3D to replace MX, mainly because I hate working with MX and the advantages of C3D are obvious, let alone the scope for development etc (the only real advantage of MX is the input file in my eyes). I still have a hard time trying to convince some of my colleagues though, mainly because of the steep learning curve and the more cumbersome approach to get a junction designed.

 

So my question is this: Are there any Brits here who made the change? If so, how did it pan out? Are you in the process of changing? Are you considering changing? etc. I'd like you to share your experiences here, as I would be interested to know how many in Britain actually use C3D and how they are finding it, especially compared to MX.

 

Feel free to contribute even if you are not from the UK.

 

Cheers 🙂

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13 REPLIES 13
Message 2 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: NeilSpoon

Have you visited www.civil3dukie.com??

 

I haven't used MX since it was called MOSS (v10.4 running under Windows NT 4.0, I recall) and have used LSS for volumetric calculations for many years (I still do on occasions because C3D is very cumbersome in volumetrics compared to LSS - at least for the work I do).

 

However I use C3D for windfarm development/tendering work and it's very good for this (when it doesn't crash)

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 3 of 14
NeilSpoon
in reply to: neilyj666

Yeah I have looked at Civil3dUKIE.com but it is relatively dead, with the last post dating 30-jan-2012. So I thought I'd get a better response here. 🙂

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Message 4 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: NeilSpoon

Yes - I'm not sure what's happening with C3DUKIE - I'm a moderator on that board and there was a constant battle against spammers.

 

This forum is very useful and queries get answered very quickly usually.

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 5 of 14
Hasslebonk
in reply to: NeilSpoon

I am in the same position as the OP and carried out a comparison between MX & Civil 3D for calculating cut and fill on a large site (90ha).

 

I put a 3D topo into MX and then created various proposed strings, added a boundary and got a cut & fill balance for the site. To test against Civil 3D I exported the 3D topo from MX as a poly face mesh and created a surface in Civil 3D from it. Then I exported the proposed strings as 3D polylines & created a proposed surface (both surfaces trimmed to boundary exported from MX). However when I did a volume calc in Civil 3D from a comparison surface I got figure that was over 5000m3 different from MX. Why?

 

It has always been my understanding that MX will produce a more accurate figure - is this assumption correct? Do both software use triangulation to calculate volume?

 

In exploring reasons for the difference I took a single building slab at a constant elevation and calculated cut & fill in both software (trimmed to same boundary around slab). The volume from Civil 3D was less in cut by 10m3. As I have used the same topo (exported from MX for consistancy), 3D polys (with same no of vertices) and boundaries I'm at a loss to explain how a slab can produce different results?

 

With the current UK bias toward MX this difference will reflect poorly on Civil 3D if I show to bosses without a rationale. Can Civil 3D figure be trusted?

 

Cheers for any guidance.

 

Message 6 of 14
wfberry
in reply to: Hasslebonk

Just a thought here.  5000 CM as compared to what?  Compared to 1 Million or 10,000. 

 

Bill

 

Message 7 of 14
BrianHailey
in reply to: Hasslebonk

They are different, yes. Is one right and the other wrong? No. They are simply differently wrong. How do you know the MX number is right? How much dirt are you moving? If you are calculating this to more than 2 significant digits you're kidding yourself (I personally think 1.5 significant digits is probably better). In other words, if you have 1,000,000 m3 cut and 999,000 m3 fill, it's balanced. I would even say if you had 950,000 m3 fill it's balanced and that's a difference of 50,000 m3.

 

As far as the number being calculated differently, export the two surfaces from MX to a LandXML file, bring that into C3D and then compare the difference. This will give you more of an "Apples to apples" type of comparison.

 

Hope this helps

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 8 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: Hasslebonk

As Brian Hailey pointed out, how do you know that MX is correct??

 

I took a C3D surface, extracted the traingles and wblocked them to a dxf which I then imported into LSS and  the results are attached - no difference

 


@wheats77 wrote:
To test against Civil 3D I exported the 3D topo from MX as a poly face mesh and created a surface in Civil 3D from it.

- Did you do a volume calc from the polyface mesh - what did it show compared to the 3d polylines

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 9 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: Hasslebonk

As Brian Hailey pointed out, how do you know that MX is correct??

 

I took a C3D surface, extracted the traingles and wblocked them to a dxf which I then imported into LSS and  the results are attached - no difference

 


@wheats77 wrote:
To test against Civil 3D I exported the 3D topo from MX as a poly face mesh and created a surface in Civil 3D from it.

- Did you do a volume calc from the polyface mesh - what did it show compared to the 3d polylines

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Message 10 of 14
Hasslebonk
in reply to: neilyj666

Chaps thanks for the response.

 

When i posted last night i was away form the office so guessed some figures slightly wrong. The Phase 1 site im looking at is actually 53626m2. MX gives a balance of fill @ 15070m3. Civil 3D gives a balance of fill @ 26863m3.

The difference of 12000m3 is large for this site.

 

The site is for a proposed zoo extension and as such the proposed surface is very complicated. Im assuming at this stage that the difference is because I need to spend time in Civil 3D differentiating contours from breaklines and other general features like retaining walls. Does anyone have a good link for explaining surface definitions as im new to Civil 3D?

 

Initially i wanted a quick comparision by creating a C3D surface from all the 3D polys but obviously i need to spend more time creating a surface.

 

 

 

Message 11 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: Hasslebonk

A 12000 cu.m error suggests that your modelling is indeed suspect - if you can post the drawing then the causes may be able to be identified - perhaps an area excluded by the boundary, is your boundary visible?????

 

The help files have good information on breaklines, supplementing distances, definitions etc etc

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 12 of 14
BrianHailey
in reply to: Hasslebonk


@wheats77 wrote:

Chaps thanks for the response.

 

@When i posted last night i was away form the office so guessed some figures slightly wrong. The Phase 1 site im looking at is actually 53626m2. MX gives a balance of fill @ 15070m3. Civil 3D gives a balance of fill @ 26863m3.

The difference of 12000m3 is large for this site.

 

The site is for a proposed zoo extension and as such the proposed surface is very complicated. Im assuming at this stage that the difference is because I need to spend time in Civil 3D differentiating contours from breaklines and other general features like retaining walls. Does anyone have a good link for explaining surface definitions as im new to Civil 3D?

 

Initially i wanted a quick comparision by creating a C3D surface from all the 3D polys but obviously i need to spend more time creating a surface.

 

 

 


I still think you should export your surface from MX to a LandXML file and then import that into C3D and use that to compare your results. By using LandXML, you should get the same surface in both applications.

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 13 of 14
Hasslebonk
in reply to: neilyj666

DWG attached if you want to take a look. I have had to remove the surfaces as the file was too large.

 

I will try the LandXML suggestion at some point today.

 

Cheers for the help - much appreciated.

Message 14 of 14
neilyj666
in reply to: neilyj666

That is a truly horrible data set - but a couple of comments:

 

Several of  the lines on layer _ACM-C-ANNO-CNTR cross other lines on other layers but at a different level - this will cause issues

 

There are also polylines and 3Dpolys that are the same in plan position but at different levels which will cause the triangulation to be incorrectly formed - how do you know which is the correct one to include in the surface definition??

 

Not sure how the 3D polylines have been derived but as they loop back on themselves they will create "flat spots" which may or may not be the intention but which willl affect volumes

 

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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