Grading causes crash

[Anonymous]

I want to use a sImple grading, just 4:1 to existing ground from a feature line that essentially follows the existing ground surface.

Civil 3D crashes anytime I try to create the grading. I am looking for possible causes. Is there a limit to the number of elevation points on a feature line used for grading? The feature line was created from an alignment that had 30-50' radius curves also (3 total). Looking for ideas on what is causing the crash.

[Anonymous]

It could be a range of things.
It could be that the file your working in was brought forward from an older version of C3D.
It could be that your creating a grading in a group that is generating a surface, which is pasted into another surface.
It could be that the feature line is too long, or that the grading criteria doesn't do cut then fill or fill then cut...

It could be a lot of things...Grading objects have a lot of bugs in them, and the things I listed are just things that I've found cause them to crash regularly. There are a lot more.

You might try creating a new drawing and trying to create the grading, if that works, you could reference it back in...Thats one work around..

[Anonymous]

I had very slow performance while doing exactly the same thing. I attribute
it to the many elevation points that get added to the feature line when it
is draped on EG. I never found a solution.

wrote in message news:5992829@discussion.autodesk.com...
I want to use a sImple grading, just 4:1 to existing ground from a feature
line that essentially follows the existing ground surface.

Civil 3D crashes anytime I try to create the grading. I am looking for
possible causes. Is there a limit to the number of elevation points on a
feature line used for grading? The feature line was created from an
alignment that had 30-50' radius curves also (3 total). Looking for ideas
on what is causing the crash.

[Anonymous]

If you are in 2008, you will probably crash trying to grade from a draped
Feature line. Those extra "round" vertices on the draped FL are not
completely compatible with all other features. Explode it to a 3dpoly, then
weed it, then use it to grade with which will create a new FL in it's place.
Even in 2009, Grading does not like FL's with a lot of vertices. It should
be called "Grading Lite" until it works correctly.
Tim

"neilw" wrote in message
news:5992947@discussion.autodesk.com...
I had very slow performance while doing exactly the same thing. I attribute
it to the many elevation points that get added to the feature line when it
is draped on EG. I never found a solution.

wrote in message news:5992829@discussion.autodesk.com...
I want to use a sImple grading, just 4:1 to existing ground from a feature
line that essentially follows the existing ground surface.

Civil 3D crashes anytime I try to create the grading. I am looking for
possible causes. Is there a limit to the number of elevation points on a
feature line used for grading? The feature line was created from an
alignment that had 30-50' radius curves also (3 total). Looking for ideas
on what is causing the crash.

[mwright]

"Grading Lite" I like that. How about "Grading Sometimes" or "Grading on Drugs"?

[Anonymous]

I made sure the feature line was weeded and had only the geometry vertices.
I was working in 2009. It took perhaps a minute or more for it to generate a
daylight footprint. On a couple of occasions it crashed C3D. Any edits to
the feature line were tedious due to the long update times. I just gave up.

"Tim Scott" wrote in message
news:5992941@discussion.autodesk.com...
If you are in 2008, you will probably crash trying to grade from a draped
Feature line. Those extra "round" vertices on the draped FL are not
completely compatible with all other features. Explode it to a 3dpoly, then
weed it, then use it to grade with which will create a new FL in it's place.
Even in 2009, Grading does not like FL's with a lot of vertices. It should
be called "Grading Lite" until it works correctly.
Tim

"neilw" wrote in message
news:5992947@discussion.autodesk.com...
I had very slow performance while doing exactly the same thing. I attribute
it to the many elevation points that get added to the feature line when it
is draped on EG. I never found a solution.

wrote in message news:5992829@discussion.autodesk.com...
I want to use a sImple grading, just 4:1 to existing ground from a feature
line that essentially follows the existing ground surface.

Civil 3D crashes anytime I try to create the grading. I am looking for
possible causes. Is there a limit to the number of elevation points on a
feature line used for grading? The feature line was created from an
alignment that had 30-50' radius curves also (3 total). Looking for ideas
on what is causing the crash.

[AussieHans]

It's really sad that the grading continues to be a total embarassment to the Civil 3D product....

[GaryElswick5627]

It is also really sad that Autodesk released 2009 with grading not working-AGAIN, but they are making record profits with subscription

[Anonymous]

Yes, what you describe is as designed.
1. Drape Feature Line on to surface.
2. Use Draped Feature Line to grade with.
3A. Crash
or
3B. Wait 30 minutes and the grading suddenly shows up.
or
3C. Give up before the crash and Ctr-AltDel yourself out of the Program.

You should get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you are doing it right. LOL
Just know that there are only 50,000 gradings that are needed on any given
project and that it may get fixed in a future release. Not fixed in 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009, but maybe in the future.
I now return to my request 3 years ago that we need to be able to grade a
single contour using the old LDD command for offsetting at Grade/Slope, etc.
If the new way worked, fine. But since it sucks, just add back in the tried
and true way to get the job done.
Believe it or not, getting work out the freakin' door is the most important
thing.

Tim

"neilw" wrote in message
news:5993513@discussion.autodesk.com...
I made sure the feature line was weeded and had only the geometry vertices.
I was working in 2009. It took perhaps a minute or more for it to generate a
daylight footprint. On a couple of occasions it crashed C3D. Any edits to
the feature line were tedious due to the long update times. I just gave up.

"Tim Scott" wrote in message
news:5992941@discussion.autodesk.com...
If you are in 2008, you will probably crash trying to grade from a draped
Feature line. Those extra "round" vertices on the draped FL are not
completely compatible with all other features. Explode it to a 3dpoly, then
weed it, then use it to grade with which will create a new FL in it's place.
Even in 2009, Grading does not like FL's with a lot of vertices. It should
be called "Grading Lite" until it works correctly.
Tim

"neilw" wrote in message
news:5992947@discussion.autodesk.com...
I had very slow performance while doing exactly the same thing. I attribute
it to the many elevation points that get added to the feature line when it
is draped on EG. I never found a solution.

wrote in message news:5992829@discussion.autodesk.com...
I want to use a sImple grading, just 4:1 to existing ground from a feature
line that essentially follows the existing ground surface.

Civil 3D crashes anytime I try to create the grading. I am looking for
possible causes. Is there a limit to the number of elevation points on a
feature line used for grading? The feature line was created from an
alignment that had 30-50' radius curves also (3 total). Looking for ideas
on what is causing the crash.

[mwright]

Yet more evidence that the shareholders are really what matters...not creating a quality product.

I really cant understand what the big problem is over there in Mass/Ca. One can make insanely long corridors that daylight in different directions with a very large number of points...but daylighting from a single line feature line with a large number of points continues to be a problem....

[Anonymous]

With all the talk that I have done since the beginning (2004) of Civil 3D, I
believe I can see the problem with these draped Feature Lines. For
simplicity think about the teeth on a hand saw and picture this as what the
feature line looks like as it "zips" across a surface. No problem so far.
Now tell the Feature Line that I want you to take off on a 3:1 slope.
Before it can even get started these little short segments are trying to
cross each other, thus causing these problems. So being aware of these
situations we have to use our brain and smooth these FL's out, at least
until some sort of weeding process can be implemented by the software
developers.

Bill

[mwright]

Hmm. Corridors can have overlaps in their daylighting with no problems...in LDT the grading objects can have overlaps in their daylighting with no problems... so your saying these "short segments" are the ones to blame? If so those short segments just so happen to be *one* of the *major* down falls of this otherwise great piece of software.

[Anonymous]

That seems like exactly what is happening. I'm not a programmer, nor do I
play one on TV, BUT, seems to me the program should test for a solution, and
when it doesn't find one at a particular vertice, it skips that vertice and
moves on. It should even add a cool red grip and a warning that the
following vertices were skipped. It just doesn't seem like something that
would take 5 years to fix.

Maybe Autodesk doesn't understand that Civil Engineers grade contours and
break lines pretty regular. Like every day. Like every hour, like all the
freakin time. It is just a misunderstanding I'm sure.
Hey Autodesk, fix the grading issues before another SP is released. Thanks.

Tim


"wfb" wrote in message
news:5994504@discussion.autodesk.com...
With all the talk that I have done since the beginning (2004) of Civil 3D, I
believe I can see the problem with these draped Feature Lines. For
simplicity think about the teeth on a hand saw and picture this as what the
feature line looks like as it "zips" across a surface. No problem so far.
Now tell the Feature Line that I want you to take off on a 3:1 slope.
Before it can even get started these little short segments are trying to
cross each other, thus causing these problems. So being aware of these
situations we have to use our brain and smooth these FL's out, at least
until some sort of weeding process can be implemented by the software
developers.

Bill

[GaryElswick5627]

During my few years spent programming, one thing I learned is that unless there is a power failure, **no program should crash for any reason** period!! Error checking is in programming 101!

NEVER leave the user wondering wtf. Give INFORMATIVE error messages, not something like "error in line 57685 of obfuscated.exe

[mwright]

Tim said:
"Maybe Autodesk doesn't understand that Civil Engineers grade contours and break lines pretty regular. Like every day. Like every hour, like all the freakin time. It is just a misunderstanding I'm sure.
Hey Autodesk, fix the grading issues before another SP is released. Thanks."

/signed

[Civil3DReminders_com]

No problem? I would call overlapping grading a problem in LDT and corridors. LDT and corridors take garbage and produced garbage, Civil 3D Grading is trying to take garbage and make lemonade. The gradings pretty much get in a loop trying to solve the solution that can't really be solved with the data provided (most of the time, not always).

I do agree that the error catching and notification should be better, I just wouldn't point to garbage and say its better than this other pile of garbage, both give you unwanted results.

Christopher
http://blog.Civil3DReminders.com/

[mwright]

Right. Its not perfect nor is it 100% correct. But it is computed without errors and fatal errors constantly in LDT and with Corridors in C3D, unlike feature lines in C3D.

My point is, that it produces something meaningful (call it garbage if you will) that can be used and manipulated to get the job done and out of the door, so we can get paid, Unlike the notorious feature lines and grading groups that tend *overthink* very simple issues/situations and often produce nothing but headaches and Fatal Errors that are completely useless end up hosing your files and wasting tons of time that is spent trying to figure out a work around and fixing something thats really not that difficult in the first place. And then...maybe they will decide to just take the rest of the year off and completely disappear for no apparent reason to never return. Grading objects in LDT and corridors in C3D will *never* do that. /endrant

[Anonymous]

Good point.

I talked to several people way back in the Civil3D2005 days and expressed my
opinion that "Automatic" is great, but never forget to leave in an easy
method for just getting the job done. I still see no reason not to have
manual contour grading routines in Civil3D. There are too many weird little
situations, even when the program is working right when you need to be able
to tweek things. (TIN editing is not tweeking. TIN editing is trying to
thread a needle with a rope)
The grading issues are just ridiculous. Programmers don't have to be
chargeable. Sales people don't have to be Chargeable. Civil Engineers have
to be Chargeable. When we can't get work out the door because of program
glitches, something needs to be done. Why not just stop Upgrading the
software every year and just Lateralgrade the software? I know that I would
never need another "new" feature to do my job if I could make the existing
features do what they are advertised to do. If the subscription program did
nothing more than constantly fix stupid bugs, I'd be happy.
Tim


wrote in message news:5995905@discussion.autodesk.com...
Right. Its not perfect nor is it 100% correct. But it is computed without
errors and fatal errors constantly in LDT and with Corridors in C3D, unlike
feature lines in C3D.

My point is, that it produces something meaningful (call it garbage if you
will) that can be used and manipulated to get the job done and out of the
door, so we can get paid, Unlike the notorious feature lines and grading
groups that tend *overthink* very simple issues/situations and often produce
nothing but headaches and Fatal Errors that are completely useless end up
hosing your files and wasting tons of time that is spent trying to figure
out a work around and fixing something thats really not that difficult in
the first place. And then...maybe they will decide to just take the rest of
the year off and completely disappear for no apparent reason to never
return. Grading objects in LDT and corridors in C3D will *never* do that.
/endrant

[mwright]

Wow Tim. Thats a novel idea. Does the majority of Civil3D users really need any more features? I would have to agree with you that no they dont. What they need is the existing features to work flawlessly.

Tim Scott for CEO 2008!

[Matt.Anderson]

I am not sure I want to be the contrary one in this thread, but I haven't had too many issues with GO in 2009. Yes, per support , I corrupted a featureline or two, but I seem to manage them well. I will have post a couple of interesting pictures when I am in front of C3d.

As for grading manually - what else do you need. Featureline offsets, curb, point interpolation, set by slope is all in there now. Polyline @ elevation add to surface can be done too. EE ProPack has a daylight creator. You can manually create you grading object with a rectangular featureline and infill.

Matthew Anderson, PE