Have the Civil 3D stormwater programs been left to die on the vine?
Nothing innovative has been done with them the past few years for us subscribers, and now months of conspicuously unanswered questions in the stomwater forum.
I just poked into the AutoDesk Labs, looks like there's a drainage module for IW360 in testing. If its heading in the right direction then feedback would help keep it moving that way.
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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@neilyj666 wrote:
My supposition in Message 3 looks like being proved correct....:)
I can see more features being moved from Civil 3D into IW/360 - anyone remember the interactive grading tool from a few years ago; never been seen since...?
I was just thinking about that grading tool yesterday. Wonder what happened to it?
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is slated to release the HEC 22 based HY12 storm sewer analysis program in August as public domain software, replacing the old HYDRAIN software.
This will be the gold standard for engineers for peak flow storm analysis software. Aquaveo is the software contractor doing this work for the FHWA.
I have been communicating with the program manager at the FHWA. I explained to him earlier this year that I am a Civil 3D user and asked him if he would consider creating the capability to allow HY12 to import a Civlil 3D pipe network model through XML. He said yes they could take a look at that possibility. I sent him an XML file of a C3D pipe network.
Even if this did come to fruition, we would still be incumbered with the tiresome, bottleneck creating, Import/Export way of doing things.
The Civil 3D team needs to install the upcoming HY12 computational engine within Model space, specifically located in the Pipe Network editor. Then we can do real-time HGL/EGL analysis and pipe sizing using the industry gold standard HEC 22 final design protocol.
The Drainage Design and Watershed Analysis technology preview is part of InfraWorks 360. There is nothing to download and install. InfraWorks 360 users just unlock the functionality and try it. We would love to hear suggestions as to whether or not "things are moving in the right direction." You can email the team at labs.iw.drainage@autodesk.com.
@Anonymous wrote:The Drainage Design and Watershed Analysis technology preview is part of InfraWorks 360. There is nothing to download and install. InfraWorks 360 users just unlock the functionality and try it. We would love to hear suggestions as to whether or not "things are moving in the right direction." You can email the team at labs.iw.drainage@autodesk.com.
So basically C3D is not getting any improvements to storm water design and it's all going to the cloud version of a visualization tool and not the main design tool? No wonder people believe Autodesk isn't headed in the right direction.
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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How many people can do their daily work in the cloud? We're not allowed to us anything cloud based, not even storage. So whatever is developed for cloud based packages is lost to us.
Allen
Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager
We don't have any official cloud policies yet, but common sense puts our own network ahead in terms of availability, reliability, speed, security, and other measurements. I can only hope the prevalence of cloud technology will push the business environment to provide useable private/protected access cloud systems. We have offices scattered in many locations, so being able to have a cloud system makes sense from both a technology and business standpoint but only for a private or protected access system where we have a little more control over the servers ie. we set up our own cloud hardware or directly lease it from a known entity.
I work for a county government. The way they develop a policy is to immediately say no to anything new until forced to accept it. That's why we've just upgraded to Win 7 from XP.
I've been told point blank that the county won't allow cloud storage of anything because of FOIL laws.
Allen
Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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@AllenJessup wrote:I work for a county government. The way they develop a policy is to immediately say no to anything new until forced to accept it. That's why we've just upgraded to Win 7 from XP.
I've been told point blank that the county won't allow cloud storage of anything because of FOIL laws.
Allen
I'm also with a local government that will not allow our designs in the cloud. I have enough trouble with our own IT department, let alone some faceless, nameless person with an outside company.
If Autodesk keeps neglecting the true design package and goes with this cloud business, then Bentley will have a new customer after 25 years of using Autodesk products.
@Anonymous wrote:The Drainage Design and Watershed Analysis technology preview is part of InfraWorks 360. There is nothing to download and install. InfraWorks 360 users just unlock the functionality and try it. We would love to hear suggestions as to whether or not "things are moving in the right direction." You can email the team at labs.iw.drainage@autodesk.com.
Scott we appreciate your response but it does not really address this thread. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that the existing software (Civil 3D) has needs but rather, "Hey, why don't all of you help us (Autodesk) develop our other products so eventually you can all spend time and $$$ training all of your staff on replacement software instead." Most of us are not going to "volunteer" our time to develop software for the company when that is what we pay Autodesk to do and when we could be working on production. This is LDD and CAiCE all over again. A few attempts to fix the issues with the existing software (Civil 3D) but instead just developing newer software (Infraworks). Companies and organizations cannot keep training our employees from scratch on new software every 5 years as it is way too expensive to do so.
Great points Joel
I wish I could add, but it seems both you and Neily (06-04-2014 07:28)
said it all.
Scott,
This needs to be tested in Civil 3D, where we do our design work. The culverts and basin delineations need to interact in real-time with our road design and grading work.
Civil engineering design is, and always has been, a real-time iterative process between grading and drainage. The culverts, roads, ditches, inlets, and basin delineations are continually being iterated dependently between each other, until these entities eventually converge to an acceptable final design solution.
The continued insistance by Autodesk on implementing the Import/Export paradigms to address drainage calculations is untenable, creates bottlenecks in our design shops, and completely misses the mark. I have private email from other design firms commenting on the "bottleneck" this creates in their firms, and inquiring about what we use with Civil 3D to address drainage and still get plans out on time, and without transposition errors on the plans.
You are headed down the wrong fork in the road...
Stop...turn around and come back.. Head down the fork that places the hydrologic and hydraulic calculators directly within Civil 3D model space.
I apologize for the intrusion. I got pulled into this when I saw
"I just poked into the AutoDesk Labs, looks like there's a drainage module for IW360 in testing."
Most people who join Autodesk Labs projects see a technology they know they will want to use if it ever becomes a product, so they want to try it with their own data to make sure it meets their needs. I recognize that the cloud and Labs are not for everyone. I appreciate the efforts of those who help shape the future of our technology.
Unfortunately this is a problem that I don't see going away. We all know Autodesk is a corporation and will behave as a corporation. There are many people who work for Autodesk that do want the best for their clients. But they can only go as far as the corporation will let them.
I see one root of the problem with the proliferation of computers and electronics. I am happy to have a tablet and a smartphone. But electronics have become the next fashion industry. It doesn't matter how ugly or useless it is. If it's IN everyone wants it. If you look up Cloud Computing in Wikipedia the first line reads "Cloud computing is a marketing term".
Cloud computing is what's currently IN. So all the software companies jump on the band wagon and say "We're now offering our software in the CLOUD". The consumers who don't even know what a Cloud is buy it because that's what everyone is buying. I said A Cloud instead of The Cloud because there isn't just one. And lets face it. Cloud services make sense if you're in the kink of business where you want to be able to operate using a tablet of phone. In the future it might save some buck on hardware if you don't need to buy workstations to run a program. But I don't see it being to that point yet.
Our big problem is that Cloud computing isn't what we're currently looking for in Design software. At some time in the future that might change. But as I said earlier - anything done for Cloud computing is lost not only on me but the County I work for.
I see a difficult future for specialized software because the overall market seems to be driven by the general consumer who only cares about how many likes appear on a facebook page.
Allen
Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager
Yep. I have a full understanding of what the Lab is, since I pop in from time to time to try to push things in directions I would find useful. I don't depend on them for production work.
Could you perhaps enlighten us on any design reasons why that module is being developed for Infraworks and not a more technical design solution like Civil3D?
There are a few very useful applications of cloud computing right now:Recap 360 and rendering. Both utilize large scale server farms which would be impractical for most corporations to maintain. For lighter weight applications you're right, SaaS isn't quite to the tipping point yet. It will be several years before we are at the Star Trek: Next Generation level, driving ships from our PADD or Tricorder. 🙂
..Labs are not for everyone..
Wow..
That is not a fair statement.
Everyone engineer and designer here would jump at the chance to test a drainage module that contained potential new draiange tools if it was being tested in Civil 3D in Labs.