AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

Hi all,

Louisa Holland and myself have been chosen as co-authors of the upcoming Mastering Civil 3D book.

We are revamping the book with an all-new dataset and are including sections on Quantity Take-off, Roundabouts, and Styles. The exercises will cater to both Imperial and Metric users.

The aim is to put MASTERING into the book, while still maintaining the status as an official Autodesk Training and Certification Guide.

So, we are looking for feedback from you. What has worked in the previous books, what should be dropped, what should be added, overall comments.

If you do not want to make a public reply, please do so through my C3D_RickGraham_AT_comcast_DOT_net address.

Thanks and we look forward to making this a book that YOU want to use.

Rick Graham

[#2]

We're currently talking about nixing visualization (or at least putting it online only) and adding a chapter on styles instead.  I wish we could write about everything but we need to keep it around 900 pages!

Thanks in advance for your input.

[#3]

I really think there are 3 topics that could be delved into deeper - mostly because they are more misunderstood tools in the software - are:

- Grading groups and tools

- Corridor modeling with daylight subassemblies

- Superelevations

These are some of the areas that I get the most questions about, not necessarily what needs to be covered in deeper/longer detail. These are just topics that I think are a must for any Civil 3D book with 'Mastering' in its name.

[#4]

Rick....something I had a hard time figuring out, was how to do a Reverse Curve with a Civil 3d Alignment (By Layout and not by Polyline).  I would love to see a more detailed explantion on that topic.

Thanks for asking us all on the DG.

K

[#5]

I think it is a good idea that you cover styles.  In fact, more emphasis should be put on styles, specifically the customization of individual labels (i.e. "Edit label text") I have found, and all the users at my company tend to agree, the functionality of Civil 3D is not the problem.  It is taking that data and creating something useful to plot, since all the jurisdictions we work in still need a plot. 

The program, as powerful as it may be, is worthless if people cannot still "draft" a plan for submission.

Good luck! 

Tony

[#6]

You can show me how to plot every cross section in a sl group to a single column. Arrgggg! (use your best pirate voice for best effect).

Congrats to both of you!

[#7]

I also think you could mention "practical" items and shortcuts (i know, this is an abstract comment).  It's a great program but we all know it's not perfect.  Maybe give some warning and possible consequences when sites are corrupted along with some of the possible reasons sites become corrupted.  I find most beginnging users get bogged down in corrupt drawings util they understand sites and the importance of audit/purge.  Another thing would be the gradings and creating surfaces from gradings vs. feature lines vs. corridors for a proposed surface.

Fred Mitchell

G&A

[#8]

I would love to see quite a bit of detail about grading processes.  More particularly, how one can effectively utilize sites, multiple surfaces, corridors, and dynamic feature lines to efficiently make a complex surface model.  All I have ever seen in previous training manuals has been very simple lots with one building and one rectangular parking lot with a grading object tying into the existing ground.  This is great for beginners, but isn't how the real world usually works.

Andy

[#9]

I would like to see more on parcels, GIS, and subassemblies (retaining walls, medians, trench, bridges) and DGN.

tony

www.tonyscivil3dworld.blogspot.com

[#10]

I would like to see survey data manipulation in more detail including scenarios using additional attributes, UPDs, and database extended properties.