Civil 3d 2012-Most efficient drawing management

[civ_engineer]

My civil3d 2012 is slower than paint drying.

In an attempt to decrease file size, and hopefully retain my hair, I'm trying to break out drawings into smaller ones.

I currently have my alignments in one drawing and corridors/cross sections in another.
This would work fine on a small project.. but this is a 3 mile road with several intersections.
Everytime I edit one of my assemblies I have to wait for "something" to update.. I have no idea what. I have my corridor rebuild turned off.  I'm thinking its updating the cross section or something. 

Is there a way to stop this..."update"?

I assumed not, so I tried to put the cross sections in a separate drawing than the corridor so this update would not happen... fail.  Apparently, you can't datalink a corridor.  I have discovered that if you xref the corridor drawing, you can then sample the corridor then cut cross sections.... this defeats the purpose though.  I was hoping to get away from referencing the corridor drawing because of it's size.

What is the most efficient setup for drawings, datalinks, corridors, cross sections, etc.?

Has anyone come up with an answer/fix for the slowness of civil3d?  I've read several posts full of ideas but no good answers.

DELL w/dual 2.8GHz

nvidia fx580, 12 GB Ram, win. 7, 64-bit system

Which graphics driver works the best? I'm currently using Nvidia's autocad driver, but I'm not sure it's optimized for 2012.
There are a lot of Nvidia control panel settings too.  Is there anything in particular in there I should toggle on or off?

Thanks in advance.

[Lisa_Pohlmeyer]

We work on long roadways as well, 2 miles has been my max so far.  Our workflow is to keep Civil3D objects separate.

Alignments & profiles 

Corridor

Cross Sections, xref the corridor and dref the alignment 

On a past project, I created 2 cross section drawings (a mile each) so that the drawing management was a little easier.

I do most of the work in the corridor drawing with the section editor, and the cross section drawings are just a reflection of that.  Our sample lines are 100' for tangents, 50' for curves, and horizontal geometry points, and any other critical points we deem necessary.

I wish you could dref SampleLineGroups so that the materials generation that has to happen in the corridor drawing would reference the same sample lines instead of having to recreate and then manage two SLGs.

[civ_engineer]

---Alignments & profiles Corridor Cross Sections, xref the corridor and dref the alignment--

I tried this again this morning.  I'm having a problem with the xref of the corridor.

It works, at the moment you set it up.. but if I get out and back into the cross section drawing, the

sample lines loose the link to the corridor and I have to do the "sample more sources".

How do you maintain the link?

[LeafRiders]

I have over 30 kms of road at times, with complex assemblies. I change assemblies and work with hundreds of cross-sections at a time. There are many options you can explore. I'd ensure you have at least 6-8 GB or RAM in your machine. I find it's important to keep your points and surfaces separate from you working file. You can Xref in the file with your Existing Ground surface and helps Civil 3D run smoother and you don't lose any functionality of the EG surface.

From there ensure you're using simple coding and section view settings, all that text, hatching etc can bog things down. I generally do everything very simple and near the end i'll dress up my section views.

Corridors are a dog in civil 3d ensure you're using as simple of a design as possible, you can always turn up the detail near the end if you need to but no need to wait around for C3D throughout the design process.

There is a lot of material out there that focuses on best practices. Data Shortcuts work well, but you need to understand them and explain what they are to everyone working on your project. I've found junior staff really struggle with keeping things "clean", but it's usually because they don't understand what's actually going on in the model.

Good Luck!

[LeafRiders]

Only Xref or datashort cut out the items that you don't need to edit very often, is my general rule. I prefer to keep all corridors and profiles in my working file and everything from survey, points, existing surfaces out in xref files. Datashortcuts hold my alignments. Everything else is "working drawing" or kept within the main "model working file".

K

[sboon]

I have two basic rules - similar to the previous posts:

• Anything related to existing conditions - surveyed baseplan, existing surfaces, Lidar data, legal boundaries etc should be in a separate drawing from the design.  This allows for other users to revise or add data to these source drawings while I am working on the design.  It also protects the design from "accidents."
• Anything related to "presentation" should also be in a separate drawing.  This would include labels, tables, cross section views, masshaul diagrams, profile views etc.  My design drawings only include the infomation that I need as a designer, and once they're finished I remove all of the labels, sections, profile views etc, and create the sheet drawings for displaying / printing.

[civ_engineer]

I agree.  I have my survey as a seaparate drawing and datalink the existing TIN from there.

I'd love to have my cross section views in a separate drawing than my corridor, but as I mention above, the section view sample lines lose the link to the corridor.  When I open the cross section drawing I have to "sample more sources" to re-attach the corridor... (which is being xref'ed to even have that option)

[sboon]

I haven't seen that problem in 2012.  Just to clarify though - I will create sample lines and section views in my design drawing while I am actively working on the corridor design.  Only when it's near complete do I switch to an external drawing for displaying sections and calculating volumes.

[civ_engineer]

I currenly have my sample lines and section views in my design drawing while I am actively working on the corridor design.. but I was hoping to get rid of the section views from the design drawing and put them into a separate drawing.

My corridor drawing currently holds section views and is getting close to 40 megs.

[smitht]

I have noticed several people in this thread mentioning the loss of the sampled corridors when corridor is xref in the section production drawing.  I am trying to set up my section sheets for an urban project where I have one main road and 5 side streets.  Everytime I get the section views and material volumes tables set for one alignment centerline I loose the sampled corridor in another alignment sample lines and have to do the views and materials all over again.  This is my first project from start to finish in 2012. I haven't had this problem with earlier versions.  Any info on this bug being addressed?

Regarding the initial question, for our road designs we break up into separate drawing folders

Survey folder - parcel data, basemap with survey points

design folder - pipe data, alignment data and cl profiles, existing ground surface, corridor design (with gutter profiles)

production folder - construction plan, profiles, sections, grading, details, etc.

(commas indicated separate dwg files). 

We data reference everything except the corridor which is xref'd (and seems to be a problem in 2012).

[Sinc]

---

@mowersb wrote:

DELL w/dual 2.8GHz

nvidia fx580, 12 GB Ram, win. 7, 64-bit system

 

---

You didn't specify what CPUs you are using...

A key thing to note with C3D is that it does NOT utilize multiple CPUs, or even multiple cores.  That's why the newer 2nd-Gen Intel chips work so well for C3D...  They turbo-up a single core when the others remain idle (which is generally the way C3D works).

Getting a multi-CPU system is useless for C3D, and just generates more expense with no increase in performance.  It might help if you're using something like 3DS Max, but won't help in C3D.

[civ_engineer]

DELL Precision T3500

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU      W3530 @ 2.8 GHz   2.8GHz

12gb RAM

WIN 7, 64 bit

Graphics card: Nvidia FX580

Civil 3D 2012

[Sinc]

Not sure you can do anything, if you have a really long corridor.

You've got enough RAM.  The video card doesn't make much difference.  An i7-2600 (or better) CPU will perform much better than your current dual-Xeon CPU system, but I don't know of any other way to make a long Corridor perform better.

[civ_engineer]

Any ideas as to why I have to wait 30 to 40 seconds when editing an assembly attached to a corridor?

I have rebuild turned off but it's clearly doing something.  It can be very time consuming having to wait for every little edit.

[Sinc]

No, haven't seen anything like that, but I rarely use Corridors that are longer than about 4000 feet.

[Neilw_05]

Even with rebuild off I've noticed the software processes some things. You might also notice this when editing a profile that is used in a corridor. I think the best way to find a solution is to submit a support request.

[blt]

I have noticed that as soon as you add the sample lines that everything slows down.  I think C3D is recalculating the sample lines anytime any object is touched in any way.  It would be nice to be able to turn them off in some way and have them only refresh when you need them.

[Joe-Bouza]

Turn of "Rebuild Automatic"

Also, if you have not already done so, turn off any Win7 animation, fontrounding blah blah blah

[Lisa_Pohlmeyer]

That's why I put my sample lines in my cross section base dwg. Lisa E. Pohlmeyer CAD MANAGER Williamson County Dept. of Infrastructure Road & Bridge DivisionDirect: (512) 943-3364 Main: (512) 943-3330 Resurfacing Website

[Lisa_Pohlmeyer]

"I have noticed that as soon as you add the sample lines that everything slows down.  I think C3D is recalculating the sample lines anytime any object is touched in any way.  It would be nice to be able to turn them off in some way and have them only refresh when you need them."

That's why I keep my objects separate.  My sample lines live in the cross section base drawing.  I generate sample lines for materials in the corridor dwg at the very end of the process.