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Civil 3D 2014 Bug in Surface Rebuild

33 REPLIES 33
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Message 1 of 34
coastalgeology
5940 Views, 33 Replies

Civil 3D 2014 Bug in Surface Rebuild

Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 contains a bug involving rebuilds on surfaces displayed in customized colour schemes, colour books and even the hard-copied standard colour schemes. Surface rebuilds work OK if the surface is displayed as triangles or contours but it does not work if the surface consists of Levels/ Elevations, unlike in previous versions of Civil 3D.

 

CIVIL 3D 2013

For a terrain surface constructed from a Point File, it is possible in Civil 3D 2013 to use the “range interval” option to provide colour banding of surface elevations over and above those 6-10 colours available in the “red, green, hydro” etc. colour schemes. By manually clicking on the “colour scheme” property in the “Surface Properties- Analysis” dialogue box, the colour can be changed to any colour available in Index Colour, True Colour, or in Colour Books, up to a maximum of 200 colour bands.

 

If the Points File used to construct the terrain surface later requires editing, such as to remove data spikes, and the Rebuild function is used under “Prospector/Surface/ right click on Rebuild”, the surface displayed as colour banded Elevations/ Levels changes correctly to conform to the rebuilt surface.

 

CIVIL 3D 2014

The above procedure does not work with 2014.

 

(a) Index Colour, True Colour, or in Colour Books. If you have manually selected banding from these colour options, the Rebuild transforms the colours to those in the range of whatever “red, green, hydro” etc colour scheme is defined in the Settings box for the surface style.

 

(b) “Red, green, hydro” etc. colour schemes. If you start off with one of these schemes, a Rebuild transforms the Elevation/ Levels surface to a single colour.

 

After a Rebuild, it is possible to go through the whole exercise of manually re-entering the required colours. However, I work in coastal engineering dealing with large datasets generated by multi-beam echo-sounding for seabed terrains and land topography generated from LIDAR and it is now common practice to display these terrain surfaces in a “brown-yellow-green-blue-purple” colour scheme, such schemes having been generated as Colour Books using Autodesk ACDEditor.

 

Having to manually re-enter from the Colour Book after a rebuild is a laborious and time-consuming task. This will also be a major problem for those whose work involves using any of the proprietary Colour Books supplied with the package, such as the Pantone ones.

 

Consequently, having just upgraded to 2014 in the past week and found this bug with my drawings, it is evident that a lot of my work requires continued use of 2013.

33 REPLIES 33
Message 2 of 34
autoMick
in reply to: coastalgeology

Fantastic!

They finally fix surface elevation transparency, and now they  #&*^#(** break this !

A quick test reveals that this happens on my test installation as well, so you're not alone.

The good news is that I'm sure Autodesk will get straight onto it and release a hotfix as soon as they hear about it 😛

Have you submitted this to Autodesk?

Cheers

- Mick

Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.
Message 3 of 34

autoMick

 

Yes, I have reported it to Autodesk.

Message 4 of 34
autoMick
in reply to: coastalgeology

Well, I can only say that I'm incensed by this latest one... can't believe it really. I also submitted a support request for this - can't wait to see what the solution is - probably a 28 step 'work around'.
Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.
Message 5 of 34

I just did a little testing myself and can confirm the issue. It's not just limited to if the data has changed, any time the surface is rebuild, all analysis of the surface (elevation, directions, watersheds, etc.) are lost.

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 6 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: coastalgeology

to be fixed in next service pack no doubt....usual shockingly bad QA from Autodesk pre release of new version....bet the revit users dont have this annual hassle....

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 7 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: neilyj666

In the UKIE toolkit there is a surface analysis import/export routine that might help in the (probably long) interim while we wait for Autodesk to fix this.

see here http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D/Custom-color-range-for-surface-elevations/td-p/339635...

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 8 of 34
autoMick
in reply to: neilyj666

Thanks Neilyj. These tools are also in the ANZ kit and do work for restoring for the elevation analysis, but I think not the other rebuilt issues that Brian mentioned.
Cheers
- Mick (autoMick and was autoMick2)
Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.
Message 9 of 34
autoMick
in reply to: autoMick

BTW Neilyj, your suggestion is the same as the response given by product support, who have 'referred it to the development team'. So I guess that means no fix real soon.

Civil3d user in Australia since 2012.
Message 10 of 34
coastalgeology
in reply to: neilyj666

Hi Neilyj

 

The "surface analysis import/export" routine in the Toolspace Toolbox works only with Index Colours, so if you have generated a Levels/ Elevations display surface, say in 200 True Colours or from a Colour Book, the "surface analysis export" routine transforms the colours into Index Colours that bear no relation to the colour range of the initial surface.

 

Similarly, the "MapThematicRamps.ARM" is limited only to Index Colours.

 

Until the post of BrianHailey I was not aware that this problem applied to other aspects of surface analysis. Consequently, this suggests that it is a deep-seated problem in the code somewhere.

 

I have sent two reports to Autodesk and just received the polite reply of acknowledgement.

 

coastalgeology

Message 11 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: coastalgeology

I have never used the surface anlysis import/export so I have no idea what it does/doesn't do

I have proved this bug myself with a simple volume analysis surface and have created a support request

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 12 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: autoMick

The dreaded "referred to development team" response.....given past experiences with Autodesk and their defect fixing priorities, my best guess is it might be fixed by SP1 in about 6 months but more likely in 2015...:(

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 13 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: neilyj666

This is the reply I got from Autodesk

"...Thanks for the link to the forum post. I do now understand what you mean.

Reset in the surface analysis do not actually occures when you open the drawing, but only when you rebuild the surface.
The analysis is recalculated every time the surface is rebuilded and range is reset (as it may change). It will re-use the defaut scheme. This works actually as designed.

Alternatively, you can use the tools from the country kit you mentioned in the forum post to reload color scheme.

If you like to see a different behavior, please use the product feedback page
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794
and report in the details how you would like to have it work (What if surface change, what happen with range not yet defined, etc...). Using the product feedback link will ensure your wish go straight to the right people.
Thanks very much for your cooperation.

That being said, product support have this wish captured already, so I will add your voice to it in order to help define priority...."

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 14 of 34
coastalgeology
in reply to: neilyj666

At least you have had a reply.

 

The command of the English language in the reply is about on a par with the QA of their source code.

 

How can surface analysis being wiped out after a rebuild be classed as "...as designed"??

 

Surely if the analysis is recalculated correctly after each rebuild it should be revised with the parameters as defined pre-build. How else are Pantone Colour Books going to be used?

 

Restrictions limiting colour to Index Colours is definitely not compatible with engineering practice in the 21st century!

 

coastalgeology

Message 15 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: coastalgeology

and I had a subsequent reply:

"....You are correct, it did not behave the same way in previouse release. I believe this is because of a change request we have adressed, that being said, from a QA perspective, this works as designed by now.

I have reported and emphasis how important it is for you and some other folks out there and I can only suggest to use the link I provided to give a detailed description on how you like it to work (as explained previously)...."

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 16 of 34
t_mckenzie
in reply to: neilyj666

Well this is gonna suck when we upgrade. We use the analysis to create earthwork exhibits (levels of cut/fill) that our clients can easily understand and they have commented how they like them. I know the functionality isn't lost, but having to reimport everytime we update is not going to be efficient.

 

-Tucker

Message 17 of 34
neilyj666
in reply to: t_mckenzie

Presumably Autodesk had more change requests to modify the 2013 and before behaviour than to retain it....!!!!

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 18 of 34
ishka
in reply to: neilyj666

I understand that you are experiencing issues with surface analysis after a rebuild. This was actually a change that was made moving to 2014 to make sure the analysis was always correct and not showing an analysis prior to any changes made to the surface.
This has been logged with Development and is currently under review, as many users find this unexpected behavior. This is a rather hot topic lately, so I will link this case to Development’s case so add some more “weight” to the issue

 

This was my answer to the support request. As I mentioned on my reply back sometimes I wonder who takes the decisions on changing the functionality. We use the analysis for exhibits as well and those are not done in the base file, but rather thru a dref in a plan sheet. Since the surface is dref that means when you open the file the surface is rebuilt. and the result is analysis gone. This is outrageus. What if I have let's say 50 non standards ranges? Do i need to recreate them every time to show the changes? Autodesk poll the people before changing functionality.

Message 19 of 34

Since my original post, I have been experimenting with C3D 2014 and the use of RGB Colours (True Colours and Colour Books). The problem with the use of these colours for surface banding of Levels/ Elevations is not just confined to use of " Surface Rebuild".

 

If you have used RGB Colours for customised surface banding in C3D 2013 and re-open them in C3D 2013, the customised surface banding of RGB colours is retained. However, if you had re-opened them with C3D 2014, the surface banding is transformed into Index Colours.

 

Now comes the twist. In C3D 2014, if you change the colour scheme in the "Surface Analysis Dialogue Box" to RGB colours, and click on apply, the surface colours change to the RGB colours. However, when you save that file and re-open the file in C3D 2014, the RGB colours are transformed into Index Colours.

 

Conclusion. C3D 2014 is completely unuseable for using RGB colours for surface banding of Levels/ Elevations.

Message 20 of 34
ishkav
in reply to: coastalgeology

Cannot seem to make that happen. Am i wrong in what I show in the screencast? http://screencast.com/t/k3Opc3RWjTKo

Ishka
CAD Manager
Tom Groll Engineering
Email: ishka@tg-eng.com
Blog: http://www.civildigest.com, Twitter: C3Dish
Windows 7 x64, IDS 2014, 2013 & C3D 2012
Intel i7 930 @ 2.8Ghz, 12GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 9600GT

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