Hi all,
Hopefully a someone here will be able to straighten me out a little. In browsing previous forum posts and susbsequent internet searches it has come to my attention that the Residential Grading Autodesk Official Training Courseware for Civil 3D is EXACTLY what I need. While it may be me, I find that the autodesk estore website is horrible to navigate and on top of that, I cant find it anywhwere...it's almost like it's gone (I can find the table on contents and first few pages, but not the entire book). I don't mind that it may be out of date if there is not a current version, I think a previous version would be perfect since we are running Civil 3D 2008 anyways. Can someone please help me find this online, or point me in the right direction to purchase anbook, or hard copy? Thanks in advance for all of your help.
Here you go...
Is this the same as the previous Residential Grading books? The table of contents are different. It looks liek this is more of a general discussion on grading, not residential specific. Maybe I am wrong...
To answer your question about the two manuals.
Lot grading design process or design principles can vary from one geographic area to another.
Each municipality does it differently.
So in utilizing C3D to do residential grading has to be a marriage between your existing industry design experience and finding and utilizing the proper tools within C3D to accomplish the task.
The AOTC manual published somewhere in 2005 created a surface from a corridor based on a constant grade from the front then sloped to the back past the property line.
This design surface could then be used to define each lotline and building pad elevation. The rear lot elevation is set by the design surface.
The Ascent course material utilizes this same principal to generate a surface, however instead of a corridor, feature lines are used.
If in your area, grading lots uses this principal than this manual will work. The issue with both process is that the lots must all be the same lot type and the other issue is that the front street grade is used to establish the lot definition.
Example it would be difficult to design front drainage lots in half of the street and then transition to rear drainage lots or walkout lots for the remainder
Since that time of the original manual, Autodesk created a Lot grading subassembly which will do virtually the same thing with the added benefit of setting a horizontal and vertical alignment design for the rear of your lots.
This will allow you to transition from one lot type to another independent of what the street grades are doing.
Essential your street can slope in one direction while rear offset alignment can slope in another.
Unfortunately I cannot utilize this subassembly. In my area, we have several lot type definitions. Each set by the difference in elevation between the front street and the rear lane, concrete swale or fence. In addition we require not, one but two mid lot alignment offsets.
All the same both manuals did a good job in identifying tools that can be used in lot grading, but at the end of the day it comes down to what your design requirements are, then finding a proper workflow utilizing the tools that are available in civil 3D.
It may help reaching out to your local user group or reseller. Maybe someone in the user group that has done it can walk you through, or your local reseller may have a focused training on a specific topic like “Lot grading”
hope my long winded message is of some help.
Todd,
Here I go, buying yet another C3D book. Thanks, I think.
Dave
Dave Stoll
Las Vegas, Nevada
@Pointdump I'm not a big Ascent fan, but this is actually a really good book. I have it and I learned quite a bit out of it.
Todd,
I, too, wasn't a big fan of Ascent, until I got C3D 2014 for Surveyors--excellent book! I'm hoping that they'll do as good a job with Grading.
Mfernandes,
I'll post a review when I finish it.
Dave
Dave Stoll
Las Vegas, Nevada