civil 3d to navisworks workflow?

[Anonymous]

Hello --

looking for suggestions on a c3d to navisworks workflow for DTMs. My goal is to bring in a dtm into navisworks that looks like the site (existing or proposed.) Currently I am creating a surface in c3d, extracting 3d faces, coloring them by layer for each area of a site (sidewalk grey, grass green, etc) and bringing into navis. The problem with this workflow is that every time the dtm changes (which seems like daily) the extracted 3d faces need to be recolored even if only a small portion of the site changed.

Things I have tried with no success: render masks, xclip

Thanks

[dana.probert]

Navisworks will bring in Civil 3D surfaces without exploding them.

Let me make sure I understand what you are trying to do- you'd like to use Navisworks as your rendering engine, so you're exploding your surfaces to assign materials to certain areas of the final surface. Right?

Are you using a corridor model with render materials assigned by code set? If so, as long as you cut holes into your existing ground to leave room for your design corridor and smaller design surfaces to show through, navisworks should respect the materials you've assigned to those smaller surfaces and the corridor.

Let me know if I am missing your question.

Thanks!

Dana Probert- Autodesk
http://bimontherocks.typepad.com

[Anonymous]

ah, you have hit on a subject i am looking at, how to color surfaces in Navisworks.
Ideally, you could drape an image that was colored. I abhor dealing with triangles, I've tried that.
I used to the image method by plotting my base file to tif, then color with impression. Worked great with RDV software.
Can anyone say if you can drape an image over a surface in c3d, then pull into navisworks with image intact?
It has not worked on my end.
thanks

danelkins1533 <>
|>Hello --
|>
|>looking for suggestions on a c3d to navisworks workflow for DTMs. My goal is to bring in a dtm into navisworks that looks like the site (existing or proposed.) Currently I am creating a surface in c3d, extracting 3d faces, coloring them by layer for each area of a site (sidewalk grey, grass green, etc) and bringing into navis. The problem with this workflow is that every time the dtm changes (which seems like daily) the extracted 3d faces need to be recolored even if only a small portion of the site changed.
|>
|>Things I have tried with no success: render masks, xclip
|>
|>Thanks
James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - at - hunsaker - dotcom

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies, I will elaborate.

We aren't trying to use navisworks as our rendering engine, we just want it to look appropriate. Solid colors with no factoring in of light, shadow, etc is fine. Even though navis brings in surfaces without exploding - this doesn't work well. It shows the whole dtm has one color (what ever is specified as the the color in the surface style) This means when our clients are looking at the surface it is difficult for them to tell which area is road, grass, sidewalk, etc.

I believe the ideal way this would work is to bring a surface into navisworks without exploding. Within navis you should be able to map an image on in a similar way to what James described below with RDV. There is two problems I see here. 1: Navis cannot be viewed in rendered mode/shaded mode at the same time. This means that if i texture the surface, every thing else in navis will disappear that is not textured. 2: The texture mapping tools in navisworks seem just plain bad to me, maybe i haven't tried hard enough. I think it should work like 3ds max where you can view texture in viewport but it doesn't actually render it until you press the render button.

Due to the problems described above, I have been modeling extra detail into my dtm's then exploding, painting triangles, importing to navis. If the grade doesn't change along a plane but I need to have a different color, for grass or sidewalk for example, then I need to add additional feature lines to get the triangles here. This is a very tedious workflow, and if the dtm changes it is suicidal.

Corridors are nice because they have the code set but this isn't an option when doing feature line grading for things like shopping centers, schools, hospitals etc.

[Anonymous]

I see, I did not realize the render mode in NW hid the non-textured items.
I harped on the dwf guys for a long time to make textures show in design review for 3d dwf's.
It seems to work sometimes, on simple stuff, but not anything color or useful.

having to explode surfaces to triangles is nuts, plus, triangles are not the delineation I want anyway.
Seems like common sense that you would want some solids textured and others not, but guess NW does not do that yet.

danelkins1533 <>
|>Thanks for the replies, I will elaborate.
|>
|>We aren't trying to use navisworks as our rendering engine, we just want it to look appropriate. Solid colors with no factoring in of light, shadow, etc is fine. Even though navis brings in surfaces without exploding - this doesn't work well. It shows the whole dtm has one color (what ever is specified as the the color in the surface style) This means when our clients are looking at the surface it is difficult for them to tell which area is road, grass, sidewalk, etc.
|>
|>I believe the ideal way this would work is to bring a surface into navisworks without exploding. Within navis you should be able to map an image on in a similar way to what James described below with RDV. There is two problems I see here. 1: Navis cannot be viewed in rendered mode/shaded mode at the same time. This means that if i texture the surface, every thing else in navis will disappear that is not textured. 2: The texture mapping tools in navisworks seem just plain bad to me, maybe i haven't tried hard enough. I think it should work like 3ds max where you can view texture in viewport but it doesn't actually render it until you press the render button.
|>
|>Due to the problems described above, I have been modeling extra detail into my dtm's then exploding, painting triangles, importing to navis. If the grade doesn't change along a plane but I need to have a different color, for grass or sidewalk for example, then I need to add additional feature lines to get the triangles here. This is a very tedious workflow, and if the dtm changes it is suicidal.
|>
|>Corridors are nice because they have the code set but this isn't an option when doing feature line grading for things like shopping centers, schools, hospitals etc.
James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - at - hunsaker - dotcom

[Anonymous]

Anyone else? Still seeking advice on this.

[steve]

The closest I have came to accomplishing what you want is multiple surfaces. This also can prove time consuming but it is a little more dynamic. There is two ways one could go about this and one may be more desireable then the other depending on your workflow. I have not used navisworks but this may work.

1: Create new surfaces for differing materials and assign the coorsponding material to each. Paste the design surface into each of them and add boundaries around the corresponding areas. So the asphalt surface only shows asphalt and the grass only shows grass etc. This may require using various boundary types (outer, show, hide, etc). Once this is done you should have a site that looks as desired. The dynamic part comes from the fact that if you edit your design surface and update all of your surfaces they too will change.

2: This next option is experimental for me and I feel has flaws. If you were to create, for example, a parking lot entirely out of featurelines, and then use the infill grading tool with it set to automatically create a surface you could accomplish the same as option 1. You would not need to take the time to create boundaries as this automatically does this and basically allows you to just fill in like a paint bucket tool where differing surfaces will go. In the end you past all of the grading surfaces into your design surface. The flaw is that you may also want to add points to each grading surface independently and this could be a little tricky.

In the end you will import multiple surfaces into navisworks. This may actually be a bonus allowing you to pahse different surfaces.

Autodesk! Please make an option for multiple materials on one tin. You could just allow us to select bounded areas like hatch but also with featurelines.