Community
Civil 3D Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Civil 3D Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular AutoCAD Civil 3D topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Civil 3D with ProjectWise?

14 REPLIES 14
Reply
Message 1 of 15
abrooker
7729 Views, 14 Replies

Civil 3D with ProjectWise?

The company I work for uses is in the process of implementing Bentley ProjectWise. Being a Bentley product it works well with AutoPLANT and ProStructures but it’s still a bit grey on how well it’s going to interface with Civil 3D.

 

Anyone out there have any insight to a reasonably successful implementation of Civil 3D data referencing inside of the ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 3) file store?


I understand that DWG’s can be managed with this package, but not the data shortcut source DWG or the XML files?


I’m looking for experience on what workflows were successful (or unsuccessful)?


Thanks in advance for any input/insight,

Adam

 

Edited by
Discussion_Admin

14 REPLIES 14
Message 2 of 15
Neilw_05
in reply to: abrooker

If you would care to access Bentley Communities you might want to look up Michael Kolster who is the CAD Systems Manager for the Port of Long Beach. They use both Bentley products and C3D with Projectwise. He would probably have much insight into the issues you face.

 

http://communities.bentley.com/members/michaelkolster/default.aspx

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 3 of 15
Jason.Hickey
in reply to: abrooker

Adam - 

 

I'm working on something for you. Message me, please (you know how.)



Jason Hickey
Premium Services Specialist
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 4 of 15
nickseman
in reply to: Jason.Hickey

I would be interested in any you have to share along these lines as well.

 

Thanks;

Nick Seman

Message 5 of 15
mhatters
in reply to: nickseman

Hi Guys

 

A white paper can be found here - http://communities.bentley.com/products/projectwise/content_management/m/mediagallery/177366.aspx that explains how to work with C3D (including data shortcuts) and ProjectWise.

 

Enjoy

 

Mark

Message 6 of 15
peterthomson9209
in reply to: abrooker

We have it working.

Things to do.

 

The premise for all of this is that the local DMS folder structure is identical for all users.

That is, the "normal" method of having a user name as part of the local DMS folder structure is NOT used in this scenario.

It means that DMS folders are "by computer" rather than "by user"...but you just need to "get over it" if this methodology is to function as I describe.

 

Agree to use C:\Civil 3D Projects folder as the place to store all your data shortcuts locally.

Create them here also.

Set your DS working folder as C:\Civil 3D Projects.

Create project DS folders here. They can be named by the user as anything you like...ie, the local folder names do not need to be the same across users.

Once created, Drag and drop them (with subfolders) into an agreed folder in Projectwise in your project location.

 

Other users who need to interface with data shortcuts need to copy out the_shortcuts folder into their C:\Civil 3D Projects folder.

 

Any further data shortcuts created need to be dropped into PW in the agreed place so they can also be exported by others who need to create dref'd objects. You need to tell others that new data shortcuts have been created.

 

If other users do not need to create or modify dref'd objects, there is no need to copy out the data shortcuts.

 

PW does not yet have the methodology to handle data shortcuts on its own, so we XREF any data shortcut source files into our drawings onto a layer that can be frozen and no-plot. This eliminates unnecessary XREF regens but when someone alters a source drawing, the XREF notification comes on so it will alert users that a source drawing has changed. It then also invokes the syncronise bubble. (very sneaky..but it works).

 

There is no substitute for a good communication strategy with this.

 

The Bentley Green paper on this subject promotes use of a shared external server for storing data shortcuts for sharing.  This is cumbersome for those of us who need to share data over remote geographies.

 

This is not necessarily the only way or the best way to do this, but it works for us.  If it works for you too, then great.

 

PT

 

cheers,
Peter T
Dunedin, New Zealand.

C3D 2011, Win 7, Dell M6500, 8Gb RAM
Message 7 of 15
BDC1958
in reply to: abrooker

Bentley has a "Green Book" on their Be Communities site that has some helpful tips on using Civil 3D with ProjectWise. While the current integration is mostly around supporting the underlying CAD, Bentley plans to deepen the integration in a release of ProjectWise due in the first half of 2012. There are some parts of Civil 3D for which there isn't an API. Some Autodesk users are now asking that the API be enhanced so the integration can be more robust.

Message 8 of 15
nickseman
in reply to: abrooker

Not the original topic but a related question to the right audience.  When installing ProjectWise SS3 on Civil 3D 2011 (and AutoCAD 2011) an undesired side effect is the disabling of the AutoCAD Properties dialog box.  When you select objects the box goes blank.  We have verified that this is indeed caused by the install of ProjectWise SS3.  If you uninstall PW the Properties dialog box goes back to normal operation.  Anyone else experience this behavior?  If so, do you have a simple fix not requiring the rinstall or repair of AutoCAD / C3D?  Thanks

Message 9 of 15

Yes, I have seen this but did not recognise that it was due to Projectwise.

 

My properties dialogue is OK now, so I am not sure what setting fixed it.

 

Peter

cheers,
Peter T
Dunedin, New Zealand.

C3D 2011, Win 7, Dell M6500, 8Gb RAM
Message 10 of 15

We figured out how to fix the broken Properties dialog box in AutoCAD 2011 and Civil 3D 2011 when ProjectWise is loaded.  Copy the file C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\axdb18enu.tlb to C:\Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise V8i SS3\Bin\RealDWG, replacing the file with the same name.  Your ProjectWise directory my be different.  Apparently the files in the Bentley directory are AutoCAD r2010 files.

 

Nick

Message 11 of 15
jdennison
in reply to: nickseman

Nick,

 

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!  IT wasn't much help and is sort of hamstrung by the rest of our company moving from ACAD 2008 to 2012, while I'm using 2011.  I followed your instructions and my properties are functioning again!  Thanks!

Message 12 of 15
alistair.clark
in reply to: jdennison

We have recently rolled out ProjectWise SS4 (Version 08.11.11.111) and make extensive use of AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 across a number of offices.

 

We have an Integration Server in the UK, and chaching servers in the Middle East and India. Everything works well as far as ordinary drawings with XREF's go, HOWEVER we are experiencing a big problem with AutoCAD Civil 3D files that use Data Shortcuts.

 

SS4 has quite a clever way of working withe the C3D Data Shortcuts, negating the need for the rather convoluted workaround that were needed before. There is one major drawback though. Because of the network latency between the user location and the Integration Server it is extremely slow to open drawings that contain data shortcuts.

 

Even if you have your Working Folder and Project Folder set to default to a project containing Data Shortcuts it can take up to 15 minutes just to open AutoCAD Civil 3D. It seems to do an automatic verification of all Data Shortcuts even though your drawing might be empty.

 

A file containing Data Shortcuts that can be opened in a matter of seconds from the local network or by someone close to the Integration Server, can take 15 to 20 minutes to load from remote locations with only caching servers.

 

My current thought prosess is to remove the data shortcuts from ProjectWise, but then I have to remove the source files from ProjectWise as well. This kind of defeats the whole objective of using ProjectWise.

 

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Does anyone have any suggestions, fixes or workarounds?

 

Thanks in anticipation.

 

Alistair

Regards,
Alistair Clark

Message 13 of 15

Alistair,

My name is Bill McNamara and I am the Bentley Product Manager responsible for this integration.  There was a fix added to the latest version (08.11.11.559) that corrects how we handle multiple Data Shortcuts from a single source file.  On the test project there was a 60+% increase in opening speed over the .111 version.   This is included in the install of the ProjectWise Explorer client and does not require an upgrade to the Integration server. The PWE client version .559 will work with the PWIS .111 and earlier ones.

I should also mention that when a project is opened for the first time, the opening time will be longer than subsequent opening times. The reason for this is that the project files need to get copied to the local machine and this is dependent on your network's latency how long that will take.  Future opening operations do not do this, since PW does a Delta File Transfer (DFT).  During this DFT process the local files are checked and if there are any new references or deltas to existing files only the changes (deltas) are transferred.  If the User deletes the local files or has these purged on exit then the value of DFT is lost and the full transfer time will be experienced.

I hope you find this useful

 

Bill

Message 14 of 15
Bill_Godette
in reply to: jdennison

Bill, do you have a green book or video on connecting datashortcuts through projectwise?

Message 15 of 15
kbarnettza
in reply to: Jason.Hickey

Jason, Did you complete a workable solution? ... We are experiencing problems using the Bentley PW Civil 3D integration ...

 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/civil-3d-used-with-projectwise/m-p/5483648#M2...

 

 

 

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report