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Convert Civil 3D DWG to simple AutoCAD 2D DWG

17 REPLIES 17
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Message 1 of 18
martin.folber
23165 Views, 17 Replies

Convert Civil 3D DWG to simple AutoCAD 2D DWG

Hi all,
I would like to open discussion about function that could easilly convert Civil 3D drawing with its all corridors, grading groups, feature lines etc. to regular AutoCAD 2D drawing to be able to hatch, measure, trim and so on. Is it clear, that corridor edit commands and features are not good enough to add another structures as stairs, culverts, parking lots with green islands and another civil structures...

Export to AutoCAD or AEC Explode  converts drawing to some 2D/3D exploded hybrid, where it takes hours of editing, flatting and joining lines to make graphically correct and usable 2D drawing. And what worse, when the design is changed, user has to start from scratch again and again, which is not twice effective... 😞 And it is just directly against all Autodesk marketing phrases how to work smarter using BIMs

Why products as Inventor or Revit have these 2D publishing features and Civil 3D doesnt? It seems like nobody from Autodesk solves this kind of request. 3D is nice, but 2D is necessary because of lots, lots of work has to be still drawn manually.

So I am asking, am I alone who needs such feature?

Thanks
Martin

17 REPLIES 17
Message 2 of 18
owenmull
in reply to: martin.folber

There is a command called 'exporttoautocad' that will, essentially, convert the C3D objects and save them out as an AutoCad .dwg file, viewable in normal AutoCad.

 

You might be able to export as a DWF and go that route, too.

-Owen
Windows 7 x 64 bit

Civil 3D 2017
______________________________________________________________
Usually, I find that the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.
Message 3 of 18

Hi,

 

Another option is to create a layout with viewports showing what you'd like to export and use command _EXPORTLAYOUT.

 

Let me also give a statement to this two sentences:

>> And it is just directly against all Autodesk marketing phrases how to work smarter using BIMs

>> [...] lots of work has to be still drawn manually

As long as you draw manually things into existing (3D)CAD-plans you are not ready for use/work in structures of BIM. And to exchange 3D-data between products there is no option to reduce them to 2D as you lose a lot of information that can only be recreated with a lot of budget. One of the main goals of BIM is NOT to lose data that already exists.

 

- alfred -

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 4 of 18
antoniovinci
in reply to: owenmull


owenmull wrote:

You might be able to export as a DWF


If you have Adobe Acrobat, you can "add" measureability to PDFs created by Civil.

In that way, with the free Adobe Reader your users may dimension and annotate them.    

Message 5 of 18
Neilw_05
in reply to: martin.folber

Microstation supports both 2D and 3D models. If you obtain the latest version of Power Draft SS3 (Lite version of Microstation) you sould be able to reference a C3D drawing and merge it into a 2D DGN model. Everything will be 2D and ready for export to DWG.

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 6 of 18

Thanks all for the responses 🙂

 

1) Command EXPORTTOAUTOCAD unfortunatelly doesnt solve conversion to 2D. Corridor feature lines are exploded to small short lines.

 

2) DWF is not very good format as a source drawing for future edits.

 

3) _EXPORTLAYOUT looks better, but final block is not georeferenced and still in 3D.

 

4) PDF is good format for display, but again not for future edits.

 

5) Conversion to DGN, Neil you are right, this is exactly the way, how to make it. But why I have to use another software, when Civil 3D is build on AutoCAD?

 

Alfred,

Civil 3D is presented as BIM solution. I dont want to loose any 3D data that already exist, but I have no other choice, when there are no suitable tools and workflow how to add these 2D/3D structures to exisiting corridor or grading group. Culvert is good example, it is easier to draw culvert with all slopes (in plan) in 2D than to model it somehow in 3D. I am not talking about any 3D data exchange (Revit, Structure etc) just about pure funcionality of Civil 3D...

 

I dont want more than simple, pretty straightforward tool that is able to convert 3D Civil data to (unfortunatelly dead) 2D AutoCAD data.

 

Martin

 

 

 


Message 7 of 18

Hi,

 

>> 3) _EXPORTLAYOUT looks better, but final block is not georeferenced and still in 3D.

Well, I have not recognized yet that _EXPORTLAYOUT creates 3D-objects, so I learned something (whenever I need this command, until now I never needed it).

To come more close to 2D then:

  • explode the Blockreferences that were built from the Civil-objects
  • use the ExpressTools-command _FLATTEN
  • ....and all is down to 0

 

To get it georeferenced I have no solution (without development) besides the one doing it manually (e.g. via control-points), sorry.

 

- alfred -


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred NESWADBA
Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS ... www.hollaus.at ... blog.hollaus.at ... CDay 2024
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)
Message 8 of 18
martin.folber
in reply to: Neilw_05

Hi Alfred,

thanks again for your answer. I really appreciate it. Unfortunatelly FLATTEN command doesnt work for all objects. We have some lisp utilities, that work better then FLATTEN commad, but still it is more complicated and time-consuming then it should be.

 

Thanks

Martin

Message 9 of 18

I know this is not addressing your wish to push everything down to 2d.

 

Why do you feal it necessary to explode everything and flatten it all down to 2d?

 

We use civil 3d for the design and then just draw on what we want over the top of the civil 3d objects.

 

For drafting in profile views and section views that moves with the scale exagerations, we have a label style that just has a line component which we use to draw stairs, culverts (if we are not using pipes and structures), footbridges, etc. The only thing I haven't got sorted yet is circles, but I throw a non updating ellipse in for these.

 

For plan drafting, set your styles up so you can switch off, or hide the bits and pieces you want to override, hide or modify.

 

For areas and length, you can extract the corridor feature lines as polylines using the CREATEPOLYLINEFROMCORRIDOR command which can be flattened or converted to 2d.

 

Another method for areas is to make a surface out of the parts of the corridor you want and then you have the ability to extract the surface boundary for you areas.

 

I'm offering these methods up as a possible alternative to save you all the fun of getting everything exploded and flattened.

 



If a post provides a fix for your issue, click on "Accept as Solution" to help other users find solutions to problems they might have that are similar to yours.

Andrew Puller
Maitland, NSW, Australia
Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit
Intel core i7 11800 @ 2.30 GHz with 32GB Ram
Civil 3d 2021
Message 10 of 18

Hi Andrew,

thanks for your tips. I dont want to explode the objects...It is the worst way how to do it. Our users dont like these mixed 2D/3D drawings because of measuring, hatching, filleting etc.

 

I use this command CREATEPOLYLINEFxROMCORRIDOR very often, because this the best you can do. But you have to select one by one, what is not very effective. Not talking about when the design is changed.

 

You can have style to hide corridor region, but it works only perpendicular to alignment...

 

All these editining limitations force us to use 2D plan production drawings (Profile View, Cross-Section views are fine).

 

Our final plan drawings are so complex, that all enginneers have to finish in 2D...

 

Thanks anyway

Martin

 

 

Message 11 of 18
elaine3051
in reply to: martin.folber

Would the "convertlineworktomaskblock" work and you can mask the areas? I am not a 3D person but this is a handy command that we use for masking areas in pipe networks/profile when we are boring under existing roads. We draw over the area with curved pipes. The only thing masked is the objects selected in the PN and the profile grid is visible.

Message 12 of 18
oonni
in reply to: martin.folber

To convert Autocad civil 3D DWG to simple autocad 2D, do the following steps. a) After completing your civil 3d drawing, export it to autocad DWF.

b) Open the expoerted drawing in original autocad. c) Select the drawing and go to properties. d)in "Geometry" of property window, change the elevations to 0 (zero) and save it. Now you have fully 2d drawing.

 

Message 13 of 18
martin.folber
in reply to: oonni

Thanks Oonni,

I will try that...:)

 

Thanks

Martin

Message 14 of 18
BrianHailey
in reply to: oonni


@oonni wrote:

To convert Autocad civil 3D DWG to simple autocad 2D, do the following steps. a) After completing your civil 3d drawing, export it to autocad DWF.

b) Open the expoerted drawing in original autocad. c) Select the drawing and go to properties. d)in "Geometry" of property window, change the elevations to 0 (zero) and save it. Now you have fully 2d drawing.

 


This process doesn't give you a 2D drawing, it gives you a dwf referenced in at elevation 0. You can't edit the linework in the dwf.

 

Use the "Export to AutoCAD" or "Export Civil 3D Drawing" (depending on the version you're using) under the Application Menu. This will allow you to create an AutoCAD drawing.

 

If you want it to truely be a 2D drawing, run the FLATTEN command and select everything on the file created from the previous command.

 

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 15 of 18

Corridor code sets can be created to hatch your plans as desired, QTO can give you all the measurements you wish, Alignments can be used as a substitute to polylines and can be filleted the same; additionally alignments in sites can use the parcels created for hatching outside the corridor and will automatically have the areas and lengths in the prospector.

 

I hear what your users are asking and the fact is to do so exits the civil3d paradigm and creates unnecessary work.

 

Also, when I do a design with civil 3d the 2d line work is there first and I use "it" as a guide for the 3d design. Is your workflow to create a civile design in the blind and then come up with the planementric line work? sounds confusing - can you clarify?

Message 16 of 18

My suggestion:

 

  1. Use the EXPORTTOAUTOCAD
  2. Grading -->  Polyline Utilities --> Convert 3D to 2D polylines
  3. Use SuperFlatten lisp found on this thread http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/visual-lisp-autolisp-and-general/superflatten/m-p/2046612#M245261 to flatten the objects.

 

Willie Wilbers
AutoCAD & Civil 3D 2014
ArcGIS 10.1
Message 17 of 18

If using land desktop civil 3d companion, i've found that the best way to convert is to use the old fashioned way of saving dwg down to your version. It converts the aec points to "soft desk" points which are still in the dwg but act like exploded blocks with no value. The aectoacad does'nt always work. The etransmit works sometimes, but not always. Not sure why. The autocad trueview, (free download), works well, but the converted dwg always defaulted to opening in trueview instead of autocad, even after changing the association.
Message 18 of 18

The purpose of converting from civil 3d aec objects is to allow aec commands in the converted dwg, as the project association is often broken which not only renders the existing aec objects flaked out, but also prevents a new project association. It is a common problem when using other firm' s drawings, say for as-builts. And as long as the flakes remain in the drawing, a botched alignment or pipe run, for instance, you may have a problem referencing that dwg and even copying/pasting it's contents.

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