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: 

Grading Objects in 2015 - still temperamental

11 REPLIES 11
Reply
Message 1 of 12
neilyj666
1163 Views, 11 Replies

Grading Objects in 2015 - still temperamental

First time using a grading object in 2015 today and first crash using a grading object in 2015 - nice to see the tradition of flaky grading objects being maintained in the newest release.

 

They really should take a long look at the objects and get them sorted out as they are a fundamental part of an earthworks workflow...Smiley Frustrated

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.

EESignature


AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
aneal
in reply to: neilyj666

Grading objects don't seem to really be getting many updates since around 2010.  In my personal experience, I have found a couple of things that create stability problems:

  1. Trying to attach multiple grading objects to the same feature line segment, and 
  2. Using grading objects in an area where there are other feature lines it could interact with during grading operations. 

I'd speculate No 2 is because grading objects are projecting these dynamic feature lines - so when it's on the same site as a lot of other feature lines maybe it gets a logic/math error. 

 

The most stable way I have found to work with them is to create a temporary site and move feature lines that I need to project gradings to that site.  I don't have a lot of issues adding grading objects onto projected feature lines from grading objects.  If I have different gradings for one segement (a dam, for instance, where I may have a grade to distance on the fill and a straight cut where there is cut) I will usually use the cut grading first, then break the segments where the cuts end, then do the offsets and projections for the fills separately. Once all the grading objects are done, I do explode all the feature lines, convert them back to feature lines, and tie the ends together for smooth transitions. 

 

If I ever run into a problem in the drawing, or it starts to get corrupted, I delete the site.  Deleting grading objects sometimes don't seem to fully clean up remnants, but having a temporary site and deleting it seems to leave any corrupt part fairly separate from the rest of the drawing. 

 

Yes, this means the file is never truly dynamic, there is extra work, but I have had grading object crashes maybe 1-2 times a year since doing this approach - it's a long term evolution of what to do/what not to do over the last 6-7 years.   This does not mean that I'm ok with the fact that grading objects are pretty much unusable as they are presented outside of a tiny basic project. I'm very dissapointed that Autodesk doesn't put more resources on improving the stability of grading objects and/or the overlapping of sections in corridors, leaving end users with nothing but workarounds that are not exactly dynamic for both types of situations.  I'd also like to see some better error trapping algorithms in the software that will just say "illegal operation" and leave you sitting at your last command rather than ejecting you from the program when the program fails to make a calculation.  I think this has been the bane of Civil3d for quite some time. I'd be a bit sad if my grading didn't work, but to lose 20 minutes of work because of an illegal operation is pretty abysmal. 

Message 3 of 12
fcernst
in reply to: aneal

I would like to see the Grading Object entity abandoned and focus resources on fiuther development of the more robust Corridor object.

 

Bring the Corridor more easily into the site grading realm by adding the ability to use a Feature Line as a Baseline for hroizontal and vertical control without the need of an Alignment and Profile.



Fred Ernst, PE
C3D 2024
Ernst Engineering
www.ernstengineering.com
Message 4 of 12
neilyj666
in reply to: aneal

I'd agree but would also say that the grading object is great when it works properly and I do like the dynamic nature of them but the bugginess/crashing problem is a major issue (usually just when you are under pressure to get a design out of the door)

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.

EESignature


AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Message 5 of 12
neilyj666
in reply to: fcernst

This would be good and to get the corridor to go around a 90 degree bend(without a major workaround) would be even better...:)

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
Did you find this post helpful? Feel free to Like this post.
Did your question get successfully answered? Then click on the ACCEPT SOLUTION button.

EESignature


AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Message 6 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: fcernst

Bentley has taken that approach with their Openroads technology. Assemblies can be applied to any graphics, not just alignments. Actually all graphics function as alignments as they have geometric constraints. They also have profiles which can be configured to maintain relationships to other profiles. This addresses one of the downsides we have in C3D with using corridors for site design, since much of the vertical design needs to be related to and managed in plan view.

 

We have not embraced C3D because it is too cumbersome to use for site work.

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 7 of 12
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: fcernst

That would be a home run
Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 8 of 12
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Neilw_05

What do you use, Neil?
Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 9 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: Joe-Bouza

Right now it's a hybrid approach with Power Civil for creating the models and Land Desktop/AutoCAD for details and final documents. We've been in limbo for years waiting for a savior.
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 10 of 12
Neilw_05
in reply to: Neilw_05

I should say Civil 3D is also part of the arsenal as it is good for designs that require dynamic alignments and it has some advantages in surface modeling.
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 11 of 12
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Neilw_05


@Neilw wrote:
Right now it's a hybrid approach with Power Civil for creating the models and Land Desktop/AutoCAD for details and final documents. We've been in limbo for years waiting for a savior.


Neil Armstrong was once asked: "If the engine of your spaceship breaks and you only have an hours worth of oxegen, what do you do"?

 

 

.............................................Neil's reply: "work on the engine"!

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 12 of 12
ceethreedee.com
in reply to: Joe-Bouza

Beyond tempremental really..

 

The whole gradings thing has been an issue since the product was first molded from its ancestor and became Civil 3D. I couldn't agree less (in fact a lot more) that gradings just need to be scrapped and they need to just start again.

 

In the meantime though a few things that would really help.

 

  • The ability to turn off dynamic functionality (i.e stop rebuilding) with one tick box somewhere in the gui! This would be particularly helpful when you know there is going to be a large rebuild time after moving things around!
  • A robust feature line auditing process of some description. I know there is FINDSITEOVERLAPS and REMOVEDUPFEATURELINES but these do not deal with all the problems. Some better error reporting is necessary and it needs to happen as you are creating the grading rather than after yo uahve built a complex model!
  • Some sort of civil 3d object relationship graph like this. So we can see which surfaces a pasted into what and which corridors depend on which alignments and profiles etc.. etc...This is particulary useful for solving circular reference based issues or complex model development problems.
  • Better corner options. Not everyone wants a alignment based fillet on there outside corners. Sometimes we want a tapered corner or a constant radius corner. Not to mention better inside corner options.
  • More dynamic dependancy. It seems bentley and 12d solutions are well ahead of the game here. Computators in 12d are particularly powerful for been able to make vertical and horizontal geometry dependent not only on one other object but partial bits of multiple objects.

But all in all a bit more stability is really needed. I would even be even happy to trade off a little bit of functionality if it means some more stability.

 

Enough ranting i guess, back to work..

Civil 3D 2021 (Update 1), ACAD (SP1.3) MAP (HF0.4)
Infraworks 2021.1,
Win 10 -DELL Precision Notebook 7730

ceethreedee.com

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

Post to forums  

Rail Community


Autodesk Design & Make Report