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ROCKIN THE BOAT

37 REPLIES 37
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Message 1 of 38
uriimu
269 Views, 37 Replies

ROCKIN THE BOAT

in my humble opinion...

until you can copy and paste c3d objects from one drawing to another and data referance expands its capabilities, c3d has no place in a production environment. being stuck within one drawing is not an option. Use the tool for what it does...points/surface/parcel/grading/alignment/profile/section/pipes...then export results to auto cad.

...anyone agree? your thoughts?
37 REPLIES 37
Message 2 of 38
Sinc
in reply to: uriimu

C3D has tons and tons of problems, but we've been using it in a production environment for 2-1/2 years now...

It's all relative.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com
Sinc
Message 3 of 38
uriimu
in reply to: uriimu

...we have also...and i wonder if it is counter productive. The object is to print off a 24"X36" piece of paper.
Message 4 of 38
Anonymous
in reply to: uriimu

I disagree in part... a partial objective is the paper, the other part
is the model, which can be exported for machine control, which we hope
to do in the near future with our projects.

I never put all my Civil 3D objects in one drawing! I find the project
environment and the use of data shortcuts/references too easy to bog my
project down in that manner.
My $.02

Lisa Pohlmeyer
Engineer Assoc.
Williamson County, TX
lpohlmeyer at wilco dot org
Civil 3D 2009 SP2
Dell T3400 Quad Core, 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 - Performance Drivers

Neil Fallon wrote:
> ...we have also...and i wonder if it is counter productive. The object
> is to print off a 24"X36" piece of paper.
Message 5 of 38
uriimu
in reply to: uriimu

Great point...I need support. When i first heard of c3d i thought it would be a HUGE advantage to generate field calcs. for the survey crews off of the proposed model. In order to take advantage of this I think I need to wait till the software advances and becomes more flexible. Till then I feel it's counterproductive to employ it in plan sets/exhibits/details etc....should the power of c3d and the flexibility of autocad be seperate? I vote yes...
Message 6 of 38
Sinc
in reply to: uriimu

> {quote:title=Neil Fallon wrote:}{quote}
> When i first heard of c3d i thought it would be a HUGE advantage to generate field calcs. for the survey crews off of the proposed model. In order to take advantage of this I think I need to wait till the software advances and becomes more flexible.

We already do this. But of course, we use the Sincpac-C3D, which contains many tools that help Surveyors... Some of them even leave Carlson in the dust, and we can run circles around most people when it comes to Survey Calcs. The price is we needed to learn Civil 3D to do it, and C3D has an incredible learning curve.

And of course, most of the stuff we get "from others" is not done in C3D, so we almost-never have a C3D model to stake from unless we create it ourselves. And when we DO get a C3D model, we have the issues that we don't want to work in the "drawing from others", and getting their model into files created from our template can be problematic.

> Till then I feel it's counterproductive to employ it in plan sets/exhibits/details etc....should the power of c3d and the flexibility of autocad be seperate? I vote yes...

You lost me here... I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com
Sinc
Message 7 of 38
uriimu
in reply to: uriimu

...I'm simply saying c3d should be used as a tool only...when producing plan sets/exhibits/details, export c3d objects to autocad and work without the c3d puzzle.
I'm excited to get to the point you have with the survey calcs. I just need a team that is thinking in the same direction to make it happen.
thanks for the inspiration...
Message 8 of 38
Sinc
in reply to: uriimu

I still don't really follow...

I agree that C3D is a "puzzle". It would take very little effort to make it twice as user-friendly as it is. But I don't understand what you mean by "used as a tool only". And exporting C3D objects to Autocad destroys the model, removing all the extra information that lets us do all the neat things.

That sounds like Autodesk's approach to Projects.... People complained a lot about the poor Project Management in Land Desktop, so for C3D, Autodesk decided to completely remove Projects. Never mind that Projects are an integral part of our work, and we desperately need them...

I think the usual cliche for this sort of thing is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com
Sinc
Message 9 of 38
ctbailey
in reply to: uriimu

Machine control is looming here in New England. It really hasn't got here yet.

Out of curiosity... firms that offer their models up... are they charging the earth work contractor accordingly? Roughly the fees that the stakeout survey would have brought in? Or are you just giving the model out ffor the good of humanity?

Craig
__________
Craig T. Bailey, PE, LLS
Bailey Engineering
Message 10 of 38
Anonymous
in reply to: uriimu


Everyone our office has been using it
exclusively since 2/07 for everything from sheets, details, engineering &
surveying design/calcs, GIS data conversions, Aerial photography plans, and
more.

 

Does it drive us nuts at times? I'd need a minute
to pick up some of the marbles I lost before I answer. 😉


--
John Mayo, PE

 

Civil 3D 2009 SP1, LDT 2008 SP2, Raster Design 2009 SP1
P-IV at 3.5 GHz,
2 GB Ram, Nvidea Quadro FX w/ 128 MB Ram


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
...I'm
simply saying c3d should be used as a tool only...when producing plan
sets/exhibits/details, export c3d objects to autocad and work without the c3d
puzzle. I'm excited to get to the point you have with the survey calcs. I just
need a team that is thinking in the same direction to make it happen. thanks
for the inspiration...
Message 11 of 38
Anonymous
in reply to: uriimu

In our case, since I work for a County Transportation Office, the model
is a byproduct of the design, and I would give the model information to
our contractor. Since the model is a byproduct, giving it to the
contractor who has machine control, ensures that there's no
"interpretation" of the model. There would probably be some sort of
disclaimer that would refer to the signed/sealed documents as being the
"legal" representation of the project and it would be up to the
contractor to ensure the consistency between the two. We haven't worked
it out all the details yet. The majority of the time, the contractor
would be our in-house crews. Depending on design time and budgets, I
can see that some projects might be built with contracted construction
firms.

All of this has yet to be determined as we don't currently have any
machine control equipment.

I would think that the typical construction firm has to account for the
time to input this data into their machine control if they're not given
a model. Why would owner want to pay for that time/effort if the
information is already available?

Lisa Pohlmeyer
Engineer Assoc.
Williamson County, TX
lpohlmeyer at wilco dot org
Civil 3D 2009 SP2
Dell T3400 Quad Core, 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 - Performance Drivers

ctbailey@bailey-associates.com wrote:
> Machine control is looming here in New England. It really hasn't got
> here yet. Out of curiosity... firms that offer their models up... are
> they charging the earth work contractor accordingly? Roughly the fees
> that the stakeout survey would have brought in? Or are you just giving
> the model out ffor the good of humanity? Craig
Message 12 of 38
crunch_time
in reply to: uriimu

You still have projects. When you have to chunk out large projects, use date references, etc., it sounds like you have to have some kind of "project" directory structure to keep track of everything. Now that I'm thinking about it, I thought C3D was supposed to have everything in one file, a self-contained project!

I think it is a mistake to be dumping LDD. It doesn't have the wiz-bang features of C3D, but it works on projects that are impossible to do with C3D without having to come up with a bunch of workarounds.
Message 13 of 38
uriimu
in reply to: uriimu

...not an ldd fan myself...hated project management...loved the flexibility of point manipulation in ldd though. it seemed more flexible between eng/surveying overall.
profiles/surfaces/sections/grading are HUGE advancements with c3d...I just hate that objects are not flexible between drawings. the solution to most corrupt drawings in AutoCAD is discard the drawing, and paste your work in a fresh one. you can't do this with c3d....there is no turning back...as you create the model you have gone past the point of no return. is this a user error or is the drawing corrupt i ask constantly. I can’t simply test it. backup files are contrary (what do i have to redo? you cant see it, you must remember it) doesn’t everyone draw everything before they convert it to objects? maintaining a "base" file. you cannot site plan rapidly with sample/feature lines. i propose to convert models back to the original format it was drawn in...maintaining the integrity of the model of course...the puzzle of tabs/layers/vports/ucs/dimstyle/xrefs/folder management is more than most users can keep typical...add styles/more layers/data refs/deeper folder management and we have forgotten all about eficient civil design...hmmmmm
although i love the fact that you can simply undo in c3d with the click of a button. (not in ldd). bravo
Message 14 of 38
crunch_time
in reply to: uriimu

I guess I should have continued on a bit about what I would have liked to see as improvements to LDD:

Objects are o.k. I think it is the linking of everything together that bogs things down. I hate waiting for things to happen in C3D, or wondering if what happens, is actually leading to a crash.

C3D is always checking to make sure nothing is changed. A real pain when trying to do a simple thing like plotting cross sections. I know, I know. That is the advantage of C3D....you don't have to remember to reprocess the sections when you make a template change, resample when you make an alignment change.

It would nice if some of the objects (unlinked!) in C3D were added to LDD so styles could be used. Styles in surfaces, alignments, etc. would be great. C3D grading objects and feature lines would be nice also. It would also be nice if LDD would recognize Windows shortcuts so I could place copies of large surfaces on my local drive and a shortcut to them in project DTM folder on the server.
Message 15 of 38
AllenJessup
in reply to: uriimu

If you're talking about changes to LDD that's not going to happen. LDT 2009 is the final release. Not much has been done with the program for the past half dozen years and now it is being abandoned by Autodesk. Any bug, flaw or error in 2009 will now be memorialized. No opening R2010 drawing format either. So once you've upgraded to C3C 2010 it will be even more of a chore if you're going back and forth.

Allen


Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 16 of 38
Sinc
in reply to: uriimu

> {quote:title=crunch_time wrote:}{quote}
> You still have projects. When you have to chunk out large projects, use date references, etc., it sounds like you have to have some kind of "project" directory structure to keep track of everything.

No, you do NOT have Project Management in C3D. As happens frequently, you are confusing Project Management with Model Data Management, which is a completely separate problem.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com
Sinc
Message 17 of 38
mspatz
in reply to: uriimu

C3D haters,
I have one question, do your computers have the 3GB switch activated in Windows? That made a HUGE difference for us...

My 2 cents on the topic: I love C3D haters. My company has 110+ projects now in C3D and that is OK.; stay with LDT. We will clean-up on market share with our lighter proposals, faster completion times, and less mistakes through connected models. I think everyone but us should stay on LDT. 🙂

All joking aside, I think want makes or breaks a company moving to C3D is management of the transition, template, and training. Your template needs to constantly be made better, training and more training needs to be available, and support for non-power users needs to be ample.
Message 18 of 38
Sinc
in reply to: uriimu

> {quote:title=mspatz@hrg-inc.com wrote:}{quote}

> My 2 cents on the topic: I love C3D haters. My company has 110+ projects now in C3D and that is OK.; stay with LDT. We will clean-up on market share with our lighter proposals, faster completion times, and less mistakes through connected models. I think everyone but us should stay on LDT. 🙂


That might be true if everyone stayed on Land Desktop.

But a fair comparison should not be C3D vs. the ten-year-old Land Desktop... If C3D didn't win that comparison, then Autodesk might as well close its doors.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com
Sinc
Message 19 of 38
mspatz
in reply to: uriimu

Good point with comparing to 10-year old software and I do concede C3D does have functions that could be better (parcels & grading) but we have found once you know how to use C3D correct, grade with C3D correctly, and if you keep your sh#%t together and clean we hardly ever crash with C3D 2009 and SP2.

That said, all our PCs meet minimum specs., the have the 3GB switch toggled, and in general, I think we are lucky because our users have a good attitude and roll with the punches. I also think it matters that we use Vault and our check'out files go to our C:\ as intended by design by Autodesk. Why do I say that?

In training by our reseller we first had files check'out to a network drive and during training were crashing ALL THE TIME; especially when working with the Survey DB. After training we revised our "Working Folder" location to "C:\Civil 3D Projects" as designed by default and the issues subsided.

We have also found things along the way. Like the 3GB switch and how to make it work with our P.O.S. Gateway machines and also that deleting the AutoCAD portion of your Windows profiles solves issues. That along with deleting the registry entires for specific users profiles and having it re-build fresh.

I should right a post on all the little things we have discovered that added together make the difference. As always it could be better BUT it also could be MUCH MUCH WORSE. In the end, C3D 2009 is production ready but you need to be a professional. You can't treat C3D like CAD flunky software...

mspatz
Message 20 of 38
crunch_time
in reply to: uriimu

I am a bit curious about the size of all those projects. Are they parking lots, or miles of roadway with dense data?

I've been giving C3D a try, and I'm able to get around o.k. Haven't really done any production work on it as most of our projects are still in LDD.

What made me respond to this thread was my experience with C3D just yesterday when I tried to create a surface from a large LDD tin file from a DTM that covers 20 miles of terrain in a new roadway corridor. C3D bombed out 3-times, so I gave up and did my work in LDD. I guess I could have taken the original point files, made several (or many?) surfaces, did all the referencing and maybe got something that would work for me, but I chose to work with one surface. With all that power, C3D is still too limiting for the work that I have to do.

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