CAD File Systems for Civil 3D Projects

[Anonymous]

Hey All. I'm curious to the various CAD file systems companies are using out there.

Is there a generally accepted best way to organize your files, references, and sheet layouts?

The way the company I work for is organized is:

* 1 working (design) drawing that includes all linework and civil 3d work live.

* 1 stand alone file for aerials to use for XREF

* 1 drawing for each sheet set (plan/profile, erosion control, grading, utility, demo, etc) where the working drawing is referenced into. Borders are referenced in. Civil 3D tools are set up as data shortcuts.

I'd love to hear the way your file systems are set up. We have multiple people working on projects so we are considering expanding the amount of working drawings. Thanks!

[Neilw_05]

Our system works pretty much like yours. For simple projects all the sheets and the models are in a single file.

[Cadguru42]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey All. I'm curious to the various CAD file systems companies are using out there.

Is there a generally accepted best way to organize your files, references, and sheet layouts?

The way the company I work for is organized is:

* 1 working (design) drawing that includes all linework and civil 3d work live.

* 1 stand alone file for aerials to use for XREF

* 1 drawing for each sheet set (plan/profile, erosion control, grading, utility, demo, etc) where the working drawing is referenced into. Borders are referenced in. Civil 3D tools are set up as data shortcuts.

I'd love to hear the way your file systems are set up. We have multiple people working on projects so we are considering expanding the amount of working drawings. Thanks!

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No matter the size of the project, the way I've always done it and the way every company I've been involved with does it, is to have one drawing per civil object. The only exception is for alignments and profiles being in the same drawing. Use data shortcuts for every C3D object and XREFs for others. This is considered best practice and really keeps things moving smoothly. Keeping everything in a single drawing will decrease performance and slow everything down. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply.

So the corridor would sit in a separate file, then you create a proposed surface from the corridor and use that as a data shortcut to create grading and cross sections in separate files as well? 

Just trying to get the whole picture.

[Cadguru42]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

So the corridor would sit in a separate file, then you create a proposed surface from the corridor and use that as a data shortcut to create grading and cross sections in separate files as well? 

Just trying to get the whole picture.

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Yes. Most projects I have an alignments_profiles.dwg (alignments and profiles), eg.dwg (existing surface), proposed layout (dumb polylines used for XREF'ing and producing plans), design.dwg (corridors, gradings, proposed surfaces, etc.), x-section.dwg (cross sections), a storm.dwg (storm pipe network), and a utilities.dwg (pressure & gravity networks for sanitary, gas, water, reclaimed, etc.). Sometimes I'll place the storm pipes into the proposed layout drawing, but only if it's a small amount of pipes.

I never kept separate drawings for sheet files and kept the layouts in their prospective drawings. For example, the proposed layout sheets are in the proposed.dwg drawing, the profiles are in the alignments_profiles.dwg, the cross sections are in the x-section.dwg, etc. Some people like to make separate sheet files, but I've never really seen the need for that. 

[Neilw_05]

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Keeping everything in a single drawing will decrease performance and slow everything down. 

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I absolutely agree, especially with regard to survey points and surface models. In case this was alluding to my comment about putting everything in one drawing for simple projects, I want to clarify that we don't combine existing and proposed data into the drawing. Existing topography, cadastral data, architect drawings and other data sources are kept in separate files. Only proposed data and layouts are in the design file. XREFs and data references are brought into the design file to build the proposed objects and plan layouts. 

[AllenJessup]

I also agree with separating the Civil 3D objects. One drawing for the Ex. Surface, one for the Alignment and Profile, one for the Corridor. Now in 2017 Corridors can be DRefed. Then one or more design drawings where they can be brought together.

One place I differ from most is that I may only have one Plot drawing or one per subset; General Plan, Drainage, Grading, Sign and Strip, etc. on big jobs. I create a bland drawing and Xref in the basemap and all the necessary design drawings, create multiple layouts and publish the layouts. I've had nearly 100 layouts in a drawing with no problems.

[tcorey]

I didn't hear anyone mention sheet set manager. Shame shame shame...

[Neilw_05]

I never liked the system that requires one file per sheet. I makes for a lot more work to keep everything sheet specific synchronized. I'm sure it has it's merits in a very large operation where many people are working on the files, but for us it hasn't proven to be an advantage in any way.

[jeff_rivers]

Surface feature basemap in one drawing, contains EG surface

Existing parcel & right-of-way linework in another drawing
(soon both will be in the same drawing)

Those are xref'd into the design drawings:

Corridor (with FG surface) is one drawing, may or may not contain xsections, 

These top-level plottable drawings contain xrefs & drefs to the corridor, EG, etc

Plan & Profile 

Drainage

Paving 

Channelization

Proposed Right-of-Way

Etc

We use a system of primitives to contain the basic linework for a discipline, so for example, the paving plan above contains the plottable layouts, construction notes, details, and so on, but the paving linework (proposed edge-of-pave, grinding limits, etc) are in a primitive that is based on but is separate from the corridor.

Likewise the chan primitive contains only the linework for the proposed chan, and it is xref'd into the plottable chan plan which has the layouts, construction notes, details, etc.  

Each top-level plottable containss a separate layout with a titleblock for every plotted sheet.  There's a lot of maintenance at the end of a project to update the titleblock sheet count (sheet x of xx).  Especially for plan sets with 100+ layouts. 

What's a good way to speed that up and eliminate the need to touch every layout as the sheet count changes?  Note, I have not played with Sheet Set Manager-- is that something SSM can automate?  

[Cadguru42]

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@tcorey wrote:

I didn't hear anyone mention sheet set manager. Shame shame shame...

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I used SSM and had the borders all set using fields to read the data from the SSM, but my current employer uses ProjectWise and it doesn't work well with it. They just use XREFs for the borders and standardize everything that way. 

[jmayo-EE]

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-civil-3d-general/need-everyone-s-input-to-speed-up-civil-3d/t...

Except for small jobs as Neil said, The above will explain why you want to separate data and use references.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies. A couple questions.

For those that keep their sheet sets in the same drawing as their design, what do you do with your text. Doesnt it make it more difficult to edit or even view your design. I like the organization aspect of separate design files and sheet sets even if it takes a little more time.

Also, for those with multiple files for civil 3d objects. Do you still have a central design file where you can see all existing/proposed in one drawing and does that end up being your corridor drawing? I need a drawing where I can see everything on the project.

[Cadguru42]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the replies. A couple questions.

For those that keep their sheet sets in the same drawing as their design, what do you do with your text. Doesnt it make it more difficult to edit or even view your design. I like the organization aspect of separate design files and sheet sets even if it takes a little more time.

Also, for those with multiple files for civil 3d objects. Do you still have a central design file where you can see all existing/proposed in one drawing and does that end up being your corridor drawing? I need a drawing where I can see everything on the project.

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What text are you talking about? Labels and/or notes? For me, in the alignments_profiles.dwg the only layouts are for the profiles. There's not any issue seeing the labels for the profiles because I need them to know what's going on. This doesn't really become an issue because every object type is in its own source drawing, which usually aren't part of the sheets; they're DREFd into other drawings. This also makes it much easier to work on the corridor drawing because I can keep its scale down to 1" = 10' to see everything well even though my project might be in 1" = 50' scale. The corridor drawing has no layouts needed for publishing. 

The design.dwg is the one that contains the corridor and has XREFs of the proposed layout and present layout along with data shortcuts for all the civil objects needed, such as alignments, profiles, existing ground surface, etc. 

Use XREFs and DREFs if you want to see everything in a single drawing.

[AllenJessup]

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Ringo311 wrote:

For those that keep their sheet sets in the same drawing as their design, what do you do with your text.  

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It's possible. 20 years ago there was only 1 layout and everything had to be plotted from there. We had cad standards regarding layers that made it simpler to manage which layers were on for plotting each sheet. The existing was xrefed into the proposed and that was it.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, for those with multiple files for civil 3d objects. Do you still have a central design file where you can see all existing/proposed in one drawing and does that end up being your corridor drawing? I need a drawing where I can see everything on the project. 

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What we call our design drawing has all the Civil 3D objects drefed into it. Also 2D linework as needed. That drawing is then Xrefed into our "Plot" drawing where the sheet are set up and plotted from. On large projects there may be a Plot drawing for each set: General Plan, Drainage, Grading, Traffic Maintenance, etc. That's decided at an early design meeting. I don't use Sheet Set Manager because it doesn't work the way we like it and I haven't taken time to figure out how to bully it into doing what we want. On my round-to-it list. 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I'm talking about call outs, or mtext labels. I still like the idea of separate files for sheet sets. They end up being xref/drefs and live labels and live viewports but better organization for the same amount of work IMO.

[Cadguru42]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Sorry, I'm talking about call outs, or mtext labels. I still like the idea of separate files for sheet sets. They end up being xref/drefs and live labels and live viewports but better organization for the same amount of work IMO.

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I'm not sure how it's the same amount of work creating more drawings, but if it works for you go for it.