Data Shortcuts

[novais]

Hi, I have a big terrain surface that i'm going to need to use in several drawings, so i thought i could use it in each drawing after creating a data shortcut. 

The thing is, after i created my drawing with the surface as a shortcut i saw that the file was with the same size (big) like the file with the surface uesed for the shortcut. So my question is:

Is this normal, the drawings that i create will always have the incremental size of the shortcut's that i add or am i doing something wrong? 

I was thinking that data shortcut's would function similiar to the external references in autocad, in order to have smaller drawings fetching the data when they are opened.

Thanks for any help or insight!

[rl_jackson]

With respect to the size, they are usually smaller, however this does depend on the data set used to create the surface.

[novais]

In this case the surface file that i'm using as data shortcut is 162 Mb size and my work file that is using is 145 Mb, but it has only a tinny grading in  it. Don't know if it's normal or am i doing something wrong or not quite well....

[chriscowgill7373 · Accepted solution]

You can set surfaces to store the geometry in your file or just the reference.  Of course if the reference gets broken, I assume if you are only storing the reference, your data will disappear as well.

If you select Surfaces in Prospector, in the lower portion of Tool Space, it should show your surfaces, in the line with the dref surface, should be a column that lets you set the Data Reference Status.  You can find more info here:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/CIV3D/2022/ENU/index.html?guid=GUID-D4EF42AF-2CF0-4F9F-812B-2E7CD0B75...

[novais]

Thank you! The procedure isn't so logic as other things, and that's why i've been struggling with that but it worked like i wanted! It's always a risk to have just a link to other civil elements but it reduced drasticaly my master plan.

Thank you.

[Joe-Bouza]

Consider using “Cropped Surface “ especially if your host drawings do not use the full area