Poor Performance on 65km Road Design

[yasir.jica]

Today I got very disappointed while using civil 3d for the design of a 65km road (Hilly area road). The performance slows down as you reach around 30km on alignment and profile. I have been using Data shortcuts for the purpose and the whole design is now broken down into:

1) Surface File

2) Alignment x 2 Files (35km and 30km)

3) Profile x 2 Files (35km and 30km)

4) 2 x Corridor Files (35km and 30km)

All files have been created using data shortcuts. The process was really slow as i was adjusting alignment to find right grades for the design.

5) Now for generation of sections at every 25.0m which makes around 2600 section views, a new problem has arose. AutoCAD only supports 255 sheets in one sheetset. So if i have to produce around 200 sheets in one drawing, I will need 13 separate drawings to produce all of the sections. The issue is not drawings but you have to split the design into smaller pieces which needs regular updating and updating is very slow.

e;g if i see a section which is in air and I make some changes to 1st part of alignment, then i have to go to the second drawing of alignment and update the corresponding RDs. Then i have to check the profile. then update corridor and then i will return to the section to check if it is in the right position now. I have to switch back and forth which makes it very hard.

As far as i know, in the coming months, I have to design a 350km highway. And I think i have to switch to some other software for the design. Since Civil 3d is having problems for the 65km road then what will happen with 350km road?

Autodesk should work harder on the performance of their software for next 2 or 3 years.

I think civil 3d is not build to design more than 15km of roads.

Thanks

[neilyj666]

Prudent data management is the key to success here using xrefs and shortcuts as well as breaking the design up into manageable lengths. If I recall correctly above 15 km was regarded as a large data set

[tcorey]

Please report back if you find a software program that more-easily handles these large projects.

If AutoCAD/Civil 3D ever go multi-threaded, then all you will have to do is throw processors and RAM at the problem. Until that time, you have to employ strategies that minimize the re-builds. 

Regarding the point about switching back and forth to check that the section is in the right place, couldn't you check that in Section Editor? 

[yasir.jica]

section editor for a 36km long corridor takes a lot of resources and is very slow to switch and update.

as alternate i am trying Carlson civil suite...

[yasir.jica]

still the project is large to manage on single file of C3d. and it has been ages since multicore technology has arrived. i think autodesk has poor management for civil 3d's performance.

Still upgrading it for new features. Sometimes it feels like i am riding a bicycle and trying to hit 150km/h target. Seems impossible. Its not that i am new to civil 3d but i have been using it since 2011. But it is falling below my requirements. How can i design a 350km road using this bicycle?

[neilyj666]

As per @tcorey 's reply we are where we are with the current technology and Autodesk seems reluctant to go multi threaded with Civil.

Don't even think about creating a 350km corridor in one file - it will need to be broken out into smaller chunks to keep the drawings to a manageable size and it will also allow others to work on different part of the corridor simultaneously 

[Anonymous]

Set sysvar Whipthread to 3.  It will use multiple threads.  Although according to the help file that multiple number is 2.  😕

[GZE]

Split the alignment into short segment say 10 -30km, change all alignment from dynamic to static.

[yasir.jica]

I explained it, if i change a curve then i have to change RDs on later alignments which is itself a tedious job.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone who uses C3D feels your pain. @neilyj666 outlined that data management is they key, but I still feel I can only break things down so far before the hassle of the data management and the relationships between all the different drawings and objects starts to get out of control on large complex projects. Having to make a change in one drawing, then open up another to update an object and then following the daisy chain down the line with other drawings. It would be helpful if there was a better way of updating objects.

It would be nice if we could do something like right-click on an object(s) in the data-shortcut tree and have an option to update source files which would then open the file up in the background, update it, then close it automatically. It would at least take the pain out of having to do it all manually by opening the drawings. Maybe if the data shortcuts section of the toolspace was a separate window that showed not only the source file, but also what other files reference each object and when it was last updated.  I feel the start of an idea coming on....

Good luck!

[yasir.jica]

Autodesk needs to work on exploiting multicore processor and multiprocessor
capability. They are using it only on regeneration. I think they are just
using C3D on small examples. They should try this software on files larger
than 60MB. The performance is extremely poor then. Specially when the
alignment is more than 10km long, the performance get extremely degraded.


Autodesk should try their software on 40km long alignment having more than
800 curves with 4 offset alignments while the surface contains around
60,000 points and then you have adjust the alignment to search for the
optimum excavation/fill in profile. They should construct the corridor
having 5 complicated assemblies with two design surfaces. And you have to
provide around 200 culverts/pipes with structures. All of this in one
single file.

Merely data management is not the solution to it. Data management should
come into play on files larger than 200MB. Rest they are only making
excuses. I have been trying carlson civil suit.

[yasir.jica]

BWT you cannot change the alignment or profile from the editor.

[neilyj666]

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@yasir.jica wrote:
All of this in one single file.

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I would NEVER put everything in a single file as this is just asking for trouble - make sure you have a good backup regime and save frequently....!!!!

[neilyj666]

Not if it's a shortcut - the logic being there is one version of each object that is a shortcut otherwise who controls what changes?

You can promote a shortcut so it exists in the current drawing but then you have two versions of the same object in different files....what could possible go wrong...!!!!

[yasir.jica]

I know but it is an advice for autodesk to check their software
performance.
For 65km road, i have around 4 alignment files; 4 files for profile; one
for surface; two for corridors; again two for design surfaces,10 files for
the x-sections, one for finished alignment, one for finished profile. All
of 25 files which they are calling data management. I have not even touched
the culverts/pipes. and now i am confused which one i have updated and
which is remaining. AutoDesk should provide a human assistant with their
software to track a record. 🙂

[yasir.jica]

Can you connect two alignments in same direction using the connected alignments?

[Anonymous]

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@yasir.jica wrote:
Autodesk needs to work on exploiting multicore processor and multiprocessor
capability. They are using it only on regeneration.

---

I was talking to a programmer recently about multi-core processing, and it seems it is not as straight forward as you and I may believe. The software would need to be rebuilt from the ground up (which I would love Autodesk to do to, but not going to happen) and even then much of the processing might not be able to utilise multiple cores as the relationship between different objects controls the order in which they can be processed. Unfortunately two calculations can't happen at the same time if one needs the output of the other.

[yasir.jica]

At first, man thought that only birds can fly. Now there are aeroplanes.

So rather than making us do the data management why dont the software manage the data automatically. e;g

An alignment has 320 entities. It splits the alignment into groups of 25 entities (13 groups) and store the profile information in the corresponding group. When one of the entity is changed, it has to update only that group of entities rather than updating all of the groups. It can be assigned to one processor for updating and will be extremely faster.

[neilyj666]

Probably because Civil is built on Map which is built on AutoCAD and there is a requirement to maintain legacy backwards compatibility so a full rewrite of the code would likely be required