No longer out of work!

[john.uhden]

After about 4.6 years of premature retirement, I have found a regular job!  I will be expected to get Civil 3D running like a Porsche, but I'm up for the challenge (with a little help from my friends, I hope).  Okay, maybe Maserati or Ferrari, whatever.  No, a Chevy Vega will not suffice.

Is C3D 2014 really that much worse than 2010?

[Ranjit_Singh]

Congratulations @john.uhden. You are going to love Civil3D. It makes everything so much easier. I am here with whatever little I know. I believe @ВeekeeCZ also uses Civil3D. Plus there are some very helpful folks in the Civil3D forums. With your extensive knowledge in LISP and AutoCAD you already have an edge over many with just Civil 3D experience, and I say that based on my observations transitioning from AutoCAD to LDD to Civil 3D. Good luck. 

EDIT: and maybe get rid of the 'looking for work' line under your picture 🙂

[SeeMSixty7]

That is great news John! Good luck. I can't help with Civil3D at all, grin, but will offer any help I can.

[dbroad]

Congratulations.  Sounds like you've got something in mind for how to spend your money.

[john.uhden]

I'd better be saving whatever I make for my real retirement.  I don't think my wife will go for living under a polytarp in a junk yard, hunting for rats and possums.

[wkmvrij]

Congrats. Maybe your wife might consider living on a sailing yacht somewhere in the Bahama's or Caribian. Life onboard is very cheap (usually)

[ВeekeeCZ]

It was too long... congratulations from me too!!

Yes, Ranjit is right. I am using C3D for just about a year and half, so I would not dare to give anyone any advices. Currently using 2016 but can't wait to get 2018 as soon as country kits will came out. It looks to me like a major step ahead after a while.

[braudpat · Accepted solution]

Hello John

Congratulations from France !

Regards, Patrice

[wkmvrij]

Congrats! 

You might try to convince your wife to join you on a nice sailing yacht. In the Bahama's. Or in the Caribbean. Teach her how to catch dorade or tuna. Make your own moonshine. 

Pee over the railing...

[john.uhden]

Thank you!  Though we are both good one-design sailors, I think my wife would prefer a larger boat, like the kind with dining rooms, bartenders and waiters, lounge chairs, swimming pools, and entertainment, as long as it has enough life boats for ALL the passengers.  Steel drums would be more enjoyable than four guys playing their last song on violins anyway.  I like a few cubes in my drink but not in my berth.  "Never let go! (blub blub)"

BTW, that gal in your cartoon ain't bad from the chin down, but her visage is rather ominous.

[braudpat · Accepted solution]

Hey John

I just got your boat DWG (OLD Drawing)  !

Happy WE, Regards, Patrice

[john.uhden]

That's very nice, but I don't think it will fit through the Manasquan Inlet which is only about 330 feet [100 m.] wide.

[wispoxy]

I'm young, but I heard retirement is boring after a while. Welcome back.

[john.uhden]

@wispoxy wrote "I am not an Autodesk Employee or an Autodesk Moderator."

Maybe not but @ВeekeeCZ told me you're a 10!

[JamesMaeding]

Hi @john.uhden,

It will be interesting to see how you like C3D.

It is a different animal than LDT, because it tries to save time by keeping everything as objects, and therefore up to date.

If anything goes wrong with that updating chatter, it can grind things to a halt. You really have to watch the health of your bases and things, and beginners can't do that. I don't mean you, you could. It depends on the project too, some are easy and some just seem to never behave.

I feel C3D needs a complete 2nd iteration, with data held external in a format we can touch. Then it can be hooked to like LDT was to a project, and have "current" alignments and profiles instead of picking active dref objects to label. Then the data is lightweight.

Anyway, don't assume there are great solutions to previous workflows in C3D, it is a world of compromises and you just have to make sure the products that need to get produced can be done without ending up with mostly exploded objects that push people back toward hand drafting on the computer.

I've seen it happen. Teams will do horizontal aligns with C3D, then do profiles with lisp routines (my old Fastprof in fact...).

Get ready for some fun!

[john.uhden]

Hi, James.  Thanks for pitching in.

I really haven't gotten to using it yet.  Just been doing plot plans, road job takeoffs, and site plan reviews.  Seems I am still addicted to some of my "old" programs to get things done, obviously nothing related to LDT.  I like the look and versatility of cogo points for labeling spot grades.  Is there a way to have them lobotomized, meaning no point number or relation to a site or surface or whatever?  Then again, can the elevations be adjusted en masse by an additive amount?  Using MText or dimensions with leaders is very efficient as I can use my own EDITNUM to adjust them easily.  But it would be way cooler to have some kind of spot grade attached to a 3D polyline (oops, I guess that's a feature line), where the text changes automatically.  I presume the feature lines can reside on a noplot layer, or must they be part of a surface where you have to change the style to control visibility?

[JamesMaeding]

Yes, cogo points have a style, and styles in c3d are similar to blocks where you add text and things to the definition.

Creating and editing styles in C3D is a big part of it, and you must make sure your callouts for points, alignments, profiles, and surfaces can be done before going into production.

A big weak point with alignment labeling is you cannot rotate the last segment of a station/offset type callout. You have to make a style for each rotation - anyone correct me if wrong, that is what forums are all about.

The cogo points are the data, so moving and lifting them modifies themselves, so the data is changed. Surfaces act like that too, though they track translations and remember some edits.

The spot grade can be done by labeling feature lines, alignments, or surfaces.

I would say though, that feature lines are dangerous for civil work in that they do not allow a true civil engineering profile like we expect.

They require elevations at every line/arc start/end, and also allow grade breaks between. No vertical curves.

The result of that is if you edit an elevation, well, before you edit an elevation, you better look at its existing profile in the grid editor to see where the profile was straight grade, so you don't add a kink when you were trying to edit one end of an existing tangent.

I wrote about this in xyht:

http://www.xyht.com/civiltransportation/the-need-for-civil-bim-level-objects/

The c3d forum is really where this stuff should go. The admin might even move it for us...thx

[bmorse]

Hi John,

Welcome back to the working world.  Thanks for posting the EDITNUM.lsp

Brian Morse

(f/ Softdesk Tech Support)

[john.uhden]

OMG! There's a name I haven't seen or heard of in decades.
Glad to hear from you.