Satish Tandale (Civil 3D BIM Designer)

  Smart Retaining Walls I've seen a couple of different ways people use to create retaining walls in Civil 3D.  More times than others, I see people creating a grading group representing their retaining wall, generating a surface with it, and pasting it into their site surface.  It generates contours which is the desired result.  This is a fairly quick and simple method. I prefer to create a more BIM-like retaining wall with a retaining wall assembly.  My reasons for using this method are: Retaining wall assemblies recognize when they are in cut or fill and will shift codes around accordingly. Retaining wall subassemblies have adjustable parameters. Retaining wall code sets can be applied which not only affect the display of the wall in plan and model, but apply elevation labels automatically in section. The top of the retaining wall can be controlled with a profile which makes it very easy to visualize and design the top of the wall in comparison with a surface.  Also, when the pr

This is a follow-up to that tip which will outline how to create new fittings and appurtenances using 3D Modeling within Civil 3D. Again, Civil 3D only comes loaded with ductile iron piping as an option in the pressure parts catalog. Anything else will have to be paid for or created by the user. Creating new parts is a very cost-effective option if an extensive catalog is not required. Here are the steps: 1) Create your 3D solid of the part within the 3D Modeling workspace in Civil 3D. The commands and functions within 3D Modeling are very intuitive so becoming familiar enough with them to create piping parts should not take a great deal of time, but there will be some learning required. Autodesk Help is your friend for this. 3D Modeling Workspace 2) Like with piping, it is best practice to use manufacturer specifications and dimensions when modeling the 3D solid fitting or appurtenance. This will ensure proper labeling and behavior of the part. Be sure that your drawing units are set

  SSA Important Import Eccentricities

Heads Up Grading for Parking Lots In the good ol' days, before data collectors were in wide spread use, we used to get our existing topo on paper. We'd have to throw it over a big ol' digitizing board and trace it with a puck. This was referred to as digitizing which was a very time consuming task. Later, we were able to have the paper scanned, insert the image into AutoCAD, scale it up, and trace it on screen. This was referred to as "heads up digitizing" which was a lot more efficient and faster. I've coined this term "heads up grading" for those who give up the paper, scale, and calculator way of grading to use the grading tools in Civil 3D instead. The example presented in this post will show how quickly and efficiently one can arrive at a grading solution using this method.  If there are any fundamental concepts in this post that you do not understand, please refer to  Mastering Civil 3D by Richard Graham & Louisa Holland . The illustration

  Pressure Pipe Networks are fairly new to Civil 3D, and anyone who has worked with them has noticed that Civil 3D only comes loaded with ductile iron piping as an option in the parts catalog. Whether Autodesk adds more piping materials to the standard catalogs in future releases remains to be seen, but most users would like to see a PVC parts list at the very least at some point. As for now, there are options to buy pre-made parts lists from private companies, but they can cost thousands of dollars. A more affordable option to those who really only use a handful of pressure pipe sizes/materials is to build your own, and import them into Civil 3D. No special software is needed, and a basic pipe size can be created and imported in a matter of minutes. Creating fittings and appurtenances is a bit more involved, but that will be covered in the next tip. Here are the steps for importing new pipe materials and sizes: 1) New Catalogs and pipes can be added very quickly through the Content Ca