I am disappointed that C3D will not have a 64 bit version for the 2010 product.  This will give firms a year to upgrade their hardware to take full advantage of the future 64 bit version.  Civil 3D 2010 32 bit will benefit from running on a 64 bit machine now with more ram available you will see a great leap forward in stability and be closer fully realizing it’s dynamic modeling capabilities.

This post is a quick general Autocad tip as I recently discovered the built in SETBYLAYER command while looking for a LISP routine to change a selection set of entities color to ByLayer.

The SETBYLAYER command changes property and ByBlock settings for selected objects to ByLayer.

This command is a great cleanup tool if you have a drawing with a lot of entities that someone has set the color to a specific color rather than bylayer.

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Just curious what other users are experiencing with dynamic Civil 3D models . What percentage of your model do you feel is dynamic, automatically updating and propagating changes throughout the model?

Click Here to take survey

I’ll post the results of the survey here.

The last release of Land Desktop will be C3D Land Desktop Companion 2009.

Word on the street (civil3d.com) indicates that while this is the last official release it will be available from the subscription center as an extension in with the release of Civil 3D 2010.  I haven’t heard the fate of Civil Design or Survey.

This is surprising as Civil 3D isn’t to the point to replace LD completely and that there are a lot of firms out there still utilizing Land Desktop.  On the other hand it will be available as an extension so not a lot has changed.

I understand Autodesk not wanting to spend the resources on updating LD to the latest version of autocad.  However if your user base wants it I would expect they would keep releasing LD as a companion to C3D for many years to come.

It will be interesting to see the industry response to this news.

Is there a PVI in your profile view that is missing a label? I expected to have to dig down in to the land of styles to correct this issue. However the solution was actually very simple. Right click on one of your PVI labels and bring up properties.

Reduce the weeding value to zero. There’s your missing PVI label. I haven’t tracked the weeding value down in the styles yet. But I would expect most users will want their fg profile style to have a weeding factor of zero.

I noticed an interesting post on the Civil 3D discussion groups. The LD complex linetypes are included with the standard Civil 3D install at this location.

\Documents and Settnigs \ User\Application Data\Autodesk\C3D 2008\enu\Support

The file contains the following linetypes:

;; AutoCAD Land Development Desktop Complex Linetype file
;; Version 1.0
;; Copyright (C) 1998 by Autodesk, Inc.
;;
*BARBWIRE_1, Barbed Wire Fence with spaces
*BARBWIRE_2, Barbed Wire Fence without spaces
*CHAINLINK_1, Chain Link Fence with spaces
*CHAINLINK_2, Chain Link Fence without spaces
*GUARD_L, Guardrail, posts on left
*GUARD_R, Guardrail, posts on right
*STOCKADE_1, Stockade Fence with spaces
*STACKADE_2, Stockade Fence without spaces
*STONEWALL, Stone Wall
*TREELINE_L, Tree Line left side
*TREELINE_R, Tree Line right side

Thanks to MAnderson for the tip.

Click here the original post on the discussion group.

Reading Pete Kelsey’s post “Copying a Surface with Civil3D” I was amazed at his seven step response. My first thought was couldn’t you right-click on a surface in the prospector and select COPY. So I opened up a drawing in C3D, went to the prospector, right clicked and to my surprise, no copy command.

I am a C3D fan, but I am amazed at basic everyday functionality left out of the software. I know C3D is a new platform and not a Land Desktop clone. However, our work flow has been built around Land Desktop functionality. The right click copy surface has been with us in the LD terrain model explorer for years. Copying a surface is a typical if not daily task in 3D site modeling. Using the vanilla autocad copy command with seven steps is unacceptable. So I started looking for a ‘better way’.

We didn’t have to look too far. the API provides a copy method for the surface object. Writing the code to copy the surface would be easy. Adding the right-click functionality to the prospector isn’t as simple. We can easily add right-click functionality to the surface object in model space. The user would simply select the surface then right click and select ‘copy surface’.

Keep in mind setting this customization up does take more than 7 steps, but once it is implemented it is a nice feature.

This builds on my previous post adding right-click functionality to C3D objects. Another big thanks to David for making these available. If you haven’t downloaded and installed his custom cui, do it now. You will now have the right click functionality for C3D objects.

Open your cui by typing cui at the command prompt.

Once in the cui expand the Shortcut Menus, then expand the AECC_TIN_SURFACE shortcut menu.

Now right click on Check for Contour Problems and select add separator. As shown above.

The next step is to define the copy surface command. Click the create new command button as shown above.

Add the following name Copy Surface and command ^C^Ccs; as shown above.

Now apply and close your cui. Open a dwg with a surface. Right click on the surface, you’ll see your new right click command as shown above. We’re halfway there.

Next step is to define our command. If you aren’t interested in the details you can skip to the bottom and download the zip file.

Here’s the basic VBA code needed.

Dim AecSurface As AeccTinSurface
Dim AecSurfaceNew As AeccTinSurface
Set AecSurface = ThisDrawing.ActiveSelectionSet.Item(0)
Set AecSurfaceNew = AecSurface.Copy

Four simple lines and we’ve copies the selected surface.

The complete VBA dvb file is included in the zip file below. Code has been added to handle renaming the surface.

The last step is to create a LISP routine to call the VBA. Below is the routine, it is included in the zip file below.

(defun c:cs ()

(vl-vbarun “C:/civil3dblog.com/vba/copysurface.dvb!cs”)

(princ)
)

Download the zip file of the routines here. Save the zip file to your c:/ and right click and select extract all. It should place the files in the proper folders.

Then appload the cs.lsp located in the /lisp folder into your drawing, also add it to your startup suite so it is available in all your drawings.

Now right-click on a surface and select copy surface, your surface is duplicated. Check out the prospector.

This will give you a good starting point for adding other missing functionality to Civil 3D.

If you have any questions or feel additional information should be posted leave a comment and we will update the post.

I came across a post about a benchmarking utility that is part of every autocad install.

Check out the original post here.

To load the utility drag and drop the GsTest.arx file into your drawing space (or use the APPLOAD command). Once the arx file has been loaded type

GSTESTBENCHMARK

at the command prompt.

The routine runs quickly and appears to provide valuable results. Here is a sample output.

-------------------------------
Wireframe      : 1370.746771 ms
Wireframe      : 132.774342 fps
Hidden Line    : 1393.239294 ms
Hidden Line    : 130.630826 fps
Flat Shaded    : 1494.107561 ms
Flat Shaded    : 121.811846 fps
Gouraud Shaded : 3411.830554 ms
Gouraud Shaded : 53.343798 fps
-------------------------------

For testing multiple PC configurations select a single drawing file for benchmarking on all PCs. I would recommend a large drawing file. The utility only benchmarks the graphics capability of the PC. This should prove useful for Civil 3D users as it appears the video card is typically the weakest links in Civil 3D work stations.

Hydraflow Express and Hydraflow Hydrographs are available for download in the subscription center. Log in here.

The Hydraflow Express extension brings a variety of hydraulic calculators to Civil 3D users. Including culverts, weirs, and channels.

Hydraflow Hydrographs brings storm routing and basin design to Civil 3D.