Autodesk Design Review - GPS Mode demo

A colleague and the company's Autodesk Design Review guru Trevor Gallyot prepared a video testing ADR's GPS interface feature. 

It is quite a useful feature when doing field visits, reconnaissance surveys and dealing with a complex, evolving site.  A proposed infrastructure footprint can be laid down, making it easier to imagine the impact while walking the site at eye level.

Civil 3D was used to import Google images and publish to ADR.

Vote for Sessions for AU 2009

I received an email yesterday from Autodesk University Online announcing that voting for the classes you want to see for AU 2009 is now open.

AU 2009 will be held from December 1-4 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

To vote for sessions, go to the Autodesk University Session Selection page and log in using your AU Online username and password. If you do not have an AU Online account, it only takes 15 seconds to register as an AU Online member. You can vote up to 20 classes from the list of submitted classes. The voting deadline is Friday, May 8 at midnight PDT.

Even if you can not attend, I still encourage voting the ones you want as most class handouts, podcasts, screencasts and presentation documents are made available on the AU website after the event to members to download.

Transition curves

To automatically include transition curves using the Straight-Straight (With curves) command, the Transition In and Out option in the Curve and Transition settings should be enabled. These are unticked by default. Once set, this will be applied to any new alignment created.





This can also be set through the alignment command settings. Toolspace (Settings tab)> Alignments> Commands> Right click CreateAlignmentLayout.



These are drawing specific settings and need to be set every time on new drawings.

Autocad Civil 3D 2010 UK version now available

For all UK and Ireland users who are under subscription, the UKIE version of Autocad Civil 3D 2010 is now available to download from the Autodesk subscription site. Here's bits of reminders to help you get started.

If you opt to download your copy from the subscription site, I suggest you install and use the Autodesk Download Manager for quicker downloads and ability to pause/resume. Otherwise, you can always request for the DVDs.



When you get to the download page, you'll see 6 files available but you only need the 3 UK files. The other 3 are US English versions.

After installation, be sure to read the Readme document. I must admit, I sometimes ignore this document (too eager to use the software!). It contains important information for this release.

When you start Civil 3D, you'll be greeted by a welcome screen that contains links to the usual documentations and the new getting started videos which I think are great additions. Some like myself learn a lot quicker through visual than reading materials. At the start of the video, it says “No Audio” (though I can hear the cursor click sound) but have texts to guide you through the videos.

The User Interface Overview will help you find your way around the new interface. This can also be accessed through the Infocenter toolbar.

And don't forget the new features workshop. It can now be accessed in the Infocentre toolbar. “Old” new features for 2008 and 2009 are also available to view in case you skipped any of these releases.

Lastly, download and view Jack Strongitharm's powerpoint presentation on the 2010 UKIE country kit. It discusses installation notes, known limitations, country kit documentation and new contents and reports.

Happy downloading!

Civil 3D 2010 Profile Object Projection

You might already be aware through other Civil 3D blogs the new feature in 2010 - the ability to project objects in plan onto profiles and sections. These objects can be Autocad points, solids, 3d polylines, blocks, MV blocks or Civil 3D points.



One area of application that I see this new feature will be useful is in placing geotechnical investigation boreholes on long sections.

I've tried it on one of our past highway project and used dynamic borehole stick blocks.



This of course won’t do all the work as the dynamic blocks need to be inserted and grip edited manually but will help cut a significant amount of draughting time.