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Autocad Civil 3d
Posted by Dennis Sullivan on September 30, 2016 at 5:32 pmDoes anyone have a good process to learn AutoCAD Civil 3d?
Mark Mayer replied 7 years, 7 months ago 6 Members · 9 Replies- 9 Replies
I started in 2007, just by watching the videos that were on the CD – so in a couple of hours learnt how to make a surface, alignment and profile. However, prior to that I had been using AutoCAD for 10 years. If you can use AutoCAD you are half way there, because one way to look at Civil3d is that it is just AutoCAD with a whole lot more automated routines for what you could do “manually” in AutoCAD. These days there are literally hundreds of videos on youtube on how to do things, plus the online help forums, so with these we can find a solution to any problem. We have two Civil3D stations here and could run them 24/7, it is hard to imagine life without it. I’ve trained many staff since 2007, and generally a good AutoCAD operator can get up to say 70% speed on Civil3D in about a week.
Dennis Sullivan, post: 393344, member: 10125 wrote: Does anyone have a good process to learn AutoCAD Civil 3d?
Where are you currently? Are you an experienced user of something else (LDT, Carlson, Micrpstation/Inroads, etc.?) or are you starting from scratch?
Richard’s suggestion is pretty much what I did – coming from long experience with LDT – and that’s a good way. Not to say that it’s an easy way.
Where are you currently? Are you an experienced user of something else (LDT, Carlson, Micrpstation/Inroads, etc.?) or are you starting from scratch?
Mark I have used AutoCAD a few years ago, and Intellicad. I am just trying to get going to do simple plats.
For the first few jobs, dont get in a rush. After watching a few videos, start a drawing, but take time to browse the toolbars, menus, and sub-menus. kinda see what commands there are that look useful to you, use them some, using some of the sub-routines inside the commands. Realize not everything in civil3d is named in the name you will be used to (at least it isnt for me…) but it is probably in the program at least 3 ways. It can probably be done by toolbar, by typing in command line, and from drop down menu, so it’s there somewhere, you just have to be patient and find it.
I would recommend buying the book Mastering Autocad Civil 3D. You can find versions up to and including 2016. The latest are not as good as when James Wedding was authoring the series, but still probably the best reference manual. It includes datasets that can be downloaded to help complete exercises. I would recommend concentrating on Parcels if you are looking to create plats. Obviously points would be important also if that will be part of your workflow.
Mastering Civil 3D series is a good one. I’d also be willing to answer any questions… there are many ways to set it up and run it aand not all are explained in the books.
This book, Civil3d for Surveyors , was also useful to me.
A note. All of these books and courses teach importing your points from a source to the survey database, and then populating the drawing from that. The procedure I use is to import the points to the drawing first, then to populate the survey database from there. It is easier to modify points in the drawing than it is to do it in the survey database.
Also, there is precious little anywhere about proper field coding for the field to finish.
Mark Mayer, post: 393467, member: 424 wrote: This book, Civil3d for Surveyors , was also useful to me.
A note. All of these books and courses teach importing your points from a source to the survey database, and then populating the drawing from that. The procedure I use is to import the points to the drawing first, then to populate the survey database from there. It is easier to modify points in the drawing than it is to do it in the survey database.
Also, there is precious little anywhere about proper field coding for the field to finish.
If you can import the points without the survey database, why deal with it at all? The database feature is a hassle and doesn’t serve any other purpose than to being in the data. When I had to use it, I would bring the points in through the database, export them out as a text file, delete the database, then import the text file I just created. That was a hassle too, but made working with points a lot easier in the long run.
Trundle, post: 393504, member: 12120 wrote: If you can import the points without the survey database, why deal with it at all?
The main reason is field to finish. Which I consider very advantageous. If you don’t do that, you as might well avoid the survey database.
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