My ancient computer running 2007 Autodesk LDD had bit the bullet. Now I am forced to learn Civil 3d which I purchased a couple years ago with all intentions of learning it by now but never really got past skimming through and opening drawings to convert to 2007.
So today I blew the dust off the Autocad Civil 3d for Surveyors training manual, and fired up Civil 3d, started reading and running the tutorials, so far I have a basic understanding.
Luckily this happened when I have a little slack time and am not backed against the wall with drafting.
Any advice, tips or cautions are greatly appreciated.
Ron Lang, post: 378858, member: 6445 wrote: Any advice, tips or cautions...
Styles and settings. It's an absolute must to set up a template drawing with the styles and settings setup you want.
styles, styles, styles! That will be your life now. If you want something to look different you need to modify the style that's driving the appearance of the entity not modify the entity itself. This goes for anything "smart" within your drawings; points, surfaces, alignments, profiles, anything that's dynamic its appearance and functionality is controlled by a style. Understand how to use and manipulate styles and you'll be halfway there. Also get a solid template setup and as you create the styles you like drop them in the template and use that as your jumping off for starting every new drawing. The transition hurt for me, I loved LDD! You'll get through it though.
Cameron Watson PLS, post: 378860, member: 11407 wrote: ... The transition hurt for me, I loved LDD!
The field to finish in LDD sucked compared to C3d. The line annotations, too. C3d has its hair, but generally I like it better than LDD. And I used LDD for about 15 years.
Ron Lang, post: 378858, member: 6445 wrote: My ancient computer running 2007 Autodesk LDD had bit the bullet. Now I am forced to learn Civil 3d which I purchased a couple years ago with all intentions of learning it by now but never really got past skimming through and opening drawings to convert to 2007.
So today I blew the dust off the Autocad Civil 3d for Surveyors training manual, and fired up Civil 3d, started reading and running the tutorials, so far I have a basic understanding.
Luckily this happened when I have a little slack time and am not backed against the wall with drafting.
Any advice, tips or cautions are greatly appreciated.
Sounds like my parents almost....
Back in 2007 calling Dell.... "hi. We want to buy a new computer. Yes. Uh huh. Oh and can you please make it have windows 95 on it"
Yes. Windows 95. I put an end to that.
Mark Mayer, post: 378881, member: 424 wrote: The field to finish in LDD sucked compared to C3d
Don't get me wrong, I'm a believer. The fundamental change in the operation of the software was harsh to get used to though. Once you get through it the advantages are definitely there. Throw Sincpac on top of it and it's winner winner chicken dinner!
Cameron Watson PLS, post: 378976, member: 11407 wrote: Don't get me wrong, I'm a believer. The fundamental change in the operation of the software was harsh to get used to though. Once you get through it the advantages are definitely there. Throw Sincpac on top of it and it's winner winner chicken dinner!
I'll have to look Sincpac up thanks for the info
I'll second Sincpac. Definitely worth the cost, which is pretty minimal for what you get.
Ron Lang, post: 378858, member: 6445 wrote: My ancient computer running 2007 Autodesk LDD had bit the bullet. Now I am forced to learn Civil 3d which I purchased a couple years ago with all intentions of learning it by now but never really got past skimming through and opening drawings to convert to 2007.
So today I blew the dust off the Autocad Civil 3d for Surveyors training manual, and fired up Civil 3d, started reading and running the tutorials, so far I have a basic understanding.
Luckily this happened when I have a little slack time and am not backed against the wall with drafting.
Any advice, tips or cautions are greatly appreciated.
I'm about there too but still running 2000 LDD on XP!
Dinosaur alert!
Cameron Watson PLS, post: 378860, member: 11407 wrote: styles, styles, styles! That will be your life now. If you want something to look different you need to modify the style that's driving the appearance of the entity not modify the entity itself. This goes for anything "smart" within your drawings; points, surfaces, alignments, profiles, anything that's dynamic its appearance and functionality is controlled by a style. Understand how to use and manipulate styles and you'll be halfway there. Also get a solid template setup and as you create the styles you like drop them in the template and use that as your jumping off for starting every new drawing. The transition hurt for me, I loved LDD! You'll get through it though.
Yeah that's driving me nuts. You configure a project output then after several months you use it for another project & I have to redo it again. Can you export or set a global style permanently?
FrancisH, post: 379755, member: 10211 wrote: Yeah that's driving me nuts. You configure a project output then after several months you use it for another project & I have to redo it again. Can you export or set a global style permanently?
I want to say yes but give me an example of a style you're struggling with.
Generally what I do is tweak or create the style in my template then if you have it and your working drawing open at the same time you can drag and drop the style you want to use in your working drawing from the template in the prospector. If you have Sincpac there is a slick import and export styles button. I use this ALL the time when getting back into an older drawing that was created prior to C3D or that was started from an older version of my template. I just do an import all from my current template and boom, I have all my current styles. That command alone was worth the $350 for Sincpac to me.
FrancisH, post: 379755, member: 10211 wrote: Can you export or set a global style permanently?
EXPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS is the command you are looking for. But, mostly, you get a template set up with the styles and settings you want to use and start each drawing with that as a base.
With Carlson CES, I made a template to get me started.
It will also open all my previous ADCadd files and insert them into new drawings.
I open that template file and make my new drawing settings and erase any residual points and excess files and any from other openings and then save to my new file name.
Then I import new data and begin.
I still miss the ADCadd R12 dos program, 12+yrs of use.
Either one will take about the same number of commands to get a drawing finished.
Update
After two weeks, I am starting to get a handle on C3D, figuring out the styles, figuring where the different functions are in the program was quite the task, still don't have the figure prefix database figured out, but I am up and running and producing. I do like the way C3D handles surfaces and the easy of editing the surface. Now time to figure out how to use the program as it is intended. "Field to Finish" instead of connect the dots.
My recommendation would be to grab all the free surveying templates you can get your hands on and filter through them. Mostly DOT's. You can make up a short fbk and run it through seeing what they do automatically. Most have manuals with regards to their styles and when to use which one. Check out California, Florida, Massachusetts and Wisconsin among others. Of course if they are running C3D2016, C3D2007 won't work.
-W
The field to finish functions of C3d got a significant upgrade in the 2011 version. Any documents/instructions you may pick up from before that time will be nearly useless per those F2F functions.
