BIM on the Rocks

Alignments from the Land Planner’s Curves

I think most of us who have done work with Land Planners have received a sketch that looked something like this:

Usually it’s on paper. If you are lucky, you might get some AutoCAD entities. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to convert a hopeless spaghetti of splines and compound curves into a collection of legal roads.

The Civil 3D model provides the most value when you think of it as a clay sculpture. Start with a rough shape, then use the tools to refine your elements.

Create a few simple Design Checks for your local roads- like minimum tangent lengths and radii.

I am giving you permission to live dangerously, here. Go ahead and create an alignment from those fit polylines so that you can see for yourself that the world does not explode. The design checks will alert you to the pieces that are completely off track.

Grid view will give you more information on what is wrong with each piece and give you the opportunity to change the curve type (in this case I might want to go from fixed to free). Now I have the intelligence I need to tweak each area to meet standards without starting over or losing the planner’s road skeleton.

I can run down the list and type in new lengths or radii, or I can once again be a complete free spirit and… wait for it… play around with some grip editing! Shocking, I know.

 

Some related information:

Criteria Based Design for Alignments is a old post over on Civil 3D Rocks, some of the links are dead, but it’s a good quick explanation of the tool.

There are a few good whitepapers on road design over on the Civil 3D Whitepapers page. You’ll definitely want to read Rule-Based Road Design using AutoCAD Civil and AutoCAD Civil 3D (pdf - 1230Kb). It was written for Civil 3D 2009, so it won’t have some of the new nifty curve parameter changes documented, but the criteria and standards information still works the same.

It’s challenging to keep these colored pencil and tracing paper guys happy.

How Do You (or Can You) Use the Internet at Work?

In my post yesterday, I asked the question What Technology Do You Expect at Work?. I’d like to follow up on that asking about how you how you use the internet at work.

A few years ago, it seemed the internet was just another employee distraction, now it is almost impossible to be without it. Many products (including some of ours) have internet linked help files. Suppliers for everything from snowplows to concrete pipes publish their details and specs online instead of sending out giant binders. Timesheets are often online. And that is just the basics… being connected to online tutorials, research, magazines and of course the every growing presence of social media- discussion groups, twitter, even Facebook, have business value these days.

The perception of mobile internet access is changing even more rapidly. Even the government employees in my life, who once mocked smartphones as a vehicle for wasting money and playing Angry Birds, are coming around. They are starting to see the value of real time access to weather data for snow removal situations or hurricane readiness, snapping pictures or video of flooding problems and to their calendars for critical briefing information.

Not to mention tools like WaterAlert that sends you a message when the local stream gauges report higher water, the AASHTO Mobile app for iPhones, and Flo Hydraulic Calculator app for iPhone.

I am interested in learning about how you use the internet at work. Are you restricted? What sites are you allowed to visit? If you are restricted at work, do you do work related surfing at home? Do you visit product tutorials or demonstrations on youtube at night?

Of course, I realize the comments here will be biased towards people who do have internet at work or do work related browsing at night since I am on the internet… So tell me about your friends that are kept in a cone of silence… how do they operate? Do they pull out their smartphones at lunch, or are they still using a wall mounted rotary? How can we change the way we communicate to reach them?

Related post: Can You Use AutoCAD WS with Civil 3D?

What Technology Do You Expect at Work?

When I graduated from college in 1998, I fully expected that wherever I wound up working, I would have a computer on my desk and it would be an integral part of my job. If I walked into a company for an interview and they didn’t have any computers in the office, I probably wouldn’t be interested.

I had grown up with computers in the house. I spent high school figuring out how to get Excel to do the menial number crunching and graphing for my biology, chemistry and physics homework so that I could see trends faster and explore more experiments. (That is what I told my Dad, anyway.) I was completely sold on the value of computers and would have been very frustrated by a firm that didn’t also see that value.

For my job now, I would feel lost without some sort of a smartphone, and liberal access to the internet during work hours, but I realize that not everyone in traditional engineering environments feel the same way.

I saw this video in my ENR links this morning about a ready-mix operator who couldn’t imagine doing his job without an iPad, and it made me wonder if things are changing in the fields of engineering and construction.

 

Is your firm embracing new technology? Obviously there is new new software to embrace. Civil 3D being the beginning, with momentum building quickly in the other pieces of the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite, like Navisworks and 3DS Max Design, but what about tablets, smartphones, other mobile technology? Laser scanning equipment and software? Machine control construction? What are you really seeing out there? Leave me a comment and start the conversation.

What do you think of the vision of a tech savvy, mobile enabled design process like the one in this video? Autodesk BIM for Infrastructure: Sustainable Cities

Views From the Back of a Sao Paulo Taxi

James Wedding is at Autodesk University Brazil this week. He’s tweeting (@civil3d)from around Sao Paulo and from the event itself, and I’ve talked him into taking some good notes so that I can write a blog post recap as a constructive way to conceal my jealousy.

He’ll also be posting pictures while he is there. As a fellow drainspotter, I know he’ll find some interesting manhole covers, or catch a gutter in action.

So what is all the buzz in Brazil? All of my Autodesk friends who have been down their recently supporting our excellent Brazil team and our Brazilian channel partners say the same thing- they have never seen so much traffic or so much construction. My experience with Brazil is limited to a few episodes of House Hunters International and a few magazine articles, so I am looking forward to debriefing with James upon his return.

A view from the cab today, courtesy James Wedding.

A few things I have read about the construction boom in Brazil lately:

For a general overview from a Civil Engineering perspective, check out Booming Brazil: Designing for Growth and Two World Stage Events by Bob Drake in CE News. I didn’t realize that Brazil is nearly the size of the US (3.3 million square miles compared to 3.7 million square miles) and that Sao Paulo has more people than New York City.

It is no surprise that a city more populous than NYC and growing at an alarming rate would have some seriously intense traffic. The World's Worst Traffic Jams by Andrew Downie in Time has some interesting insights into the lack infrastructure planning that leads to backups over 100 miles long.

For a more personal side of the story, read Being There: Sao Paulo from the More Intelligent Life blog. Helen Joyce, the Sao Paulo bureau chief for The Economist, recounts her impressions of a city that seems to be steeped in paradox. An interesting mix of old, new, personal warmth and separation of classes and neighborhoods.

I also found this customer success story (pdf) in our Civil 3D Customer Showcase that features Figueiredo Ferraz and how they used BIM, including Civil 3D, for a watercourse improvement and planning project.

Looking forward to learning more next week!

If Prospector Were College, I’d Have My Degree

This Sunday my beloved first born son turns four years old. A friend of mine who went to a fancy ivy league type school and got a fancy, yet somewhat impractical, degree once told me that “I went to college to get an education, not be trained for a job.” Prospector is just that. An education. This is an education that will not be finished in four years. It has no practical application, unless I want to work perhaps at a primate house someday. It’s more of the Masters, PhD, post doc and endless fellowship brand of hands-on, research based study that requires late nights in the library and a boatload of caffeine.

Unlike his sister and brother, who were both two weeks early, Prospector stayed happily in place until the last possible second. He came out scrunch-eyed with fists clenched looking annoyed that his peaceful existence and room service had been interrupted. Much like a man woken by housekeeping at check out time, who mutters while pulling on a shirt and hopping into his jeans  “I thought I had another hour at least!”

While I may not matriculate on Sunday, the list of things that Prospector has taught me is long and invaluable. He taught me that the best powerpoints are composed at 3AM with a teething baby on my shoulder just hours before a mad dash to the airport. He taught me that you can indeed teach web classes, write two books and interview for your dream job with a baby at home, just don’t expect to shower very often or be taken seriously by the mail lady.

He’s taught me to stop and pay attention. To close the office door and just sit on the floor to play. To experience both incredible joy and extreme disappointment with my whole heart. The best, most contagious, most infectious belly laughs come from the same little boys that cry the hardest when their ice cream falls off the cone and hits the ground with a splat.

He’s taught me that while meeting Ham Lincoln and seeing George Washington’s tower are really exciting, the best part of any trip is riding the subway.

 

I’ve learned that when you don’t know what something is called, you make up a word. Like “ground arms” (animals’ front legs), “sleep swing” (hammock) or “a walk carefully” (balance beam).

There is no doubt I will continue to be his student for the rest of my life. I will gladly eat ramen noodles, pull all nighters, and sleep on a futon with a mechanical pencil stuck in my ponytail using only my HP as a pillow just as long as he keeps teaching.

Happy Birthday!

He loves watching Simeone demo as much as I do. This is him hanging out in my office when Dave was giving me a sneak peak of the Corridor Solids tools.

Finishing a Project 60 Days Ahead of Schedule, you say?

I didn’t even need to read the story on our Civil 3D customer success story site. The City of Riviera Beach had me at their plan and profile sheets. Look at this- I would mat, frame and hang this baby on my office wall.

Civil 3D helped us complete the design 60 days ahead of schedule and save $30,000 in design fees through increased productivity and efficiency. We expect to save even more each year and plan on using Civil 3D on many more projects.
—Ricardo Wiswell, Engineering Technician, The City of Riviera Beach

The city had funds from Communality Development Block Grants to provide road rehabilitation to neighborhoods in need. The project replaces water lines, subgrade, base rock, pavement, curbs and sidewalks.

One of the things that stands out to me is that they acknowledge that they hired their reseller to do some setup and training during the project, which paid off well.

The City of Riviera Beach (pdf - 895Kb)

Two Variables That I Forgot This Week

Opening a drawing directly from your email and starting work in it like it was your own is a really bad idea. It’s right up there with sharing your popsicle with a stray dog and walking barefoot in the subway. I have a very strict personal rule to never do this. But I did it. Twice this week. And it burned me.

It’s always best to start with your own template that contains your own layers and your own Civil 3D styles, then import over geometry as needed. Someone might be sending you a drawing that began as an AutoCAD 14 file in 1998 and has been just “saved as” every since with every block, layer, shape, and whatnot stuck left behind until it is a virtual brew of unnecessary tidbits. It’s a bit like that drawer in your kitchen that is full of keys with no locks, spare parts to unknowns and other things that may have been useful once so you just can’t bear to throw them away.

One of the things that people can leave behind in drawings is their preferences for variables. In the first drawing, I could not get layer, hatch or object transparency to work. I’ve written about using transparency in Civil 3D here:Civil 3D 2011: Using AutoCAD 2011 Layer Transparency for Civil 3D Objects, Civil 3D 2011: Using AutoCAD Transparency for Images and See Through Corridors.

I thought perhaps they removed the feature and didn’t tell me. I was panicky and a little embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling, so naturally, I asked the question on twitter.

Brian Benton (http://cad-a-blog.com/) hit me back with an answer before I could refill my coffee. TRANSPARENCYDISPLAY must be set to 1 in order for any type of transparency to work. (You can tell this is not my drawing originally because I do not do magenta.)

 

The second crisis of the week came after a mad attempt to hatch a series of land use blocks in what is admittedly the world’s most boring yet undeniably walkable community master plan.

Again, I wondered. Is it me? Did they remove another feature without telling me? Did they remove it just from my machine? Am I being punk’d? This time I pinged Kate on IM and asked her if she was in on the joke. Turns out, it was not some elaborate setup to see who could make me cry before lunch. The drawing I inherited had FILLMODE set to zero. If you want to hatch, it has to be FILLMODE <1>. Once you regen, all of those happy little imaginary hatches you’ve been creating suddenly appear.

Note: what appears to be magenta in the land use plan screen capture is obviously color 210.

Three Customer Stories around Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis

I was cruising around the Autodesk website and noticed we have a few new stories published.

The first story is about Bolton and Menke in Mankato, Minnesota. You may remember Tim Olson of Bolton and Menke talking about a 30 square mile metropolitan stormwater plan using Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis on a CE News webcast last year. Tim shared his knowledge about the project in an Autodesk University class: CV223-4 Using Autodesk® Storm and Sanitary Analysis on Large Stormwater Projects, and I also mentioned his firm’s work in this post about Citywide Drainage Studies.

You can’t really argue with the lead in to this story:

Bolton & Menk, Inc. meets aggressive five-week deadline on storm water management plan for Ramsey, Minnesota, by cutting modeling time in half with Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis Extension.

 Bolton & Menk Customer Story (pdf - 1620Kb)

The second story profiles 4Site, Inc. which is a firm based in Huntsville, Alabama. You have to love an engineering firm that quotes Buckminster Fuller on their website. The story profiles a LEED project that features green BMPs. Can you spot the stormwater management in this picture? The sexiest civil engineering is always invisible.

What I was really pleased to see is that 4Site models and designs using Civil 3D and takes advantage of the workflow between Civil 3D and Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis. A great quote from the story:

"With Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis Software, we can model the entire project as a whole instead of in parts," says Jackie Whitaker, project manager at 4Site. "It handles flow calculations and hydraulic grade lines, and enables us to update pipe sizes—all within the Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis, in a single step, and without lengthy manual calculations." -Jackie Whitaker, project manager at 4Site.

 4Site, Inc. Customer Story (pdf - 1220Kb)

The third story looks at Greengard, Inc., a civil engineering, surveying and land planning firm in suburban Chicago. Greenguard is another firm that takes full advantage of the interaction between Civil 3D and Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis.

"We don’t have to draw pipes or manholes twice," says White. "All the information from the pipe network in Civil 3D is there when we import it." -Douglas M. White, P.E., DECI,

 Greengard Customer Story (pdf - 971Kb)

Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis part Map 3D 2012, Civil 3D 2012 and therefore also part of the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2012.

If you’d like to dig deeper into Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis, check out these links:

Autodesk Storm and Sanitary Analysis Videos

A Technical Tour of Storm and Sanitary Analysis (former StormNET) from Chris Maeder, MS PE

CV220-1L Introduction to Autodesk® Storm and Sanitary Analysis with Chris Maeder

Have You Tried Surface Masks Lately?

You’ve probably noticed that if you have an existing ground and a corridor model that you wind up with some overlapping bits and pieces if you work in 3D. On the left you can see my existing ground TIN covering up my corridor model.

Here is one method for using surface masks to cover up that TIN. In the cases I’ve tried, it does a good job of staying dynamic.

Make a context surface. I like to make a new, empty surface and paste in my existing ground TIN. That way, it stays in sync if I change the existing ground. While I suppose this isn’t strictly necessary when using masks, it’s a good best practice for creating that final “all finished” composite surface, so probably a good idea here, too. You can then turn off your existing ground. I originally wrote about this technique a few years ago: civil 3d fundamentals: pasting surfaces

Make a corridor top surface and have it visible. I’ve tried it with triangles and/or border and both times it worked fine.

Create a an Inside Mask for the context surface by selecting the corridor top surface. You shouldn’t have to draw polylines or extract a boundary. This is great because the mask stays dynamic to the corridor surface which stays dynamic to the corridor.

Turn off your corridor surface. You can freeze the layer, swap the style, whatever works.

Make changes and see things react.

Here is an intersection example I did with the same technique.

 

As far as I know, if you need to use the surfaces for 3DS Max Design and/or Navisworks, or for more complicated situations, you’ll have to stick with the “context surface with the hole cut out” method that Jack describes here.in Using Surface Boundaries for Grading Tasks - Tip and Trick.

Word from the Street: Lynda at the TRB Visualization in Transportation Symposium

I’m trying to work in more interviews with our field team and conference recaps. This report comes from Lynda Sharkey, who you may recall as the voice behind the dinosaur in her AU class promotional video last year, or more formally, the voice behind the Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler videos playlist.

Lynda recorded a version of her presentation from TRB and posted it on youtube. I’ve also made it available to download directly here: Download Conceptual_Design_in_Transportation.mp4 (41802.5K)

As you read below, note that Lynda is from one of those places that uses “s” instead of “z” a lot. Since it is part of her charm, I’m going to let them stay despite what spellcheck wants to enforce upon her native language.

from Lynda:

6th International TRB “Visualization in Transportation” Symposium

Chicago (Aug 20^th -23^rd)

A few weeks ago, I attended the TRB ‘Visualization in Transportation’ symposium ( http://trbvis.ning.com/ ) , along with a few transportation experts from work. This being my first conference exclusively dealing with Transportation, and me being a GIS gal at heart, I was a little nervous at having to present a paper about Conceptual Design in Transportation to people who’ve been doing this type of thing for most of their careers…

Well, I shouldn’t have been. It seemed that most of us could relate to the ‘fun’ of trying to effectively communicate ideas for transportation projects to people -whether those people are in our own teams, clients, or people at a Public Participation meeting.

It was interesting for me to watch the presentations – which dealt with topics ranging from knowledge management, to public involvement, to security and emergency response – and find that the common thread throughout them all was that the visualisation of ideas and information led to better decision making. I think that until now, visualisations were always thought of as a ‘nice to have’ as opposed to something that could add real value to the decision making process.

Autodesk, along with Bentley and ESRI, were patrons of the conference and we had the opportunity to schmooze with delegates at the Exhibit Hall Reception on the Sunday night. It was great fun watching people using the Autodesk Simulator to drive through the new Presidio Parkway and Bay Bridge conceptual designs. It’s a lot more difficult than it looks – but strangely enough, it may be the one time when having a few beers actually improves your driving skills.

During my presentation, I’d shown a few (highly improbable) conceptual designs using Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012, without telling people what the software was, since I didn’t want to annoy people by being ‘salesy’. It obviously resonated quite a bit though, because the whole evening, we had a steady stream of people coming past the booth to talk to us about it and find out what it was.

As Dana mentions in this blog post, people don’t always know or care about the standards and design codes and methods employed by engineers. Being at this conference and talking to the people at the coal face, (or the cutting face) has doubly convinced me that being able to visualise

Don’t forget to sign up for all of the Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler Classes at Autodesk University this year. Lynda’s class is Be a Hit: Work on your A.I.M. with Autodesk® Infrastructure Modeler 2012.