BIM on the Rocks

Little Dana, P.E. Does Volume Analysis and Uses Project Silverstar

My mini-me has made some progress in her road design from Point A to Point B. Watch Interactive Adventures in Civil Engineering: Episode 2 on YouTube, embedded below.

I mentioned that we’d be using five principles of BIM for Infrastructure during this fun little series. During the video, Dana uses the built-in design warnings when roughing-in a layout profile to take advantage of tools that help create a smarter design. She does grip editing of her profile to resolve some problems, taking advantage of faster changes. Tools like Volumes Dashboard and Project Silverstar (for cloud based profile optimization) give improved insight into existing conditions and reliable results with analysis and real time feedback for each design option.

You should visit the BIM for Infrastructure Screencasts to learn more about each principle. We composed these screencasts to give a “high level” view of how Civil 3D and the Infrastructure Design Suite fits into a BIM process. It’s the screencast you want to share with the Project Managers, Owners and other folks in your office who aren’t sure what BIM for Infrastructure means. You have to fill out a web form to get to the screencasts, but it will remember you so you shouldn’t have to fill it in more than once. Let me know what you think!

Learn more about the tools mentioned in Episode 2:

Project Silverstar (Profile Optimization) on Autodesk Labs

Project Silverstar Tutorial 1 (youtube)

Project Silverstar Tutorial 2 (youtube)

Volumes Dashboard

Solving Problems with a BIM for Infrastructure Process

On  Monday, I posted a little video asking you to Help Dana Design a Road from Point A to Point B. Once the video hits 500 views on youtube, I’ll create the follow up episodes where Dana solves her planning, design and construction problems with your help, so please share the link with your friends, your dog, your grandma and your dentist.

During the web series, we’ll apply five principles of a BIM for Infrastructure Process to help solve each problem.

1. Improved Insight
2. Smarter Designs
3. Faster Changes
4. Reliable Results
5. Better Visual Communication

You should visit the BIM for Infrastructure Screencasts to learn more about each principle. We composed these screencasts to give a “high level” view of how Civil 3D and the Infrastructure Design Suite fits into a BIM process. It’s the screencast you want to share with the Project Managers, Owners and other folks in your office who aren’t sure what BIM for Infrastructure means. You have to fill out a web form to get to the screencasts, but it will remember you so you shouldn’t have to fill it in more than once. Let me know what you think!

Further reading: BIM for Infrastructure from Buildipedia

Help Dana Design a Road from Point A to Point B

You know you’ve always wanted to tell me what to do! Here is your chance.

This short video introduces a design scenario that I will work through over the next few weeks. I need to get a road from Point A to Point B!

The first exercise is to work through some early designs to make a decision- do I design a road that goes over the hills or around the hills?

Interactive Adventures in Civil Engineering with Dana, PE: Episode 1

Post your comments here or on youtube and I will get Episode 2 posted on Friday.

You might want to check out information about Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler and Project Silverstar to help you decide what my next step should be.

Conceptual Design for Transportation with Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (youtube)

Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler vBook Tutorials

Project Silverstar (Profile Optimization) on Autodesk Labs

Project Silverstar Tutorial 1 (youtube)

Project Silverstar Tutorial 2 (youtube)

Volumes Dashboard Extension for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012

Every Thursday morning, I have a meeting with Dave Simeone, Nick Zeeben and other team members that prefer to remain anonymous. Here is a picture of Dave as he reminds me that I still have not talked about the Volumes Dashboard Extension which is available on the Autodesk Subscription Center. If I don’t get this posted soon, he’s going to unleash his pet fisher cat on me.

Volumes Dashboard gives you tools to aggregate the results of multiple volume calculations. For example, let’s say I have a road design. I have an existing ground surface and a proposed ground surface that is linked to the road corridor. My road is broken into three phases and I’d like to know the total cut/fill as well as the cut/fill for each individual phase.

Using the dashboard, I create a volume surface and assign boundaries for each phase. As I work through iterations that affect the proposed surface, such as a profile adjustment, I can see the effect in real time on the dashboard. I can also create reports at any time.

I created a video introduction to how this tool works. I posted it to youtube (embedded below). I will make it available for download shortly- typepad doesn’t seem to want to let me upload it right this second.

MassDOT Civil 3D Standards Posted

A few months ago, I posted that MassDOT Requires Submittals in Civil 3D Starting 1-1-2012.

MassDOT has now posted their Civil 3D template, assemblies, survey guidelines and other CAD standards to their website.

I had a quick look at the styles in the template. Here is a capture of some of the alignment styles that they’ve built. I am thinking back to my days doing consulting work and I’m a bit jealous. It’s great to have a starting point to match submittal requirements.

There is also a nice library of prebuild road assemblies.

In addition to MassDOT, you should also check out the information about other DOTs that are allowing or requiring Civil 3D. We’ve created some landing pages to help users locate important news, templates, design standards, screencasts and more.

Florida DOT (FDOT) Autodesk News

Wisconsin DOT (WisDOT) Autodesk News

Caltrans Autodesk News