How to Improve the Performance of Large AutoCAD Civil 3D Surfaces

From grading to storm and sanitary sewer design, AutoCAD Civil 3D Surfaces serve as a foundation for nearly all aspects of a typical civil engineering project. Given the far reaching impact of AutoCAD Civil 3D Surfaces, it's important to keep your data as lean as possible as not to negatively effect your projects performance. There are several ways to accomplish this including the best practice of limiting the total number of surfaces contained within any one drawing.

Creating an Autodesk Revit Building Pad

So now you’ve got a terrific building and you’ve got your site’s terrain modeled, and – consequently – you’ve got a grassy slope running through your building lobby.  This just won’t do!  That’s where the Revit building pad comes into play.  Even though you and I know the dirt should be retained at the exterior of a building’s wall, Revit doesn’t catch on to that.  You need to tell Revit where the boundary of your building is, so that it knows to cut a void out of the terrain.

Liking Them Civil 3D Apps on the iPad!

In my last blog, I wrote about the apps that can be installed with Civil 3D. For this blog, I am going to discuss some of the apps from Autodesk that can be downloaded for free and installed on the iPad. Good stuff! First in the list is Infraworks. Models can be uploaded to the cloud from your pc, then, with this app on the Ipad, the models can be viewed, navigated, etc. In addition, comments can be posted regarding the model so that collaboration can be done.

What If We Had a Paper-Like Tablet?

Tablets have many benefits but they also have associated drawbacks and risks, particularly in larger utilities where crews experience harsh conditions, bright sunlight and often encounter connectivity issues. The small form factor and the high risk of damage are also key issues.  In these instances, pen and paper often remain the primary way of marking up design drawings and record plans.

But with the intersection of the 32nd square of the chess board with Moore’s law, we can begin to imagine an new solution.