Civil 3D: Smooth Production Not Guaranteed
I love to clean. It’s a bit of an obsession. So much so that I’ve worked cleaning into my weekly schedule. My home being clean is essential to my mental well being and my productivity as a person. I treat my work as a Cad Tech with just as much obsession. While I haven’t worked in Civil 3D/AutoCAD as long as some of the masters, but I have learned that there are many ways to reach the same result in Civil 3D. However, clean and well-maintained files are non-negotiable for a smooth production experience. Just as having an unclean home has negative effects on someone’s health, having poorly maintained project files will ultimately lead to negative effects on the production of a project.
Survey
With Civil 3D being my main expertise, everything starts with the survey file. Some firms have internal surveying which helps greatly with keeping files within company standards and in a state that would be more friendly to whoever has to work with the file. Other firms must rely on external companies for survey, and results may vary. Having standards baked into the survey contracts will help with maintaining standards, but this can be a hit or miss when the surveyor is contracted by the client instead of your firm. These constraints should be expected and are not impossible to work within, but the drafter does have the responsibility to ensure that the file received can be worked with. This will range from separating the 3d components from the 2d linework, making sure that line types match the legend, or checking for geolocation and scale factor accuracy. Firm standards will vary but ultimately the file will need some amount of cleanup to ensure a good working experience. The survey file will be the foundation for most files in the respective project and making sure it is in good working order will set the tone for how smooth of an experience the production team will have.
Site
The next file in the proverbial file pyramid, would be the proposed site file. This can be set up as a blank drawing with the survey referenced and geolocation set if the production team is waiting on files, information from the client, or if the proposed site is still being coordinated. Once the coordination is finished and a background is provided from the other consultants the engineering of the site can start. It’s important to remember that an external file should be triaged before being introduced into the project file structure.
3D Files
Once the two main background files are set up, Civil 3D can be leveraged to a better degree. While it may seem simple, setting up your 3d files correctly will pay dividends. Using the data reference feature to interconnect your surfaces and utilities. A perfect example of this is creating an empty proposed surface and creating a data shortcut. This data shortcut will be used in the proposed utility file to tie the utilities to the surface. This will enable drafters to leverage the smart labels from the very beginning of the project instead of having to wait, or God forbid, using normal leaders to label utilities. Even if you don’t have utility paths completely coordinated with the other consultants, you can still leverage this strategy by creating empty pipe networks and setting the proposed surface to be the linked surface that should have been data referenced in the proposed utility file. I can’t emphasize how much easier this set up makes the production process. You can have all these 3d items linked and begin a preliminary design while coordination is ongoing. Another powerful and underutilized tool that can be used by both Civil 3D users and Revit users, is the function to set a shared coordinate point. If you don’t know about this function, I highly recommend looking into it and implementing it into all projects. This can drastically reduce the amount of time both groups of users spend trying to use files from each other.
Sheet Files
Once all these background files are set up, creating sheet files becomes an easier task as well. Practices will vary from firm to firm, but you can essentially create a single sheet file with all the elements needed, and then strip them of background files as needed to set up the sheet files as needed. If your background files are geolocated you can begin to set up viewports, sheet sizes, and sheet layouts even if you’re lacking a title block. Frontloading your project set up will reduce time and workload in the future.
Conclusion
It’s extremely important to understand that maintaining clean and functional files is a continual process in the lifetime of a project. Keeping files clean and set up correctly to leverage the strength of Civil 3D is the most important part of the production process. There’s nothing worse than getting deep into the production process only to have everything come to a stop because one file wasn’t set up correctly or wasn’t properly triaged when received from and external source. Inevitably a good project depends on how well every file, be it background or production sheet, was set up. No matter how front loaded it may seem it is always worth putting in the time and effort to set up properly and correctly. This will make all the difference in having a smooth and productive experience or an experience with constant setbacks and delays because of poorly set up files. It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure files are being properly maintained, but experienced drafters, at the end of the day, hold the major responsibility of the proliferation of this knowledge to their junior drafters and others on the production team in order to maintain proper standards and well-maintained projects.
Author Bio: Victor Aguilar started working with AutoCAD software in 2018 and has 6 years of experience with 2 serperate firms. he has worked on major site development projects like healthcare facilities to higher education campus’. Most of my experience is in Civil 3D using the 2D and 3D elements of the program to make the best product possible.
