Regardless of who you are, what company you work for, or where you work out of, you've spent a lot of time, money, and/or resources developing your Civil 3D Styles and template. There are many different ways to create a template: build it yourself, contract an Autodesk partner to build the template with you, or hire a new employee with extensive Civil 3D experience so he or she can develop it. No matter the method, you want to protect the investment. That template is your intellectual property and you don't want it getting into the hands of your competitors.
Okay, so maybe that is a bit paranoid, but there are a lot of people out there who share this sentiment. All it takes is just saving your Civil 3D drawing, burning it to a disc or uploading it to an FTP site, and submitting it to a client. What's to protect you from a competitor finding it on your FTP site, the client from distributing the CAD file to them for a future project, or an unruly employee taking an archive disc with him or her when packing up for the next gig at your biggest local opponent?
Hopefully your FTP site is password protected and segmented by project. It would also be great if there was a portion of your contract with the client that agreed they wouldn't share your files, but a lot of contracts are written up so that the design files and drawings belong to the client upon submittal (this is a hot topic to be discusses at another junction in time). As far as an unruly employee goes - aside from locking all systems down from CDs, DVDs, and thumb drives (I don't personally agree with any of this) - there isn't a whole lot you can do.
There are several options for protecting your Civil 3D Styles from getting into the wrong hands, though. Let's explore some of the possibilities:
- Submit in DWF or PDF form instead of DWG (if the option is given)
- Use the command AECEXPORTTOAUTOCADxxxx - where xxxx represents the DWG version
- Go to the Application Menu drop-down and Export to AutoCAD DWG (pick the version)
- Export the Civil 3D file to a DXF format and import the DXF into AutoCAD
A lot of people will discredit the first option, submitting in DWF or PDF format. I'll argue the ability to create PDF and DWF files with layers, the possibility of underlaying those files into a DWG and then subsequently controlling the visibility of those layers, as well as Object Snapping on an underlaid DWF or PDF negates most of the complaints against them.
Regarding which of the options to use, however, that's entirely up to you. Each of the other 3 methods essentially ends up with the same results so it is more a matter which one takes less time or can be more easily and consistently utilized by your other designers. I like exporting to an AutoCAD DWGformat, personally, as it has fewer operations and is manipulating the data in the file less. Don't take my word for it. Try them all out and determine what works best for your and your company.
Another option not mentioned above previously is to simply not worry about it. Every Civil 3D Style that you create or modify has your Windows Login information tied to it and that data will follow your drawings and styles around wherever they may go. Even Civil 3D Styles that are copied and edited retain who initially created the style it was based off of. If you receive a drawing file from a client or competitor some day and find your name within any of the styles, you'll know that they have potentiallydone something unethical and can pursue however you wish.
Here's a suggestion to leave you with, though. When finalizing a project, do everyone a favor and clean up your drawing files. This means Purging, removing RegApps, running an Audit or RecoverAll, and simply giving them another look over. Whether you are creating an archive, backing up an entire folder, or eTransmitting the project (my favorite archiving and submitting option), the next person to work with your files will thank you greatly. You never know, either, you may just be thanking yourself a few years from now.
Comments