I thank everyone for attending my webcast on February 19th, 2020. This was the second part of a presentation I did at Autodesk University in 2019. Due to the length of the original I had to break the webcasts into two parts, the first part took place on January 22, 2020.
If you want to view the video for the the first part, follow this link.
In the second part of the AEC Collection Tools for Land Development Projects, we looked at three products:
Civil 3D Revit Navisworks
I demonstrated how one can import an InfraWorks model into Civil 3D with minor amount of tweaking. Then I replicated the analysis, visual tools and conceptual work I had done in InfraWorks in Civil 3D to a more refined level for the design development stage. I created a Shared Reference Point file for Revit and then created a preliminary grading surface to be used in Revit.
From Civil 3D I ventured into Revit where I looked at various design options. I brought different Shared Reference Point files into Revit and inserted the Topographies developed in Civil 3D. Finally I jumped into Navisworks and demonstrated its Quantification and Visualization capabilities.
To revisit the webinar, you may view the recording here.
The webcast was prepared for:
Architects Civil Engineers Site Designers Landscape Architects Technicians
Topics covered in the webcast:
Importing an InfraWorks model into Civil 3D Using Civil 3D as a design development tool. Sharing surfaces and reference points between Civil 3D and Revit. Using Navisworks for quantification and visualization.
These topics are covered in two of ASCENT's learning guides:
I thank everyone for attending my webcast on January 22nd, 2020, where I repeated a presentation I did at Autodesk University in 2019. Due to the length of the original I had to break the webcasts into two parts.
I demonstrated creating conceptual sketches in Sketchbook and conceptual massing in Formit. Then I created an existing conditions model in InfraWorks (through Model Builder) and populated it with sketches, 2D drawings and 3D models to explore options for a land development project for preliminary grading and visualization.
In the second part, I will take the concepts into Civil 3D and Revit for the Design Development and Detailed Design stages and finally into Navisworks for some visualization and quantification.
To register for the second part of my webcast happening on February 19th, click here.
To revisit the webinar, you may view the recording here.
The webcast was prepared for:
Architects
Civil Engineers
Site Designers
Landscape Architects
Technicians
Topics covered in the webcast:
Creating sketches in Sketchbook
Creating conceptual massing in Formit
Creating a model with InfraWorks Model Builder
Using InfraWorks to analyze and visualize the developing concepts.
Establish some preliminary grading within InfraWorks.
Below are some questions that came up during the webcast:
Q: Is BIM 360 connected all the software into one project?
A: Currently BIM 360 can interface with Revit, Civil 3D and Formit.
A: The Bridge Modeler in InfraWorks can be directly imported into Revit and it creates a dynamic link to manage changes. Other InfraWork objects can be exported as FBX files which can be imported into 3DS Max. For surfaces and topography, we will cover that in Part 2 of this presentation.
Q: Will this series include any drainage analysis and how that integrates between Civil 3D & InfraWorks?
A: We are considering more topics for such integrated workflow topics. Advanced piping including gravity and pressure pipes, SSA and InfraWorks watersheds would be part of this topic.
These are introductory Learning Guides with no prior Civil 3D experience required. For the Civil 3D 2020 Grading release, you will note subtle changes throughout the Learning Guide. I want to make this a more realistic workflow, but reuse as much of the previous year's courseware and dataset as possible, to keep the familiarity for seasoned trainers whilst introducing new concepts and a new direction of the Civil 3D courseware.
The goal of this book is to create a preliminary grading plan for a Land Development project. The general changes made in this course are consistant with the changes made in the other Civil 3D courses listed above. The following summarizes some of these changes:
Rebuilt dataset:
The Civil 3D objects have been rebuilt from the ground up to avoid problems with legacy Civil 3D objects.
The AutoCAD Xrefs have been purged, audited and layers renamed to NCS Standards.
The "Base-Proposed Engineering" xref has new building footprints which reflect the three Revit buildings used in the ASCENT Revit courses.
Folders reorganized:
Within the traditional Civil 3D Projects folder there are now new subfolders for configuration files, data shortcuts, survey databases and project templates for a more realistic project folder structure.
The drawings for the objects that are in the data shortcuts reside in the C:\Civil 3D Projects\Civil3D-Training\folder and sub-folders.
The drawings for the grading exercises reside in the C:\Civil 3D Projects\Grading folder and sub-folders.
Persistent use of Data Shortcuts.
Persistent use of Style referencing.
In the first chapter we create a grading template and a grading style reference drawing. This style reference drawing, along with a more generic style reference drawing is then attached to all subsequent exercise files throughout the course.
These referenced style drawings reside in the C:\Civil 3D Projects\Ascent-Config folder
Styles have been renamed with an ASC- prefix. (ASC for ASCENT)
This aims to help enforce the concept of CAD Management practices.
Allows students to easily identify customized styles and separate them from default styles.
Xref files are overlaid and have annotative text (for the most common drawing scales).
Named views streamlined for the chapters.
Each drawing includes named views only pertinent to the chapter.
The views are redefined so as not to affect the layer states of the drawing.
These changes impact the datasets that the students use to complete the exercises and there are some changes in the exercise steps that support these changes.
Beyond these generic changes, most chapters in the book remain as they were in the previous 2019 release. The exceptions are as follows:
In Chapter 1 - Introduction to Grading, I introduce Data Shortcuts at a high level and provide a short exercise setting the Working Folder and Data Shortcuts folder. Data shortcuts are studied more in depth later on in Chapter 7 - Combining Surfaces (as was done in the previous 2019 release). The rest of the exercises throughout the course then take advantage of data shortcuts for surfaces and corridors.
The 2019 Chapter 6, Grading with Corridor Models, has been moved to the appendix. While it is a fascinating chapter dealing with complex corridors, it is quite complicated and rather intimidating, i.e. a bit too advanced for this fundamental level.
A new chapter dealing with using a corridor for parking lot grading is now Chapter 5 - Parking Lot Option. It follows the existing parking lot design chapter and provides an alternative parking layout done with a corridor using a feature line as its base.
Chapter 8 still deals with Visualization, however rather than trying to use the limited tools within AutoCAD and Civil 3D, we now introduce the student to Infraworks and import the surfaces and corridors from the flegling Land Development project into Infraworks for visualization.
We use model builder to create the initial model and then populate it with CAD drawing overlays, Revit models, coverage areas and a bunch of city furniture.
We hope that the students will find this exercise enthralling and will leave the course on a positive note, perhaps even eager to learn more about Infraworks and take further courses!
Conclusion
As with the other releases of our Civil 3D courseware, these changes support the concept that the Civil 3D program is used in real-world projects. Proper CAD Management standards and procedures are being followed throughout the Learning Guides so the student will be familiar with such concepts in their own professional environment. We invite your comments and questions.
If you are interested in learning more about ASCENT’s offerings for the 2020 release, please watch our recent Webcast - https://youtu.be/yVEcM8ah-U8
Thanks to everyone for joining our most recent Webcast where Ronda and I discussed what’s new and coming in the ASCENT curriculum for the Autodesk 2020 software release. Click Hereto view the recording.
Here are a few highlights and take away’s from our session:
The main goal of this webcast was to explain the changes that are coming in the ASCENT curriculum and to introduce the courseware roadmap. I focused on explaining what is changing in the learning guides, not on what is new in the software. As books are released our Content Developers will post blogs if there are significant changes in the guides that warrant explanation.
Our Roadmap is updated frequently and changes in priority will often require updates to our projected release dates. Please be sure to review this Roadmapas you prepare your schedules.
And finally…. ASCENT can create custom learning guides that combine content from our existing books. Customers love this solution as it provides students with exactly the content they need in one professionally bound guide, instead of having to flip back and forth through multiple books. If you’re interested in this offering, please reach out!
We hope that you enjoyed the webcast. We host webcasts regularly (about once a month), so be sure to keep an eye out on our Events Page for other topics that may interest you.