Feels Good to be Back

I was laid off on March 3rd, 2009 and started working again on November 30th, 2009. Almost 9 months! Not too bad considering many people have been out of work for over a year. I'm excited to be back in production using Civil 3d 2010. I'm working with a great group of people at the Assured Group of Companies.

Armed with a nice new Quad core PC with 6GB of RAM I'm ready to tackle a new job! I don't know what I am going to do with this blog but I would like to blog regularly. See you later.

Parcel Layering: My Way

Q: So you don't like the NCS default for parcel layering. How do you do it?
A: I like to keep it simple. Parcels and parcel segements are on layer C-PARCEL. Parcel labels are on layer C-PARCEL-TEXT.

In my experience I don't see the purpose for separate layers for the segments. So far I feel that the following layering convention is most convenient and less confusing for most users. If you turn off layer C-PARCEL the parcels disappear! Genius! If I need hatching for different types of parcels, such as open space and buffers, they go on their own layer. C-PARCEL-OS, C-PARCEL-BUFFER. I hope that makes sense I and hope that you can use this tip to simplify your layering.

I also apply this convention to most other object types. Why would I want my structures and my pipes to be on separate layers? If don't want to see the sanitary sewer network on 99.9% of occasions I don't want to see any of it. I may however want to see the network and not the labels, so the labels will be kept on a separate layer.

There are approximately 2.3 million ways to organize your layers and objects and I am just doing what works for me. If this way doesn't make sense or work for you then find your way and share it with everyone so that we can benefit from your experience.

Thanks for reading!

Parcel Layering

Q: Parcel layers are a bit confusing. Can you clear up how the layers work for parcel objects?
A: In Land Desktop you would usually create a line the depth you want your lot to be and then offset that line to create subdivisions. After that you would create a bpoly and use the parcel menu to define that polyline as a parcel. Then use other parcel menu options to label the property.

In Civil 3D we find that labeling is a result of subdividing a parcel so it takes out a lot of steps. But when you create parcels what layer is everything on? We have to dig a little deeper into the setup of Civil 3D to figure this out. We want to look at the object layer settings.

On the Toolspace click the Settings tab. Right click your drawing and choose "Edit Drawing Settings." Click the Object Layer Tab and scroll down to the Parcels settings. The table below shows the settings for the default NCS Extended Template provided OOTB.



The image to the left shows a parcel created with the "property" object style and "parcel name" label style.

We can see that by clicking on the label we select the entire parcel and it is on the layer C-PROP. If we freeze or turn off layer C-PROP the label will disappear because it represents the parcel. However the parcel lines will still be there. To hide those lines we would need to freeze or turn off the layer C-PROP-LINE. If we only wanted to show the property lines we would freeze or turn off the layer C-PROP-TEXT. Confusing yet?

Stay tuned for why I don't think this setup is the best solution and how I setup my templates.

Sheet Set Manager and Biological Changes

I am preparing a video and blog post on the Sheet Set Manager. This is fairly well documented but sometimes users don't see the benefits of implementing it in their work flow. So look forward to this post coming up sometime this week.

I'm sitting in my living room right now blogging to also inform you that I am awaiting a scheduled appointment for an ultrasound to find out if my gall bladder should be removed. For the past week I have had immense pain that I finally gave in to and visited the doctor. After a quick push on the upper right quadrant, just below my ribs, the excruciating pain alerted the doctor and they ran a blood test immediately. A word to the wise, assuming you have decent insurance and would normally have to pay a $20 copay to your provider, don't wait to go to the doctor! It only sucks more as time goes on and if nothing is wrong then at least you have peace of mind. Look forward to photos of my removed body part and the post about the Sheet Set Manager. Have a great day.

AutoCAD 2010

I opened google reader today and found almost 20 posts strictly about the new release.  Every release is like a second Christmas for me.  I'm all warm and fuzzy and looking forward to some new functionality. And I realize this post isn't necessary but I thought I might look like a loser if I didn't blog about AutoCAD 2010.  Cheers!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

I have been getting lots of hatin goin on in my office lately. Mostly from a single person but I think it's just to fun too keep the experience all to myself.

Nameless Coworker walks into my office bright and early on Monday morning to tell me how he ran into an Autodesk Reseller from The Print Machine (TPM).  Enter the Civil 3D hate talk. Nameless Coworker and TPM Reseller Guy discuss the problems with Civil 3D and how much Autodesk has screwed up.  "There are two types of people." they say.  "Those who know how to use Land Desktop to it's fullest and those who don't. The latter love Civil 3D."  

Now I don't like to take things personally and I won't lose sleep over this statement made but I'm in utter awe that someone who hardly even uses blocks or any unexploded entity is telling me that I just don't use a program to it's fullest potential. Apparently Nameless Coworker and TPM Reseller Guy have it all figured out. 

I just want to alert everyone that you are wasting your time on Civil 3D and you should drop your subscription right now and continue using any version of Land Desktop before there were layouts and the sheet set manager.

Just in case Nameless Coworker and TPM Reseller Guy happen to stumble across this blog.  I have nothing but love and respect.  Please spare me the underhanded insults. Happy Cadding!

Feature Line Flow Arrows: An update

Christopher Fugitt at Civil3D Reminders pointed out to me that in this post where I created expressions to always draw a direction arrow downhill, I made my expressions too complicated.  As a result my arrows would flip incorrectly at random openings of drawings.  So by simplifying the 2 expressions to one expression:

 IF({General Segment Grade}>0,3.14,0)

My problem disappeared.  Thanks Christopher for being so helpful. I'm not a programmer but I love finding ways to speed up tasks or improve a workflow.  I will share more of these as I find them.

On another note, please subscribe to this blog and PLEASE participate on the AUGI forums and the Autodesk Discussion Groups. They are the largest knowledge base you have access to and someone always has a better way.  

Have a great day!