I thought this was a nice perspective for training…
http://2dtocivil3d.typepad.com/2d_to_civil_3d_varsity_vi/2008/10/civil-3d-pedago.html

So yesterday I was building my Description Key file in 2009 and had problems getting my symbols to scale up according to the description key parameter.  Simple solution which I found in the discussion board. I forgot to select what to APPLY that parameter to.  Don’t forget to select the “Apply to X-Y” option within your description keys.

Description Keys - Scale Parameter - Apply to X-Y

I do wish the option was there to select multiple description keys and right click to apply changes to all selected rather than manually going through each one.  They seem to update with each selection much like the layers do now.  I also wish there was a toggle to turn the auto update feature to these dialog boxes on or off.  The autoupdate can make things terrible slow when doing mass edits.

I got tired of everything being on layer 0 the other day so I came up with this sceme:  Since all C3D Objects have many parts that are on varying layers much like xref’d data and the object itself resides on its own layer I created layers for each object. The NCS extended template has layers set but I work on commercial jobs not residential.  So all the “ROAD” designations aren’t so applicable.  I may use a cooridor for a drain or a berm or any number of things besides just a road.  I also decided to keep all the C3D objects together so I prefixed them with C3D. Note image below.  I’ll see how well this works for organization.

My lesson of the day for Civil 3D is customization of the CUI.  If you’ve ever tried to create a stock CUI file in a different location be sure to take the *.dll file associated with it in order to keep you icons from disappearing.  I.E.  if you copy the civil.cui to another folder for a company CAD Standard copy the civil.dll, civil.mnl, & civil.mnr files as well to prevent the headaches I’ve had recently.

Example

Today’s issue / wish list has been with adding spot elevations to a surface and making them rotate as I need them.  While its nice that as a style you can set hard set angles there doesn’t seem to be an override for freely transforming the rotation angle.  If you ever need to use the drag state there’s not an option within it to set a rotation angle or again have a freely transforming rotation angle.

I’ve wanted to do this for more than a year now. In fact I’ve created several blogs in the past on my own but found it difficult to maintain them.  So hopefully with someonelse hosting it I can provide consistant posts.

The intention of this blog is for 3 reasons.

1.) As a personnal log of things I learn and solutions to problems.
2.) As a resource for employees & people who are always asking me questions to visit.
3.) As a resource for those I don’t know. Hopefully you find it useful as well.

Thanks, for visiting.