AutoCAD Civil 3D software is a mature civil engineering design and documentation solution that supports Building Information Modeling workflows. Using AutoCAD Civil 3D, infrastructure professionals can achieve better project performance, maintain more consistent data and processes, and respond faster to change.
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 offers improved usability and greater efficiency with overall project workflows, detailed design and interoperability improvements.
As we go through the presentation, you will see that the 2017 enhancements fall into four primary categories.
These include:
Project management
Usability
Corridor Modeling
Collaboration and Data Exchange
Our first Category to review is Project Management,
This first set of demonstrations is packed full of new and improved workflows to help streamline project data management for any project,
Reference Styles Utility is a new powerful feature that allows any styles in an existing drawing be synchronized with the styles in external reference templates. For CAD Managers, reference templates simplify the process of centralizing standard drawing styles and insures that users can easily keep them up to date in any production drawing.
The new ability to Cache a Surface means you can save the geometry of a reference surface in a design drawing that contains the data shortcut reference. This increases the performance of the design drawing and streamlines collaboration with External Consultants who use Civil 3D and want access to referenced surfaces without the hassle of fixing “broken references”
Creating a Corridor data shortcut and referencing it in a working drawing is now available in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017. For those looking to do Cross Sections, Material and Volume Reporting, Corridor Surface Visualization in separate drawings this is the project management workflow you have been looking for.
Other improvements to Project Management that have been added to AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 include; The ability to Create Data Shortcut Folders to help manage object shortcuts in a project.
To compliment the new folder system for creating references, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 has the new option to multi-select individual data shortcuts or complete folders with multiple data shortcuts and “drag n drop” them into a drawing to create multiple references at once.
Let’s start the demonstrations for this Category,
Our second Category is Usability,
The Usability Category has two unique demonstrations that improve the workflow flexibility and content of AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017,
The ‘No Site” option for Featurelines is something that was added to the product to allow users to create 3D Featurelines outside of a site do not interact with each other, so you do not need to specify the style priority for them like you do with feature lines that exist in the same site. They also do not interact with other objects that they cross, such as alignments, parcels, or survey figures.
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 offers new Pressure Pipe Content for HDPE, PVC and Steel Pipes. Additional Fittings and Valves have been included also for Flanged Fittings and Mechanical Fittings.
The third category for review is Corridor Modeling,
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 offers a number of very powerful Corridor modeling and data collaboration features that will improve daily design tasks for any user working with corridors,
For Site Plan or Stormwater Management designers looking to use the power of corridors for site modeling, this new ability to use a Featureline as a Corridor Baseline is the feature functionality you have been looking for in AutoCAD Civil 3D
The Corridor Corner Cleanup is another added feature for anyone doing corridor modeling in tight corners resulting in a “bow tie” effect or situation where sub-assemblies crossover each other. AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 automatically cleans these corners and solves the issue.
Now you can extract multiple feature lines from within corridor regions or closed polygonal areas using this one step utility now available in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017
Enhancements to Corridor Solid extraction utility now enables the automatic association of Property Set data and the ability to have corridor solids remain dynamic to changes in the corridor. The result is that corridor solids can now include information such as material, classification code, volumes and more. This can then be used throughout the design workflow, including design review and construction management.
Our forth and last Category is Collaboration and Data Exchange,
In keeping with the Autodesk’s Building Information Modeling philosophy, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 has continually improved the collaboration and data exchange feature functionality to support design model interoperability,
The new Property Set utility can used to add Custom properties to any drawing objects – including Civil 3D objects. Property Set data can be leveraged in other downstream applications needed in the design workflow, including: Navisworks, BIM 360 Glue and more.
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 and Autodesk InfraWorks 360 now share a common Roundabout model. Roundabout layout and analysis tools are tightly integrated into the both products to enable seamless interoperability when moving a roundabout from one product to another. Civil 3D users can now import a roundabout that was initially modeled in InfraWorks 360, with no loss of design control or intelligence. Likewise, InfraWorks 360 users can open the Civil 3D roundabout with complete model integrity.
In summary, we have seen some really great improvements in not only AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 feature functionality, but in many new expanded utilities that extend the value of the data beyond design and production drafting. AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017 is better connected to conceptual design using Autodesk Infraworks 360 and construction management using AutoCAD Navisworks Manage.
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017’s continuous improvement and expanded toolsets support the Building Information Model philosophy at Autodesk. Civil 3D completely supports the efforts of many designers to go beyond paper into a truly dynamic model based environment. This is the true value of subscription in any company who uses AutoCAD Civil 3D on a daily basis with those same goals to bring more value to any project, deliver on time and under budget.