Eric Chappell
Check Out My AU Classes
With AU around the corner, I thought I’d take a quick moment to plug three classes that I’ll be presenting at AU this year. Hope to see you all there!
Intersections Aren’t Just For Intersections
The more I work with the new intersection functionality in Civil 3D 2010, the more I realize what a versatile toolset it can be. If you’ve had the same experience as me, you’ve seen the functionality demonstrated over and over again with the result being a fully constructed road intersection, complete with curbs and daylighting [...]
Revit Interoperability
For some strange reason, folks out there (typically non-cad users) are getting the impression that Revit and Civil 3D are the big one-two-punch for tackling projects that mention BIM in the scope. It also appears that these same folks are being led to believe that if you’re working with an Architectural firm that uses Revit, [...]
Disappearing Survey Figures
If you were using Survey figures in Civil 3D 2009 you may have noticed that they ceased to exist when you performed an Export to AutoCAD. This was a big problem since there were (and still are) a lot of folks needing Civil 3D drawings to be simplified to basic AutoCAD entities.
Grading Tip: Finding that Unruly Point
We’ve all been there…you’ve got a feature line that you’re trying to daylight to existing ground and bam! It crashes every time. What if it were just one point on that feature line that was tripping up Civil 3D? What if you could find that one point and get rid of it? Well, with a [...]
Who Woulda Thunk It?
I discovered this yesterday and just had to share it. One, because it is so bizarre and two because I was pretty proud of myself for figuring it out
A user was trying to plot a drawing that had a surface elevation legend table on it. If you’ve seen these before, there is a [...]
When Online Recorded Training Works
I’ve been deeply involved in CAD training for about 8 years now and I’ve delivered it in just about every way imaginable. In a “formal” classroom, on-site in a client’s classroom, on-site in a back room balancing a laptop on an end table, at AU, online live, and online recorded.
With online CAD training exploding in [...]
Be Object-ive About Your Layers
I’ve had a certain discussion many times over the years about what to do with the Civil 3D Object Layer settings found in the Civil 3D Drawing Settings. Should these be all set to 0, or should they be set to “real” layers like C-ROAD-CNTR for alignments or C-SSWR-PIPE for pipe networks? Or… should they [...]
Leveraging the Civil 3D Settings Hierarchy
Developing Civil 3D styles and settings is a tough job in itself and can consume lots of man-hours getting things just the way they need to be. I’ve learned to find and exploit any advantage or time-saving maneuver I possibly can to make the process more efficient. Taking advantage of the built-in hierarchy of styles [...]
An “In-Depth” Discovery: Profile Grade Label
Recently I was asked how to create a quickie grade label on a profile. Not the kind that is part of a label set, but something that could be dropped in easily without labeling the entire profile. After scratching my head for a bit I discovered the solution in an unlikely place…a profile view Depth [...]
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