For the past few years, Autodesk has been coming out with Subscription Advantage packs; downloads for subscription customers that add routines to their current version of the software. Last year’s pack added things like Point Cloud creation and Roundabout design to Civil 3D 2010. The technology from the 2010 pack was added to Civil 3D 2011 and improved upon. For the 2011 Civil 3D Subscription Advantage Pack, new Civil routines were added in addition to something for the Map portion and AutoCAD portion of Civil 3D. I will list each of these Civil 3D enhancements and then briefly discuss what each can do.
First enhancement out of the box is……………..(drum roll please)…………….The Style and Settings Importer! This routine allows users to select a file (dwg, dwt, etc.) and import styles, settings, or both. A small dialog box appears to allow you to select just styles or styles and settings from the file. This is now the fastest way to get these things from other files. This can be extremely handy for use as a standards enforcer as this import will overwrite styles currently in the drawing file. If a drawing was started using a non-compliant template, this importer can quickly make the drawing compliant.Figure 1 below shows this dialog box.
Figure 1
Next up is the new point import dialog. Point import? We’ve been importing points for years! Why this? This is why! Have you ever gone to import a point file and accidentally chose the wrong point file format? You know you have! At least once, right? With the new import point routine, a new dialog box like the one shown in Figure 2 below will appear. The routine will analyze the point file and and “suggest” possible formats to use. It also gives a preview of the point data in the same dialog box. These two things eliminate the need to open the point file in a separate text editor. This new dialog box still has some of the old point options as seen in the figure.
Figure 2
Now batting…………for the Enhancements…………Number 3………………The new COGO Editor. With this new editor you can create a traverse from existing COGO data, from lines in the drawing, or by manually entering known data such as bearing and distance. A dialog box like the one seen in Figure 3 below makes this possible. Traverses can be saved and then modified later. In addition to all of the traverse creation capabilities, this new wizard also allows for the reporting of traverses. Figure 4 shows an example of a report output.
Figure 3
Figure 4
For the Map side of Civil 3D there is a new ARC GIS FDO connector available. This will allow for connection to all forms of ESRI databases.
Finally, for the AutoCAD side, the following enhancements have been added:
1. an AutoCAD WS plug-in for AutoCAD-based products. This is a web-based and mobile program that allows users to post, view, edit, and share directly on DWG files in your web browser.
2. a DWG conversion tool that does batch converting of DWG file formats.
3. IGES Import and Export capability for 3D files.
That’s it for this year’s Subscription Advantage Pack. Be sure to log into your subscription site and download this set of tools.