Cute Little LDT Things go Big in Civil 3D!

We frequently hear comments, sometimes even demands from LDT users to bring to Civil 3D a few of those functions and utilities we used every so often in LDT. Those cute little functions that are so close to heart because they used to span across steps in the process and even allowed us to complete otherwise complex tasks with oh, so little effort.

We all know how those small utilities can play a big role when we have to move from one stage of the design process to the next one or when we have to do something out of the ordinary and quickly. Just ask any of the “Captains of the Odd Jobs” out there…

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 gives a whole new life to many of them in this release. For example, we could shoot straight for the new pull-down menu Lines/Curves. If you take a quick look at what this set of tools offers it doesn’t seem all that important: a long list of good old ways to draw lines and arcs. Few of those can be done by using standard AutoCAD and some transparent commands for Bearing, Azimuth, Point selection etc.

However, those go a long way with helping the users of LDT transition to Civil 3D by providing the full set of familiar tools in the new environment. This is a very LDT user friendly feature in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008. And we could stop here – no need to explain in any more detail how those good old LDT functions work.

Well that’s all fine except for a couple of the classics from that menu that have been given a hugely new lease on life. I’m not talking about just porting a feature from an old version to the new one. This is a total rewrite of the old functionality specification in the new, graphically enriched environment with greatly improved usability, added functionality, friendlier user interface and what’s most important – requiring minimal or virtually no training to transition to. Because we all know how quick and easy it is to get used to new things that make the life easier…

Have you ever used “Best Fit Line” or “Best Fit Curve” in LDT?

Let’s refresh: You have a set of points recorded along what you know is (or looks like) a line and you need to establish a common line that equally respects all selected points. With a little help from Higher Mathematics that teaches Linear Regression we can actually calculate the bearing that respects each and every one of those points equally well. It probably won’t run right through ANY of the points but it will be the best possible approximation of the original course. Well, that cute little tool is now under the Lines/Curves menu. And when I tell you we have those that will best fit a circular arc or a parabolic arc you should begin to see the light of the variety of applications for this little cutie!

Check this out, now I can select a set of points, AutoCAD Entities, AutoCAD Points or even just go poke the screen until the penguins go to sleep…

Then, the fun starts: as I’m selecting point objects on screen my preview arc is growing – just to let me keep my eye on the thing…And it really is an arc, and not a circle this time.

When I hit Enter to break the selection a panorama view appears and now we’re talking features: I see radius value, I can select any of the points to pass through, I have the regression diagram showing “rogue” points and I can press Ctrl and start selecting those points that obviously do not belong to this set and simply remove them. Likewise, I can add more points, send the report about the whole exercise to a text file, undo/redo and of course, clicking on the check button will create an arc extending exactly from the first selected point to the last one – not longer nor shorter than that.

  <Click on this image to view the full size

I don’t know if you would agree, but I have used this one a lot on road reconstruction jobs to establish exiting EOP – curb returns were always a special treat. I even used this to best approximate profiles, you simply turn EG to a polyline or a set of line segments, best fit a line and then offset up as required…

Now, I don’t attempt to doubt the eagle’s eye of any designer or a surveyor of many years but this is a great enabling function to produce quality results for the rest of us! 

I could not stress more how those “Best Fit ..” functions illustrate THE BEST practice for bringing LDT functionality across to Civil 3D with the all fresh Spring breeze in them! Now, who wouldn’t prefer using these new-gen tools over those driven by pressing a numeric key to select an option!

Fantastic job Autodesk!

ROCK ON!