Civil 3D Civil 3D 2021 Customization Options

Civil 3D 2021 Customization Options

➲There are many ways to customize Autodesk programs on the market today. Some are provided to us from Autodesk directly, such as Dynamo and Subassembly Composer. Some of the others are created by 3rd party vendors. Over the years of working with Civil 3D and other Autodesk programs, I have found several 3rd party vendor programs on the market today that are great at providing customized tools that are time saving during the design process. To help you in your daily designing and drafting routine, let’s dive into what’s available on the market today and what we can do already within Civil 3D to customize the program itself.

First off, Civil 3D comes with libraries and other tools that can be customized to better suit your needs. For example, like AutoCAD, you can customize the Hot Keys within Civil 3D. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this. Within the program itself you can access the Aliases editing options under the Manage tab, customization panel.

Figure 2 This opens the Acad.pgp file. A hot key is a singlestroke, or 2-3 stroke typed command on the command line of Civil 3D to access a command within the program. Such as ‘L’ for line, or ‘T’ for text.

The ACAD.pgp file is completely text based and editable in Notepad. A word of caution here, do not create duplicate hot keys or aliases. Duplication of a hot key causes program confusion when Civil 3D is trying to understand what you are asking for a command as you type in the hot key on the command line. The most common duplication that I do is ‘C’. I like ‘C’ for copy, but default ‘C’ is for circle. If I change the hot key for copy from ‘CP’ to ‘C’ than I better go and change the ‘C’ for circle to ‘CI’. Otherwise, if I leave them both as ‘C’ when I type ‘C’ on the command line in Civil 3D, the circle command will still activate as it’s the first one in the list. This list is provided to us to fully customize to our heart’s desire. You can also find this file on your local drive under C:\Users\<<username>>\AppData\Roaming\ Autodesk\C3D 2021\enu\Support. The Acad.pgp file can be found in every AutoCAD based software out there on the market today.

Another customization tool provided by Civil 3D is the SubAssembly Composer program found under the Autodesk folder in your Start Menu, not under the Autodesk Civil 3D folder as one would expect.

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Subassembly Composer allows you to create new subassemblies for use in Civil 3D corridors. You can also modify the installed subassemblies as well. This is a very handy tool. There are times when you need a subassembly part that is not in the default installed libraries. For instance, maybe you need a driveway grading subassembly. Instead of putting together multiple subassembly parts on an assembly you could simply create a single subassembly part for a driveway throat in the Subassembly Composer that can be used over and over in multiple projects.

Besides the installed tools that can be used to customize objects or commands within Civil 3D, there are also 3rd party software add-ons that can combine Civil 3D commands into a wizard, or provide additional customized tools that help you out in your design process. Some of these add-ons are for purchase, others might be free. These add-on programs can be found by using the Connect to App Store button on the Featured Apps ribbon in Civil 3D.

Many of these programs are made by either Engineers or Resellers. Basically most 3rd party add-ons work by extracting the existing drawing data or command functions within Civil 3D. From there they display unique data that you could not get otherwise with Civil 3D. Or perform a task that Civil 3D currently does not do, but could if the programming was added.

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CTC, a reseller, has a suite of add-on programs called the CIM Project Suite. This suite assists with combining functions of Civil 3D commands into easy to use customized wizard dialog boxes. It also provides additional tools that do not come with Civil 3D. Some of these customized tools that come in the suite are free and others are for purchase. One of the handier customized features is the ability to merge or split a corridor.

There are times during design that a couple of corridors are created separately and then you realize that they need them all to be in a single corridor. The main reasoning for this is so that all the parts talk to each other when making cross sections from the corridor and alignments. The Corridor Merger wizard will assist greatly with this issue.

Another program that I have used recently is created by Red Transit Consultants called Pipe Network Productivity Tools.

These customized tools can access information about pipe network objects and display that data without you having to do the math. For instance, one of the tools included in the set is the tool that labels a pipe invert at any location along a pipe. That’s right! ANY location. Normally you can only get an invert of a pipe at the start or end of the pipe. But what if you have 2 pipes crossing each other. This tool will place a label at the location you pick along the pipe and it will display the invert information at that point of the pipe based on the pipes slope and current elevation. The only disappointment I found is that the label is not dynamic. If the pipe changes slope the label will not update. You must relabel again to get the updated information.

There are other 3rd party tools that are great addons but are not customizations such as Superpurge.

A Manusoft program, this program deep cleans drawing files. It can deep clean a file so much that you cannot open the file afterwards if you’re not careful. If you decide to invest in Superpurge, read the Help file before using the add-on. This is not a program you can just install and start using right away. You need to be familiar with what the program can do when specific actions are set. For instance, if you remove all the registered apps from a Civil 3D drawing then you may not be able to use Grading or Pipe Networks the next time you open the file. Superpurge will allow you to remove all the objects selected at once or select the individual items and only remove those selected whether they are purgable or not. In some ways, that seems like the normal AutoCAD purge command. The difference is that Superpurge will take specific items out even if they are in use. You could remove a layer from a drawing that is only being used in a style that is not being used at all in the drawing. With AutoCAD Purge you cannot do this. If a layer is in use in any way Purge will not allow you to delete the layer. That is a handy tool, and it’s great for CAD Managers and Advanced users. This tool is NOT recommended for beginners.

Overall, there are many 3rd party add-ons that customize commands or provide additional functions that Civil 3D currently is not installed with. There are also installed customization tools that can be very useful at times during your design. To learn more about how to use the installed customization tools I recommend checking out Autodesk University online. Someone is almost always sharing instruction on how to use these tools. Dynamo is still very new, and I expect a few classes this year on Dynamo from instructors at Autodesk University (AU). Subassembly composer is usually taught in 2 different classes. There is always someone teaching tips and tricks for Autodesk products as well.

Shawn has been a part of the design engineering community for roughly 15+ years in all aspects of design, construction and software implementations. He has implemented and trained companies across the Country on Civil 3D and other infrastructure tools and their best practice workflows. Shawn can be reached for comments or questions at awautocadcivil3dcm@augi.com.