AECPOLYGON's - Ctrl Key

Saw this today and didn't know you could do this with an AECPolygon. After you create an AECPolygon you can select the edge and cycle through some options using the Ctrl key. The first one offsets, meaning if you drag the edge it goes parallel to the original line. The second one adds a vertex, the third converts the edge to an arc and the last one Offsets all of the edges. If you haven't seen an AECPolygon, you may want to check out my older posts regarding them:

http://civil-3d.blogspot.com/2007/04/using-aecpolygon-to-hide-surface.html
http://civil-3d.blogspot.com/2007/05/more-on-aecpolygons.html
http://civil-3d.blogspot.com/2007/05/aecpolygon-styles.html

Formula For Slope

I'm not going to make a judgement on if this is the correct way or the incorrect way to do things, I'm just providing the math.

If you grade from a sloping baseline (be it a feature line or alignment/profile) the grade will be calculated perpendicular to the baseline. This is normal and customary in creating a road corridor; but may not be wanted when creating grading from a featureline. If you measure the distance perpendicular from one contour to the next you will find that the distance isn't an even number (if you use a 2:1 slope) but slightly off. To get the value to be exact use the formula below:

This is an Excel formula you can use to calculate the required slope:

=(E2*(1/E1))/(((1/E1)^2-(E2)^2))^0.5

Put the slope (Ex. 2, for a 2:1 slope) in E2 and the grade (in decimal form) in cell E1.

I Get It

This post really isn't about Civil 3D, it's more about the company called Tata. Maybe you haven't noticed, but they do a lot of stuff. Tata is an multinational Indian based company. I've read about them in newspapers, magazines and on the web. While I was having tea, Good Earth Cocao Chai Tea, I noticed they owned the Santa Cruz based company. I occasionally scan the adds above and noticed the http://www.myigetit.com/ was advertising on this site and noticed that the are an advertiser on the AUGI website. I'm a little bit amazed at there span of products they sell, from CAD program training to tea to steel to cars. I guess they could be called the India East India Company.

DWG TrueView

I've encountered quite a few people who don't know about TrueView. It allows you to open and then save Autocad files from version 14 to 2008. So if you have someone request an older version of a dwg that you have sent them, refer them to TrueView so they can do the work of converting it to an older dwg format for you.

Microstation Fundamentals

I finished the Microstation Fundamentals from Prosoft. The book was easy to use and gave the basics of how to do things in Microstation. In doing the exercises I found that I really like using the command line in Autocad. In Microstation most of the commands, at least in the exercises, used toolbars and windows. It became frustrating not being able to just type tr for the trim command and having to use the toolbars. I realize I can use the Microstation command line feature, but with all of the other windows on the screen, it's hard to just type in a command and have it be recognized by the program.

Hopefully I can find a way to get Microstation to work like I want to, but right now it appears that it is mainly toolbar driven. I find I don't like toolbar driven programs for CAD, since I have to scan the screen to find the wanted toolbar, and I always seem to know where the keyboard is at in Autocad to type in the command.

I wrote previously that I didn't like the user interface in Microstation, and now that I know how to do the basics and where to find things, I still don't like it. The windows and toolbars and single drawing interface is really a bummer. The program needs to join the world of windows instead of feeling like a skin on a DOS program.

Some things to like in the program is the Design History. In Design History you can commit changes into the file and then go back and restore changes that happened in between your committing changes. I don't know how big of hit it is to the file size, but I imagine it can be quite large if you committed changes frequently.

And cells are basically blocks.

Next up is the InRoads Fundamentals.