Civil 3D 2012

Based on web traffic to this site, interest in Civil 3D 2012 is growing. If you want to find out what the big features Autodesk is crowing about this year, you may want to attend the Autodesk Special Media Webcast. More information may be found by clicking the image below.

In addition to the webcast I should be able to provide additional information regarding Civil 3D 2012 in the days afterwards.

In addition I’ll be giving away a 3D Connexion SpacePilot Pro 3D Mouse, more information to come.

To make this post somewhat useful to me (since I always seem to forget) this is how to change the labels set for a  section view group.

• Right click on the Section View Group
• Choose Edit Labels
• Select the set you want applied to all of the sections within the group.

Civil 3D Reminders Pack Free Updated

I’ve corrected some issues with the Civil 3D Reminder Pack 2011 – Free Edition. The revised program may be downloaded here: http://style.civil3dreminders.com/civil3dreminderspack

Some of the fixes include:

• Swap Parts now works, previously it would not run.
• Swap Parts now includes structures in the list, instead of listing pipes.

Angle Reporting Error - 2011

If you are using the Parcel Map Check reports from the Toolbox, you may have noticed the Angle value does not report correctly at 4 digit precision and reporting in DMS. To correct this change the rounding code to:

Dim dAng As Double
dAng = dRadAng * 180.0# / Math.PI

sAngle = formatDMS(dAng, angPrec, angRounding, angFormat)

The code needs to be replaced using Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Basic .NET (or another similar program). Then compile the code and replace the Civil Reports DLL. The report will then provide the correct values.

Running EXE from AutoCAD

So I was trying to run an EXE from AutoCAD. During debugging the code would work properly, but once I went to run the code the EXE would attempt to run from the directory path of the current drawing. Frustrating to say the least. In order to run an EXE in it’s location you can utilize the WorkingDirectory Property to set the place where the EXE is going to run from.

        Using NewProcess As New Process
            NewProcess.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location())
            NewProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = sProgramInfo
            NewProcess.StartInfo.FileName = sFileName
            NewProcess.Start()

        End Using

The System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location())  gets the path of the current DLL that is running, which happens to be the same location as the EXE program.

Toggle Leader Tail

Have you ever wanted to get rid of the dragged leader tail on a Civil 3D label and keep the arrow? Well before today I thought it wasn’t possible. I never noticed the right click option of Toggle Leader Tail. It’s not available for some label types, such as points, but it is there for a variety of them. You can use the ToggleLabelLeaderTail command from the command line if you want to modify more than one at a time. You can also turn on and off the leader using the option right above it, but again it isn’t available for all label types.