Just about a year ago I wrote a post called Point Dreams in the Annotative View Space which dealt with some of the issues we all have with AutoCAD Civil 3D Point Features. There are lots of posts here about the Points beast for a host of reasons – mostly customer questions about the perverse nature of these inanimate objects.

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I’ll include the slightly revised and edited list here simply to make clear why these Points Matter to get us further along the way – my purpose for this post.

Point Feature Wish List

Here’s my revised wish list from that previous post that wrapped things up after some discussion on how to manage your Point display preferences by Point Group methods. None of these wishes came true in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013.
Ah well… I did call them Dreams after all.

Maybe you'll want to agree or disagree with the following Point Dreams.
Please remember to express yourself in writing to Autodesk. Wish List items matter.

1) The doable - Description Keys should be able to scale in X,Y,Z independently.

2) The biggy - we should be able to RELATE Point rotational properties to Civil 3D linear Features like Alignments and Figures.
I think this rotation to Feature option should be is a Point Group property.
Please keep this collection of Points aligned to THAT primary alignment in this parallel, perpendicular, or a fixed rotational state.

3) Another quick and dirty doable - Please Give me XML driven importable/exportable Point and Figure Group definitions that are NOT dependent on existent Features or the current Description Key Set stack. Civil 3D does NOT always appear to read in that the total available Description Key Set stack anyway.

4) The Civil 3D Point Styles should be integrated and consistently work with AutoCAD Dynamic Blocks so we don't have to have near copies of lots and lots of common symbols. This is a basic issue of consistent property exposure in Civil 3D.
Wouldn’t a number or Name call to the visibility stack of a dynamic ACAD block be nice in a Description Key? One simple Point Style handles all my manhole variations.
Hey? Aren't utility structures utility structures? Aren’t all symbols symbols in Civil 3D? Well - sort of.

5) Point Features and Labels should be much more dynamically connected to and dynamically built on demand from many other Feature locations.
I'd hazard to guess that this Neverland wish will take a few more releases of Civil 3D and some pixy dust.

More Wishes

I’ll add these this year.  I‘ve mentioned most of these other times and elsewhere in this blog. They focus on the more significant issue that looms over us a bit like the national debt.
Gotta face it sometime…

Please don’t read from the following that Civil 3D can’t do the job that civil engineers and surveyors require in the real world today. It can. I believe AutoCAD Civil 3D can better than any other model-based sodtware.
I’d like to see Civil 3D made better.

Point performance is still poorer than we’d expect in Civil 3D 2013. Things haven’t really gotten much better on this front since 2010. Contrary to post published elsewhere the Point Feature does NOT appear to be a notably “lightweight” object. Civil 3D has a harder time driving the display, selection, and property changes for Points.

There’s a lot of annotative weight thrown at the “point” in model-based software for the civil engineering and surveying disciplines. This comes with the territory.

Win Don’t Whine

What the difference between a Point Label and the label we need on a point or related to a point of any other Feature?

Maybe it’s me, but I believe the fundamental structure of the point “object” is flawed in both concept and practice. The original object was constructed as a bridge between the old school LDT world and the new wider universe of Civil 3D.
“Don’t change things too much because history matters.” was the initial and justifiable adage.

We don’t want to be stuck with this dumber thing.

If you’re pretty new to AutoCAD Civil 3D, you might want to stop reading here. The following stuff will probably just confuse things for you. I never want to do that.

Autodesk it’s time to rebuild and upgrade the fundamental objects that were created back in the old Civil 3D intro days.

A point and it’s label are the same thing everywhere. The only difference is the exposed data in the model that the objects point to. The Civil 3D interface can be adapted to deal with these differences. We need to be able to deal with this issue with fewer Styles and therefore fewer on-going maintenance issues.

A linear object and its group labels are the same everywhere. It is a linear object not an every growing pile of separate Features (objects) that must be converted from on type to another to deal with the linear object differently because of our current task’s context and need. Oh and converting the object destroys the existing annotation? Not Good.

Where No Man has Gone Before

Maybe I’m wrong. The now classic Civil 3D Interface to get at this stuff (as wonderfully consistent as it is) probably helps to grow or at least sustain some of the above problems or issues.

How we expect to see things is at the heart of many problems.
A new vision of the “normal” is often the lively center of the best innovation.

Autodesk, it’s really ok to change the management and edit interface of Civil 3D for the better.

Fundamental Spatial Geometry

We don’t live and work in “Flatland”.
Yes, we still must publish to a flat world and Civil 3D is good and capable at doing that.
We don’t live and work in a particulate world either. It's interrelated.
Yes, Civil 3D provides many specific kinds of parts (Features)  to allow us to more effectively get our jobs done.

The fundamental object representation most adaptable to the man-made world is a 3D topological mesh. All the familiar CAD parts we know are pieces of that mesh. They are simple players in the game. Our now more familiar Civil 3D Features are more parental, control, and managing shepherds in this new imaginary World Mesh.

To be clear I’m NOT talking surface models or any existing ACAD primitive when I speak of a World Mesh Feature. Think more along the lines of a Corridor model where both the node locations and the linear interconnecting vectors between the nodes are managed and controlled – if you perfer in classic horizontal and vertical control of civil engineering.

The math behind the World Mesh “Feature” isn’t unknown or a great unsolved mystery. The storage mechanics for such structures already exist too. They currently don’t exist in AutoCAD. I’d hazard to guess Autodesk owns or already licenses most of the intellectual capital and the patents to do this already.

The fact the work is perhaps being done elsewhere in other products and not in Civil 3D doesn’t bother me. I’d simply like to see more synergy and inclusion in future releases of AutoCAD Civil 3D.

Do we have the compute and storage power available to practically employ a World Mesh Feature? Yes. We’ll probably have to limit the scope and size of the create and edit interface perhaps for compute reasons but more likely because we as people are too often overwhelmed by too much information anyway.
Thank goodness for BOTH Feature and Style. You can get more here.

If you consider a World Mesh Feature for even a few minutes, you’ll recognize that World Mesh Nodes have to be much more intelligent than what we have in ACAD, Map 3D, or Civil 3D today.
(Like I said above how we look at the problem changes things.)

The Mesh Node must perform the intelligent cross connection work between multiple attached vectors of different types. For example: the Mesh Node must transmit to the “right” vectors tangency and/or slope constraints -this way, but not that way across the Mesh Node. It must do that to keep the child linear Feature properties straight (Pun intended).
You know what?
The more you look at the issues…

Points Matter and Must Get Smarter Faster at Warp Speed

Put another way…

“Mr. Data, Please Make It So”

Over the last three releases of AutoCAD Civil 3D we’ve seen a major effort by Autodesk put into gravity Pipe Networks and Storm and Sanitary Analysis. That’s paid off in some pretty useful and productive tools. Autodesk put on the gloves for a new boxing match in the 2013 release.

Pipes Under Pressure

Pressure Pipe Networks and their companion Features are brand new for 2013. We now have Pressure Pipe Networks, Pressure Pipe Part Lists, Pressure Pipes, and two different types of “structures” – Fittings and Appurtenances. “Appurtenances” are all the other stuff like valves, regulators, etc. that may be part of pressure system aside from the connecting Fittings between the pipes.

One of the better things about Civil 3D is the consistent interface approach the software employs. If you’ve used Civil 3D Pipes in your work before, the basic concepts, creation, and editing processes of Pressure Pipes are much the same. Most of the new interface and the creation and maintenance of Parts Lists and all the attendant Styles should be relatively familiar ground for the experienced user.

However, in Pressure Pipe Networks (PPN) things are a bit different for both specific discipline reasons and because Autodesk took a somewhat different approach to some of the technical aspects of Pressure Pipe Networks as well. Simply put - more of what’s going on is driven by your current Pressure Pipe Part List and the backend data in the database driven Catalogs than in the existing gravity Pipes application.

AWWA Content

Autodesk says they’ll ship 3 (three) Imperial Pressure Pipe Catalogs (PPC) based on the American Water Work Association (AWWA) standards and one Metric PPC. The AWWA PPCs include three classes of connection systems – Push On, Flanged, and Mechanical. The initial Metric PPC will only include a Push On connection system. 

The PPC are editable datasets. That is good news. The Catalogs are not, however, editable from inside the software. You must look for the separate really basic application to do that where Civil 3D is installed. The 2013 release of Civil 3D does include a command to build a complete Pressure Network Parts List from the “current” PPC.

The Pressure Pipe Design Interface

The Pressure Pipe Network design interface works primarily in Plan. You may reference either or both a reference Surface and/or Alignment. In the Ribbon interface a familiar “Cover” property locates the component’s elevation (at the XY pick points) based on the currently referenced Surface.  You may construct Pipes alone or Pipes and Bends together. You may also optionally place Fittings and Appurtenances and connect them with Pipes after the fact. In my limited experience I ended up employing all three methods and was glad for the built in flexibility.

It’s a Bit Mind Bending

Pressure Pipes support both Straight and “Curved” pipes. The specifics of the allowed direction, Pipe deflection tolerance, and allowed Pipe curvature are driven by the current Fitting and Pipe data values from the Part List. Remember that these Part List property values came from a Catalog database when the Parts List was made.

Plan it That Way

In Plan Civil 3D generates an on screen “Compass” tool when you construct pipes. The plan Compass reflects angular possibilities from the Fitting choices available in the current Parts List. Therefore, if you’ve only included 90 and 45 degree bends in your Parts List the Compass reflects the fact. The Compass interface tool helps you visualize and “snap to” these “acceptable” directions. 
The Civil 3D 2013 PPN interface also provides handy, new Dynamic glyphs as an aid when you must make a connection to an existing “structure” or break a Pipe.

The design interface initially takes some getting used to because of the “hidden” data driven constraint system operating behind the scenes. ACAD and Civil 3D transparent alignment commands (e.g. ‘SO) do work, but you can get unexpected results based on the available Parts in the “system”. While the Compass will display in 3D as shown below, the tool is NOT functional in the 3D viewport in this release.

Get a Grip on Pressure Pipes

The PPN parts have decent and intuitive grips to help you perform typical rearrangements. For example: you need to flip the direction that a tee or a bend is pointing. These new PPN grips even help with construction tasks like generating a new pipe segment from an existing part connection.

Choosing the specifics of Pipe size, Fitting, and Appurtenance are based on pull down menus generated from the Part List. If your design requires you change size, structure type, etc in mid-stream you do have to mind these interface pull-down selections carefully or go back and fix things later. Civil 3D does help you find the problems you may have created as we shall see later.

In the betas a specific Pressure Pipe Part List did not appear to be confined to a single type of connection system. That’s good at one level since a more complex Parts List does emulate the part selection issues we may face in many real world systems. This flexible and more capable approach does mean a user has to know and have some experience with the Parts List specifics. I just had to ask and consternate a bit about the "adaptive" fittings that have to go between the different "connection" systems. 

Pressure Pipe Network Analysis

Once you have your PPN built, there are “analysis” Design Checks for Coverage and other Design Criteria technical "infractions" a user may create within the network. For example: you’ve exceeded the allowed pipe deflection angle for fitting (of type and size) that you placed and edited. The provided visual quality assurances feedback is basic and typical of Civil 3D. It is reasonably effective too.

There is no interference checking in Civil 3D 2013 nor are there the Interference Styles to display such conflicts. There are no formal pressure system engineering analysis tools in there either. This is round one after all.

You can manually create an Alignment Feature from selected PPN parts and the reference alignment will stay connected to the pressure system if you don’t manually edit the alignment itself. The link is one way. You can add selected PPN parts to a Profile, edit the properties of the parts from a Profile View, and annotate them there. The basic processes are consistent with the existing gravity Pipe Network interface.

Publish on Demand

You can produce reasonable annotated Plan and Profile plans of your Pressure Pipe Network with the tools and the associated Pressure Pipe Feature Styles. I constructed Filled, Double Line, and Single Line representations without undue effort. The Styles properties for the various new Features closely resemble existing Pipe Feature Styles.

Annotative Label Styles are a bit more problematic because of the number of potential values you have to get your head around and the dearth and/or wealth of information available to users in the Catalog data. The Pressure Pipe Parts List didn’t appear to currently expose in the interface everything that’s in the Catalogs to the user. Way too much information is often overwhelming, but sometimes you really do need to know the specifics without having to go elsewhere to find them.

In this initial release Pressure Pipe Networks you should not expect all the bells and whistles that have already evolved in gravity Pipes. There are only Plan, Profile, and Model representations for Pressure Pipe Networks. There is no display of the new Pressure Pipe Network Features in Section. That was annoying.

The beta Catalogs I had access to were limited in materials, sizes, annotative detail, and the number and types of Appurtenances in particular. Don’t expect all the site design functionality you probably want and may expect out of the box in this “round one” version of Pressure Pipes in Civil 3D. You can unquestionably do that kind work with it, but you’ll have more essential setup work to do beforehand.

When it’s all said and done, the new Pressure Pipes feature in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 still beats the heck out of tweaking a gravity Pipe Network to do the job of basic Pressure Pipe design poorly. Certainly, the necessary data essentials are there for some more in-depth pressure for even more BIM for Infrastructure in our future.

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