We all learn about those nasty CAD Standards. We believe we get them down pat. Next thing we know, they come back and bite us at the most uncomfortable times.
“We cannot see the degree symbols (°) in labels in the survey parcel drawings.”
How does that happen?
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Everyone who uses AutoCAD knows that we just…
Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Jun 18, 2026
Tags CAD Standards, font, text, definitions, NCS, NCS 6.0, NCS 7.0, ISO, special characters, ttf, shx
Autodesk recently announced a $3.6 billion dollar purchase of MaintainX and the subsequent creation of the new Autodesk Operations Solutions group inside Autodesk. From away up here in the cheap seats, we believe this is the largest, single technology purchase that Autodesk has ever made. Something to consider seriously.
Somewhere there must be a video about…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Jun 11, 2026
Tags customization, implementation, operations, Jump Kit, Drainage Analysis, video, Spreadsheet Tools
The specifics of the latest Autodesk Civil 3D release may not blow us away. The new Civil 3D features may not appear particularly useful for our current project work. Out here in Civil 3D Land, we are daily users of Autodesk Civil 3D. We must embrace the day-to-day concerns that drive our civil engineering and survey work.
In some speculative…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
May 28, 2026
Tags Speadsheet Tools, customization, implementation, CAD Standards, Layer Standards, Block Standards, linetype, video
The Point is one of the most overused words in Autodesk Civil 3D. Are we talking about COGO points? Survey Points? Point Groups? Point data in a Surface? Points of Intersection in our horizontal, vertical, and cross section control?
This list of different and/or separate meanings for the word Point seems to be a never-ending story.
The mastery of…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Feb 12, 2026
Tags Description Key, Description Key Set, point, Point Style, Point Label Style, expressions, Expression Set, Property Set, point group, figure, survey db
For good reasons Autodesk Civil 3D doesn’t police whether we pile a bunch of Civil 3D Features into a single drawing and then design, QAQC, and publish that way. Civil 3D doesn’t care. We manage this Civil 3D reality or not. In the real world, most of us are unlikely to work on a project that requires only a single drawing. We do not work in a world where civil engineering and survey…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Mar 13, 2025
Tags project template, customization, implementation, CAD Standards, Project Management, performance