Yeah. You probably noticed I haven’t yakked much about the new AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015. That’s a little Abby Normal. However, you might note that Autodesk seems to do the same thing. There is some good stuff in 2015 worth more than this new release blah blah blah.
Yeah. Our Production Solutions for 2014 already run fine in 2015. No biggy.
Upgrade, Open, Save and go back to work.
The 1000’s of Civil 3D Styles in Release 5 already support multiple releases of Civil 3D. (Grin)
There is coolness to come.
“No worries, Mate – This is a KNIFE.”
Movie tongue and cheek mentions aside, the Production Solutions Release 5 products for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 will hit the streets real soon now. We decided to wait for Service Pack 1. I personally expected that a Service Pack would be along sooner rather than later this release cycle. Yep. SP1 came out in the last week of July. Two SPs for Map 3D 2015 sort of made this event obvious.
Survey Before You Install
If you routinely employ fbks and don’t use the Autodesk Data Link Extension, you want to make sure you don’t install this piece of old code in 2015. I want to remind you that you may once again be annoyed that the Process Linework command works intermittently in your Survey Dbs. It might work the first time. It might never work. It may work just fine. Seems to be a crapshoot depending on your OS.
ADLEd Brains
If you install SP1 for Civil 3D 2015, you will not be able to uninstall the ADLE either. You may not be able to uninstall the ADLE by itself anyway. Maybe it uninstalls, but reports back to you that it didn’t – this happened to me in Win 8.1.
You know the drill Uninstall. Clean up everything. Reinstall with the Autodesk Data Link Extension option unchecked. ARRRRGH.
“This can’t be happening man?”
I blame it on…
Systemic Blindness
You know the Systemic Blindness drill…
Some code doesn’t work. I doubt the ADLE code has been touched since it was first built.
Most Civil 3D users would never use it. Those that try rarely do so again.
Those that don’t know think and find Civil 3D unless for consistently generating line work. Not good.
I’ve had conversations with folks who claimed Civil 3D process linework never worked.
“Bob? Why does the Process Linework command work in these videos?”
There is a pretty nebulous note about these Linework processing issues in the Civil 3D help file. The note does not mention that ADLE code may affect Process Linework even if you never use the ADLE.
Take five and try to find the reference in help. I dare you.
Those that know better probably never install the old thing anyway.
(To survive we have to keep book. Don’t we?)
There are NO broken code reports from those that know better.
Autodesk never gets any feedback.
CER reports rule the roost.
Human input is almost meaningless when you have super-duper error and crash tracking code in place.
If your problem doesn’t generate a traceable numeric metric, your problem may not be real.
Autodesk never updates the install options and the stupid issue happens release after release.
Yep. The Veterans Administration has been famous for exactly this kind of behavior for decades. It happens in any system when human input loses value.
If this obscure issue was the only case of Systemic Blindness that occurs in AutoCAD Civil 3D, we’d all be overjoyed wouldn’t we?
Can You Fix Me Now?
If you’re stuck with the issue in your install, here’s the work around.
- Import data into the SurveyDb using any other Survey input method
- I use a do-nothing-serious points file
- Delete that import event
Now the fbk import tools will apparently reinitialize and Process Linework will come back to life.
Trust me. It is better to never have the problem.
A Cure for Systemic Blindness
Management gurus and organizational savants have perused a cure for Systemic Blindness since the beginning of civilization. The US military fights it systematically, tooth-and-nail every day. One thing is clear. Service must remain personal. The human matters.
We know this. We don’t do it. We believe our intentions make a difference because we believe on our expectations match reality. They often don’t.
We must recognize that people will do everything in their power to make their actions impersonal as fast as possible. As I’ve said before, this is about how our brains work internally to optimize our decision making.
The Human Autopilot is a good thing, when we manage it. This is the hard work of life. No matter what, we remain responsible to choose to do so, or not.