Long before April Fool’s Day, I saw a classic misinformation post about AutoCAD Civil 3D and named Plot Styles. The stated implication of the post was that Civil 3D object Styles had issues with STB based publishing. Therefore, you as a Civil 3D user should avoid STB and stick with the old CTB technology born back in the dark ages of CAD and pen plotters. All I can say is,
WATT?
What Are They Thinking? WATT is my personal form of the term - rant. I employ WATT in this blog as a tag. I adore WATT more because it couples the sound of what with the meanings of power and a broader dissemination of applied thought.
I really don’t have a problem with CTB. If CTB publication is required to get paid, you do it. Let’s face it most Civil 3D users today have never seen a pen plotter. If you used one today, you’d be broke and starving after your first civil engineering or survey project. The pen plotter was a moment in history. It is history.
CTB is more work simply because CTB is inherently dumber. Technically, you must dumb down STB to convert it to CTB. To smart up is a bit tougher. For CTB to work, users have to work harder and must consider color all the time. That continuous attention is a subtle and erosive thief of user man-hours. CTB is like using a Layer information management paradigm inside your Civil 3D model. It works, but it is painfully slower. CTB takes valuable user time I, and many others, believe is best spent doing productive work.
The InstantOn Miracle
People who use CTB don’t believe this. They know better. They know what they know.
Fake News
Are posts like this Fake News? This post came from a well-intentioned source I will not name. That person is a paid Civil 3D expert working for a reputable firm in a support role with “years of real world experience”. Apparently, those years were spent doing the same old thing the same old way.
Come on, Dude
You don’t understand how STB works. You try it and apply it to Civil 3D style as though it was just like CTB and low and behold it doesn’t work.
“See…Civil 3D has a problem with STB.”
Such ignorance is infectious especially to others who think like you. Well…maybe they don’t think… like you. You have a way out. Edit the post to become an April Fool’s joke.
If this tried and tested technology is in use in many of the largest Civil 3D using organizations around, STB must work. National and International CAD standards both employ and recommend STB.
You should ask “Why?” and “What am I missing?” before you publically post dire warnings out to the unsuspecting world-wide-web with pictures that “prove it”.
I can forgive you. Civil 3D Style resolution is a bitch. Where what it looks like and how it publishes can be dicey to figure out. All it takes is one little thing out of whack and you are pulling your hair out. This is especially true when you make invalid assumptions based on your past experience that does not apply at all to the current problem.
The term IYI might mean something to some. Sadly, it won’t to you. IYI is certainly worth understanding.
We all want to blame the software not our ignorance and lack of applied experience. Did you turn in a bug report?
In answer to your problem…You did not ask the not so obvious question, “Where does weight come from?”
Real Good News
The Framework for Civil 3D supports both STB and CTB and conversion between the two. Who knew?