Rehab Corridors from Civil 3D Survey

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The latest and greatest AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018.1 Update includes new Rehab Corridor tools. There many city, county, and township road departments that employ the Framework for Civil 3D. I get questions about the new Rehab Corridor tools for good reason. Maintenance rehab projects are so common and such a daily hassle even your car needs to tell you about them and where they are.

“Are these rehab tools worth upgrading to Civil 3D 2018?
How do the new Rehab Corridor tools differ from the Rehab Subassembly tools that have been included in Civil 3D for many releases.”

In answer to the second - the 2018.1 Rehab Corridor Tools are more than a new set of subassemblies. The Rehab Corridor Tools build and manage dynamic Rehab Assemblies inside a new specialized type of Corridor from a selection of six new complied .Net subassemblies.

Watch out. Autodesk even added six new codes to the infamous Subassemblies codes file resource that hasn’t changed since release 2012. No Code Set Style created before for the Civil 3D 2018.1 update will include these.

There’s a Framework for Civil 3D AddOn in there somewhere.

Flapping Our Lips About Roadway Rehab

You can read the new Rehab Subassemblies Help file from here. Flapping must be a new inside Rehab geek joke. The additions to the Civil 3D 2018 help file are technically explicit. As usual they far from explanatory or helpful in the intuitive and human sense. RTM on the subs even if you don’t understand a word. Reading the words will help your brain attach better meaning as you learn from experience using the tools.

You do read a tiny bit of the Civil 3D Help file every day? Don’t you?

Autodesk’s Alan Gilbert has already started a primer series with his Overview of 2018.1 Rehab Corridors video on the Civil Immersion blog. Alan’s usually good about the technical details so pay attention. He has promised more.
Autodesk will also host an in-depth webinar early in Nov. You can sign up here.

The latest bi-monthly Autodesk Civil Community webinar recordings are no longer available on YouTube. Autodesk marketing apparently mandated a change of hosting providers on Oct 1. Autodesk marketing apparently has Facebook and social click fever. The Wistia video control bites. Finding older recorded content is going to be more difficult for the time being. Our curated video pages might help you out.

Survey data drives the essentials of Rehab projects. Let’s test the basics of Rehab tools from that perspective.

A Quick and Clean Rehab Corridor from Survey

I employed data from the updated Framework project dataset in the video. All of the mechanics shown are covered in other videos. See the Civil 3D Survey at Jump Speed page. Certainly, the Deliverables video course will help you produce production work. Register, and get to Better Deliverables for free.

If you are a Framework customer you can literally walk through all the steps above yourself. Imagine that…Chilling? Maybe you don’t want to do that. Halloween approaches and we all await the next season of Stranger Things.

Speaking of stranger things…

What You Won’t Expect

Those new 2018.1 rehab subassemblies do not magically appear in the default Civil 3D workspace Tool Palettes after you install the 2018.1 Update. You do not technically need the new Rehab Tool Palette to employ the Rehab Corridor Tools.
Ok. To do more complex, real-world Rehab corridor work you do need it.

  1. Set your workspace back to the Civil 3D default one.
  2. Type this god awful command at the command line – AECCIMPORTNEWREHABCONTENT
    I kid you not.
    A new Tool Palette with the subs should now be available.
  3. Immediately, SaveAs the adjusted Civil 3D workspace and fix your new one back to your own personal workspace preferences.

Nowhere in the updated Civil 3D Help is it clearly explained why the dynamic Rehab Assembly changes based on your choices in the top and bottom panels of the Rehab Parameters box.

In summary you get:

  • Crown-based subassembly because you have lanes on both sides of the Rehab Corridor Baseline in the Region.
  • Planar- based subassembly when there a 0 lanes on one side.
  • Multiple Planar-based subassemblies if you choose multiple Lanes
  • The Mill and Level (and implied Overlay) choice in the bottom panel determines the specific subassembly in combination with the lane choices above

The Create a Rehab Corridor command immediately builds a default dynamic Assembly with your current Assembly name template BEFORE you pick Apply in the Rehab Parameters box.

  • Failure to allow Viewport configuration in the Section Editor will kill the initial creation of a Rehab Corridor.

All the flap or not to flap rigmarole found inside the rehab subassembly help is only found in the Assembly properties. These choices are not available in the Rehab Parameters palette.
In other words, if you update the parameter dynamics of the Assembly you must remember to go back and set the flapping properties if you do not want the default – typically User Defined Without Flapping.
Autodesk how about a button in the Rehab Parameters palette interface to get us there?

You do watch the Toolspace?
Best to pay attention to what Civil 3D is creating for you.
The Toolspace>>Prospector>>Assemblies>><named Assembly> Right click and pick Properties works for me.

Perhaps because the Rehab Corridor Tools were released in an Update, Autodesk chose to employ a separate stripped down version of the Section Editor ribbon. Maybe it was a Civil 3D newbie user design decision. Maybe it was a marketing thing. Maybe it’s all about the new automated dynamic Rehab Assembly labels.

Frankly, the Rehab tools could just be a new Panel in the existing Section Editor. Skilled corridor folks will probably be annoyed. A new command with duplicated Command Settings with additions for the new Rehab Parameter defaults is annoying and appears on the surface to be unnecessary. Maybe more is planned for the Rehab Tools Section Editor in an upcoming release.

The Essential Rehab Way Cool

The concept of dynamic Assemblies chosen by and in the Rehab Parameters box is pretty slick. Basically, it’s a simple Assembly construction wizard in disguise.

As usual Autodesk has provided no management tools to save and load standardized choices. A simple bit of export and import XML or JASON configuration text would greatly improve things.
No one asks me. Boo who.
Go ahead. Add that to the Civil 3D Wish List.

Next time we will cover some of the more dicey issues of creation and editing with the new 2018.1 Rehab Corridor Tools and the new subassemblies in more Complex Corridors like:

  • There’s never an intersection in your rehab projects?
  • You never have to phase lane rehabs or rehab differently sides of the roadway?

Certainly, there are more than a few Stranger Things to watch for in the new Rehab Corridor Tools.

There’s another Rehab Corridors from Survey video and post or two in there somewhere.

Get to Work…Get the Magic Beyond the Code

 

Rehab Tools in Civil 3D Posts