Civil 3D Data References in Site Grading Corridors

Civil 3D Site Grading Corridor production work can require lots of potential details and nuance. This suggests that we also often get complex Design Control with important Parent Child relationships that we want to maintain and employ for our benefit within the Civil 3D project context.

Most Civil 3D uses come to understand the project-based production benefits of a shared Data Reference (DREF). We can create and systematically QAQC many Civil 3D Features and employ that validated work better within the Civil 3D project context.

Data Reference Design Control for Site Grading Corridors

That Shared Civil 3D Data Behind may be employed in multiple types of production and publication drawings for different project tasks and purposes.

In the previous Site Grading Corridor Design Control in Civil 3D post we explored some of the many forms of Design Control manifest in a Corridor built to solve Site Grading design challenges. To construct and manage the Design Control for the multiple Baselines and the Targeting in multiple Regions requires new and learnable sets of Civil 3D skills.

How to employ the many available Civil 3D tools to a Site Grading Corridor presents one set of issues. The Why and When to employ a particular and specific Civil 3D tool and then to employ the results as DREFs requires some additional, clearer perspectives.

Civil 3D DREFs provide a better method to manage the complex Design Control in a multi-Baseline Site Grading Corridor. Take an all access video tour…

 

Site Grading Design Shared Control

Did you ever consider employing the Civil 3D Drive command to help you more quickly identify issues in your resolved surfaces? Drive is certainly not the first Civil 3D command we think might be useful for QAQC. Better design visualization works. Just sayin’.

Keys to Better Managed DREF Design Control

Left unsaid in the video…
All the well-integrated Framework for Civil 3D Style resources employed in a video help us create the Design Control, QAQC the corridor resolved results, and produce the end production deliverables from a Site Grading Corridor with less effort and hassle.

Managed Style Choice makes a production difference in Civil 3D.

Naming Conventions

I should be preaching to the Civil 3D user choir here.

You may not like the choices of naming convention employed in the video.
All the Design Control is named based on a key Corridor Baseline Alignment.
No worries. Plan and employ your own.
The need for disciplined Design Control naming conventions become very clear when we tackle complex multi-Baseline Site Grading Corridors.
The numbers matter.

Obviously (or maybe not), it does help to be able to easily identify DREF resources separately from current drawing or local design control. Maybe you also caught the hint to employ a separate Design Control drawing to help you manage all the details more simply?

Civil 3D Project Templates and Structures

Regular and concerted effort directed towards better, continuously improved, and available to user Civil 3D Project Templates and resources pays off significantly in Civil 3D production capability and execution. Yes. This is a regular rant in this blog because Civil 3D Project Templates really do matter.

Hopefully, it should not be lost in the shuffle that these Civil 3D Project Template resources and vital structures are not confined to the scope of entire projects. We can create separate partial Civil 3D Project Template solutions to optimize the current tasks and workflows we employ.

Put another way. The example in the video employs a basic linear Corridor to produce a parking lot Site Grading Corridor. Our Project-based drawing and complementary DREF structure has a Parking Lot folder to help us better manage, identify, and employ the DREFs.

A non-linear Site Grading Corridor like a Pond may require that project DREF classification and a different set of drawing storage locations and structures.

Certainly, not every Civil 3D project will include either or both design challenges?

The Separation of Powers rule applies to our Civil 3D Project Templates and resources.

DREF Design Control is a Planned Result

All the nuanced Design Control delivered by project-based DREFs never happens at once. Won’t that be nice. We learn to build it up sequentially and systematically or not.

The better you can develop a consistent repeatable process that constructs, QAQCs, and then shares the Corridor Design Control, the better and more consistent your results will become.

It is way too easy to get head down in the CURRENT problem and miss the forest for the trees.

Civil 3D does not require projects. Civil 3D is the project.

Better Corridor Design from Replaceable Parts

The Site Grading Corridor we build should be based on the concept and practice of replaceable parts.

The replaceable part method and practice requires personal and corporate skill sets and the mutual applied disciplines that we should learn to practice.

The replaceable part method and practice includes: Baseline Design Control; Region Targeting Design Control; replaceable Sets of Assemblies that work together as packs; applied Region Frequency nuance; and even Corridor Surface mechanics.
There’s a reason the Corridor Properties box has so many details and options.

See the other posts in the Site Grading With Corridors series for more about those concerns.

Can you replace the parts in your Site Grading Corridor successfully?
This is a good test of your Civil 3D skills, the stability of the resources employed, the corridor results, and arguably the civil engineering design itself.

Yes. It helps…If your Civil 3D Style resources are built to be up to the task.

Make Civil 3D Work
Get the Framework for Civil 3D Release 8

 

Grading with Site Corridors Posts

Updates, additions, and fixes to the posts in this series are on-going.