Corridor Section Editor Sanity in Civil 3D

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We continue to explore the powerful relationships between the Civil 3D Alignment and the many mission critical Design Control Manager roles in Civil 3D in this on-going series of posts we name the Book of Alignments.

There are at least a dozen design control management roles for the Alignment in Civil 3D.

A substantial number of Alignment Design Control Manager roles involve the Alignment’s entanglements with the five major Civil 3D design model collectors: Corridors, Parcels, Networks, Surfaces, and Points.

Let’s talk about Corridors and tools.

Civil 3D Alignment Quantum Entanglement

The fuzzy metaphor of entanglement at a distance seems apropos and germane. This is especially true when we talk about the complex relationships between the Alignment, and its many children, and the Civil 3D Corridor. For good reason, these strange entanglements tend to turn the brains of folks to toast out here in Civil 3D Land.

Let’s take a quick and recent video training peek at the Section Editor Tool as a classic Civil 3D example. The Civil 3D Section Editor requires a bit of sanity.

 

Make the Civil 3D Section Editor Work Better

Autodesk’s Jeff Bartels usual presentation clarity and brevity in this Section Editor setup video helps make more consistent sense out of some of the classic Civil 3D Section Editor interface nonsense.

No doubt you do not miss the fact that there are multiple different Civil 3D Object Styles that must be well-integrated together to make this essential Corridor production tool function in production for a simple roadway design.

In the 30 quick minutes of the video Jeff does a nifty job of avoiding issues like the Section View Style, the many potential Label Styles required, and the dreaded depths of the Civil 3D Code Set Style.

Style Choice is Better

The Framework for Civil 3D products all ship with in-depth, well-integrated production Style collections that resolve most of the many Section Editor production Civil 3D Style issues out of the box.

See the important Code Set Style in Civil 3D post to fully understand the many vital roles of the Code Set Style in Civil 3D.

The bottom line: If we do not proactively manage the Keys and Codes in Civil 3D, we end up working way too hard. Yes. We even supply Code management Spreadsheet Tools in the Jump Kit product.

Maybe this picture works for you…

Think of the Code Set Style as the Layer State Manager for Corridors.

The Code Set Style defines the CURRENT Corridor output results. Civil 3D employs named Styles instead of named Layers, but the concept of what's going on in a collection of Styles in a Set is essentially the same as that of named Layer State.

What? You do not use Layer States?

Collect a unique look and feel in detail into a Set. Give the Set a name you can remember. We employ both tools to collect in detail way too many properties to remember – either Layer State properties or the current State of Style properties.

The vital Civil 3D Template and Civil 3D Style collections aside…

Civil 3D Data Behind transparency matters to our daily production grind.

Project Explorer Delivers Sanity

If you have access to the newer Project Explorer (PE) interface that is available with an Autodesk AEC Collection subscription, the many entangled details of a Corridor usually make a lot more sense to more people.

The PE includes a more dynamic and separate modal Section view interface and provides better visual and textual feedback about the Alignments, Profiles, Surfaces, Assemblies, Subassemblies, and Network details and the Corridor Feature Line results themselves. Hoorah.

See the Project Explorer videos page for more about that. Jeff has a couple of good basic Project Explorer videos posted there.

The Sanity to Work in Civil 3D
Get the Framework for Civil 3D Release 8

 

Book of Alignments Posts

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