The Autodesk version of March Madness begins. Any day now the latest release of AutoCAD 2023 will hit the street. The Autodesk 2023 release is sure to provide us with productivity improvements. ACAD 2023 will ship with the usual collection of specialized AutoCAD Toolsets. Did you know that there are seven AutoCAD Toolsets? Can you name them?
An AutoCAD Toolset is The Autodesk Myth way of saying that we can have AutoCAD our way.
Errr…Well sort of.
We get it. We still have work to do to make most of the Toolsets useful.
Out here in Civil 3D Land the folks appear to employ all to only one or two or three of the seven. For obvious reasons, multiple disciplinary firms tend to employ more. Sometimes an AutoCAD Toolset is difficult to explain to an IT pleb. Combined AEC Collection and Toolsets installs and deployments can generate real world IT funks. If you do the do, you have practice.
AutoCAD Map 3D Toolset
We employ Civil 3D. We all employ the Map 3D Toolset. Whether we employ the Map tools in our daily production work is another thing entirely. Can you say MAPCLEAN? Map supports more data connections than the current powers-that-be have excuses for high gas prices.
A quick video review of Map data fundaments is in order…
Map 3D Data Fundamentals
Autodesk's Jerry Bartels’s great 30-minute walkthrough of the core Map 3D data tools in worth a tour.
This important video is an introduction to the fundamental principles, practices, and differences of the Map 3D data connections available in Civil 3D. Jerry covers the essential How tos, workflows, and mechanics for the three mission critical forms of Map 3D data connections (Object Data, FDO, and DDE) and what we might accomplish with them in simple tree survey examples.
Map Queries for Grading Optimization ACAD primitives rock.
People ask,
”What is the Framework for Civil 3D?”
The Civil 3D ToolSet
Our customers love the fact that the Framework for Civil 3D works in Civil 3D production environments in multiple releases of Civil 3D right out of the box. There are no affordable Framework for Civil 3D contenders in the marketplace to date. There are reasons for that.
Focus, Perspective, and Persistence Matters
We contend there is more important, value-added work to do for civil engineering, survey, and public agency customers than the mission critical content essentials and development and maintenance tools included in the Framework for Civil 3D.
Civil 3D Templates and Civil 3D Style Libraries are an important and affordable commodity today. The implementation of them in the daily Civil 3D production work is a significant competitive advantage in the large marketplace of civil engineering and survey projects.
Your Civil 3D Toolset is The Framework’s Competition
The most significant product contender is your own customization of Civil 3D. Your current customized Civil 3D demonstrably gets your work out the door or your organization could not be in business. Hat’s off to you – you succeeded to one degree or another.
Excuse me if I ask you to consider that bit more carefully…
We All Want Civil 3D to Work
We all learned that the hard way that Autodesk Civil 3D doesn’t work in production civil engineering and survey organizations without a significant investment in planning, design, and execution. There are hosts of required resources that must work together well for a Civil 3D user to get project work accomplished and consistent deliverables produced.
Just Another Fast Food Burger Joint
The Autodesk Myth tells us that we can have our Civil 3D our way. Autodesk purports to deliver the tools to help us make better hamburgers so to speak. We cannot produce killer burgers until we do a lot of upfront work. Frankly, we appear to be required to build an entire Civil 3D hamburger stand to produce a reasonable deliverable.
Managed Systems Matter
Do we need a backyard Weber, a burger truck, or a chain of beer and burger franchises?
What if we must now quickly deliver fried chicken sandwiches?
The Framework is designed, built, and maintained as the Civil 3D Systems Management Toolset to address this critical business and professional services problem of robust and consistent adaptability in projects and for even specialized tasks within projects.
The Can and the Must
The “can” in You Can Have It Your Way is not a must. We Must Have It Our Way is silly when we must customize the entire car to drive just to get lunch.
Updates and maintenance man-hours for a customized Civil 3D are often worse than the initial Style and other resources create and edit hit. Autodesk is continuously rebuilding the tools and their flagship civil engineering toolkit under our feet.
Most recognize this as a painful fact of life in Civil 3D Land. Therefore, we don’t install new Civil 3D Releases and Updates because our current project work depends on our old and now potentially out of date customizations. We all know the drill. Autodesk Civil 3D 2023 promises that.
We might not want to be on the Civil 3D bleeding edge, but none of us wants to come in last. It is far worse to discover that the reason there is no one else around running the race nearby is the later not the former.
The Framework aims and manages by rules, conventions, and structure – the best practices to make all of that Upgrade and Update nastiness a lot less painful and expensive for our customers. We deal with the QAQC of all the silly details, so our customers don’t have to.
Oh. Framework customers still have to do the work – They do a lot less work. They can also focus on the more important work. They get to employ the new Civil 3D tools and production benefits quicker and with less hassle.
What’s not to like about that?
Civil 3D Implementation is No Cakewalk
Implementation is baked into the Civil 3D cake. Sooner or later we all wind up with a managed system for Civil 3D or not. Without one we experience an all too familiar set of frequent symptoms that are too painful to list. If Civil 3D hurts you, your Civil 3D users, and your projects a good bit of the time, you might catch the drift.
Sadly, it is possible to build an effective Civil 3D production environment that traps you into old and very specific ways and means of doing the project work. An all-too-common example - You mastered production Site grading with Feature Lines but most of the rest of Civil 3D is unusable or seems to be useless rocket science.
Honestly, most of folks with that problem are unlikely to read this post.
The Measured Response
Standard Systems of Measurement are vital to production improvement in the real world.
A copy of the Framework for Civil 3D is a great affordable way to see how well a managed system for production Civil 3D work is built and relatively performs under pressure. It is tough to measure and compare what we cannot see and touch.
The Framework for Civil 3D begs my familiar post question:
“Can your Civil 3D Templates, Civil 3D Styles, and other resources do that?”
If We Can, You Can
You would not be alone. A significant number of our best customers took a while to adopt parts and pieces of the Framework for good reasons. The useful and important thing is the Framework resources are built to be used and implemented exactly that way.
What works for you is what matters.
Civil 3D 2023 Upgrade Protection
Autodesk Civil 3D 2023 is on the way. We can and do make this simple…
We guarantee that a Framework for Civil 3D product for one release of Civil 3D will upgrade to the next release. Usually fixes are not required. We do deliver fixes if they are required. We do have more than a decade of practice systematically managing Civil 3D Upgrades and Updates. This demonstrably works for civil engineering, survey, and public agency customers large and small.
If you purchase a new copy or upgrade to a latest flavor of Jump Kit Release 8 for Civil 3D 2022 between March 15, 2022 and the official Jump Kit Release 8 for Civil 3D 2023 release date, we’ll give you a free Upgrade to the Jump Kit Release 8 for Civil 3D 2023 when that product is available.
How to Eat the Civil 3D Elephant
The elephant in the room is overwhelming. That’s a fact. If you want help implementing a Managed System for Civil 3D with the Framework for Civil 3D, please give us a call.
We understand and know a few things about how to cook and enjoy the big Civil 3D beast in tasty, bite-sized pieces.
Together We Make Civil 3D Work
Get the Framework for Civil 3D Release 8