We previously discussed the challenges that surround the formal data Dependencies that play an integral role our daily production work inside Autodesk Civil 3D. It is safe to say that we learn to manage Dependencies, or the Dependencies control us.
Put another way – we employ Civil 3D to produce managed projects of data references and those resultant managed dynamic models or we employ Civil 3D to create and print drawings. It is also important for us to recognize that both workflows have valid use cases.
Do we recognize how and when to employ each?
See the recent Manage Civil 3D Dependencies post.
The Managed Project in Civil 3D
The Managed Civil 3D Project raises some interesting and recurring questions about the content of Civil 3D Data Reference (DREF) containers, project stability, project upgrades, and daily production performance in Civil 3D.
We should employ, No Styles templates for DREF containers.
No Styles templates are drawings that only contain the Standard Styles built only by Civil 3D code.
We could call these Standard Only templates or drawings.
Sadly, Standard in any resource file name has too many other meanings for most Civil 3D and AutoCAD users.
No Styles template means - none of our custom Style stuff.
A Project Manager and Civil 3D User ask,
“Why bother to take the time to make the Civil 3D Features shared in these drawings employ nothing but Standard Styles as much as possible?
Isn’t the data in the DREF the only thing that is shared?
If a DREF gets corrupted, why can’t we just ask that a backup be restored?”
The First Major Riff
Glad this person believes they have dependable backup procedures happening. [Drum roll]
We must ask, “When was the backup good?” [Cymbal crash] You know this drill.
We want to do what we can to preserve the shared DREFs in our projects whenever possible.
A destroyed DREF with key Surfaces, Alignments, etc. can cascade into more than a few wasted man-hours. This rarely happens to me. Does it happen to you?
Typically, our Civil 3D DREF container drawings and their contents do not get mashed. People don’t touch them. This Civil 3D user Hands off principal is one of the best things about DREFs. It is the most popular reason to employ them.
Do we know and remember there is a Civil 3D Toolbox project reporting tool that tells us what and where our project DREFs are in use? Where the heck is that?
Political Project Corruption
The project corruption problem often happens when Bob in the cubie next door decides he doesn’t need that one and erases the DREF to clean things up from his perspective.
We should not blame Bob.
I’ve been known to do this to myself and find out the hard way days later. Dooh.
We’ve all heard this theme song before.
Sounds like Me and Bobby McGee – the screaming banshee Janis Joplin version.
We all recognize the opposing political noise problem of a bunch of now dead DREFs cluttering up a Civil 3D project.
Perhaps we could employ a DREF folder structure built into our Civil 3D Project Template(s) that helps everyone keep better track?
Yes. We can do that.
The First Minor Riff
We all know by now that the name(s) of the assigned Style(s) in the DREF are also shared by default via the Data Shortcut.
That alone can be good news or bad news. That depends on the current project context.
What we want our DREF to do and how we need the data behind to be represented is the most pertinent question to ask at the instant of Data Reference attachment.
A default of a Standard Style is always safe choice.
That Standard Style name causes us to pause and consider what we really want and need.
Human Factors Engineering
Ok. Maybe all our Civil 3D users always manage to do the right thing. Perhaps you are the sole master of all your personal Civil 3D project domains. We believe the only human factors we have to deal with are personal. Sadly, there is more going on here than our personal preference.
The Bridge Over Troubled Water
Lots of folk in Civil 3D Land choose to ignore this NoStyles Template and DREF advice and deal with the results. We pay the piper sometime.
Sadly, many of these same people have more issues and on-going hidden expenses related to the implementation of Civil 3D Upgrades and product Updates inside their Civil 3D projects.
Our practical long-term project context issue is that Autodesk changes the Civil 3D Object Model (the data behind itself) whenever they want to change it. In any numbered Release or new Update, the data behind defined by the Object Model can and does change.
The issue missed by the user is that it is in Autodesk’s best sales interest to disguise these Object Model changes as much as possible. They seem to have stopped doing major Civil 3D Object Model changes in numbered releases because of the years of bad experiences and/or bad press. They studiously avoid changing the most used (and most unused) ones to make the software appear safer and more stable to users.
In the name of backwards compatibility, Autodesk now cascades back the newest Civil 3D Object Model changes and fixed code changes via the regular product Updates to reduce the different release issues and bug complaints.
Our Civil 3D Project’s Data Behind
This means the data behind in all our projects IS going to change.
It is probably an even more painful, dangerous, and expensive strategy to not implement new product Updates.
By definition Standard Styles are constructed by and updated by the current Civil 3D Object Model code itself.
Data Reference (DREF) sources that contain only Standard Styles are easier for Civil 3D to Update successfully. The shared Civil 3D models are much less likely to fail.
The accumulation of lots of custom Styles from multiple DREF sources complicates ALL the mission critical core Civil 3D processes and in-project DREF performance (but probably not a lot).
When there are problems, our Styles often make the data behind problem identification problems more difficult for everyone to nail down. Guess what gets the blame.
NoStyles Makes Sense
We argue that the simple workflows to make critical DREFs as Styleless as possible are worth the small man-hour investment.
When our Civil 3D users need to make a shared DREF Styleless is a business decision.
That is why we try to employ the term benchmark when we talk about this change of state.
All Project Managers and many Civil 3D users want the DREF process to be fast and dirty as possible until the crud hits the fan. Then they don’t. Eheh.
From a business perspective, we suggest that desire should be managed towards longer-term project stability.
DREF Separation Buckets and the Data Behind
We tend to think of the Civil 3D data behind as one thing – e.g a resolved Surface model - because that is how we deal with and experience the separate and collected Civil 3D Feature data in Civil 3D.
Each of the Civil 3D Features are themselves containers of collections of sets of collected property data of different types and separate build property specifics.
Yes. That sentence a mouthful of marbles.
We like to say that Civil 3D Features have Buckets. The most important Civil 3D Features have Buckets that have mini-Buckets. For example: Alignments have many Buckets. They also contain Profiles and a bunch of other Features each with buckets each with more buckets of their own.
See the Civil 3D Production Buckets post.
Separating our DREF buckets is important to both Civil 3D project performance and stability.
The Civil 3D Object Model code and the resultant data behind is intentionally compartmentalized into Buckets for both the software code maintenance and Upgrade/Update reasons.
Autodesk replaces the definitions of the buckets…this changes the definitions of the data behind. It is in Autodesk’s best interest not to destroy any existing drawing data shared or not.
Our custom Styles…not so much.
Our custom Styles are the visible and the most likely (hard to find and identify) victims of changes in a change in the current Civil 3D Object Model. These failures are always annoying, sometimes expensive to fix, but rarely terminal.
For the data that is mission critically shared across a working project, the effects and risks of those potential Style failures should be reduced as much as possible.
No Styles for DREFs Makes Sense
By design the Civil 3D Style, Label Style, and Set (Rules) representations are intentionally almost separate from the data behind. We should pay attention to and use this Civil 3D Style behavior to our advantage.
Styleless Data References are both the beauty and the beast of Civil 3D.
What would happen if we suddenly needed to publish our project right after the latest product Update or maybe even to a new set of our own CAD Standards?
Sounds like a Halloween movie or a Steven King novel, doesn’t it?
We Make Civil 3D Work Better
Get the Framework for Civil 3D
Data Relationships in Civil 3D
Updates, additions, and fixes to the posts in this series are on-going.
Manage Civil 3D Dependencies
Styleless Data References in Civil 3D
Styleless DREF Mechanics in Civil 3D