Civil 3D Templates and Civil 3D Style Libraries

Let’s proactively start off a new year with a chat about some practical and mission critical Autodesk Civil 3D realities.

Around here we build, manage, and maintain an enormous and deep set of Civil 3D Templates and Civil 3D Style resources for multiple releases of Civil 3D.

Like everyone else we had to learn the hard way to systematically manage a large set of Templates and Style Libraries.

Customers often ask us to summarize and boil down that body of knowledge. That is no easy task. The result doesn’t tend to produce short, pithy posts with lots of color pictures and video eye candy.

People see these resources made manifest in our Jump Kit and Templates Only Framework for Civil 3D products.
Jump Kit is a generic US Imperial Country Kit for Autodesk Civil 3D.

Since the initial beta release of Civil 3D we’ve focused on that vital task.

The first principal of Civil 3D implementation…

“It is Easier to Edit than to Create.”

We all need to achieve consistent production performances with the notorious Civil 3D diva.
Real world civil engineering and survey project work requires the management of a lot of nuanced complexity. It is way too easy to be overwhelmed. We must somehow divide and conquer the many factors involved.

To be frank – These days some of this effort can be a waste of time. Find someone else to do most of the dirty and tedious work. From our perspective that is the most sensical and practical reason why there is a Framework for Civil 3D.

The essential Elements of Style in Civil 3D post details the mandatory AutoCAD and Civil 3D Style basics we face. Take time to read and review that post. Review the mission critical path goals expressed there.

The Civil 3D Template

Out here in Civil 3D Land, some pursue that somewhat elusive and mythical beast – the Civil 3D Template.

There are at least two general, daily-use forms of the Civil 3D Template for production work. These are the collections of Styles and Label Styles used in:

• Working Templates employed in the day-to-day production process and project drawings.
  In the production project world, we usually want and require a variety of Style choices and perhaps more than one form of Working Template for different types of projects.
• Publish Templates employed in project publication drawings.
  In the best-case scenario, this second Publish Style collection is typically a subset of the larger Working Template Style collection and includes a more limited set of Styles matched to the requirements of our deliverables.

We need to answer the why and the how these Template forms come into being and are then maintained.

Let’s face it, Civil 3D Template creation produces much more affirming feedback and is more fun than the more boring maintenance work. The Civil 3D Release and Civil 3D Update maintenance work is where the rubber hits the road. It is where the fruits of our skilled labor and management abilities are truly made manifest.

Style Collection Types, Libraries and the Known Good

Any Civil 3D Template (or any project drawing for that matter) is a Style Collection – a collection of named Styles. If we want to successfully manage and maintain consistent, operational Style Collections, we must create somewhere a separate collection of the known good.

Why? Any in use Style in any drawing is subject to edit and change by any Civil 3D user with access to the drawing without notice to any other user.

This user dependent aspect of Style in Civil 3D is nothing new to AutoCAD users. This is why we talk and obsess about CAD Standards. For example: a user can change any property of a Layer (even a Layer name) without notice to any other user.
The potential number of Styles and variants of Style properties in Civil 3D acerbates the classic CAD Standards management problem.
The complexity problem argues for the systematic management of the same.

Template Libraries

Many people initially consider that their Civil 3D Template is that separate known good Style Collection.
This approach seems to provide some simplified benefits:

• A limited number of resource Style collections
• The resources match the Templates in use which may reduce end user confusion as to the location of the known good
• A limited number of known good resources somewhat matches development to the end-product
• Maintenance of Styles linked to Civil 3D Expressions and/or Property Set definitions are somewhat simplified.

Civil 3D Templates employed as the known good resource has significant practical maintenance and upgrade problems.
A Civil 3D Template as the known good collection:

• Tend to grow in size, number, and complexity over time
• Templates by definition contain Civil 3D Settings and Label Style Defaults.
  These can and do complicate the Style maintenance and update processes.
• Are generally limited to those commonly in use Styles.
  Therefore, the development and maintenance of specialized Styles collections is more problematic. At the very least we tend to avoid the creation of specialized collections.
• Ignores and/or complicates the creation and maintenance of separate Publish templates.
  The idea that we might have or want a separate Publish template appears silly.
• Creation of new separate specialty collections and resources is more problematic.
  The very creation of these means there are now multiple forms of the known good.
• Require separate container Styles to manage shared Civil 3D Expressions and Property Set definitions employed in the Style Collection.
  Styles that employ these resources may break if the Expression and/or Property Set definition does not exist prior to a Style import. This is admittedly a nuanced and annoying issue.

Template Development is Additive

In practice, Civil 3D Templates are generally best created and maintained by Additive methods and processes. In other words, collections of tested Styles are assembled together after their development and after the mandatory testing with live Civil 3D project data behind.

• The process of creating new Styles and Style collections is typically best performed in non-template drawings
• The process of editing and/or updating Styles and Style collections is typically best performed in non-template drawings

Your personal experience with Style development and the intimate relationship of Style to the Civil 3D data behind should bear witness to these common Civil 3D Style creation and edit realities.

All Templates Must be Updated

Civil 3D Release and Update maintenance may require the replacement and/or recreation of the Civil 3D Templates themselves due to both functional software changes in the Civil 3D object model.
The changes and updates required in any Civil 3D Release or Update are partial.
The changes commonly pertain to very specific portions of the Style Collection.

The Civil 3D Style development process, therefore, tends to demand the creation and maintenance of separate Style Library Collections to maintain a consistent and separate state of the known good.

The level of detail or separation of resources in any Style Collection tends to increase with both size and time. We need make a concerted and systematic effort to manage this practically.

We can lose the known good result we need for consistent production results by over-complicating the organizational matters.

Feature Libraries

Collecting the Styles and Label Styles based on the Type of Civil 3D Feature (the order of Civil Features in the Toolspace interface) is typically the easiest or common method to organize the practical solution. The Framework for Civil 3D products employ this Style collection method to create and maintain Style libraries for all Civil 3D Features.

Most of the Style Choice diversity and maintenance problem is functionally confined to a few Civil 3D Features in any new Release or Update. It is important to first try and identify these changes.

At the practical and daily usage level 80%+ of the list of all Civil 3D Features require only a few Style, Label Style, and Label Set choices.

We should identify these common Civil 3D Features which can vary based on the type of production project work we perform.

Specialty Style Libraries

Collections of Styles and Label Styles necessary to complete specific tasks also works in specialized circumstances. These collections include Styles and Label Styles for multiple Civil 3D Features that, in effect, can function together to optimize a particular type of project task work. The Style tools needed for Road design are different from the Style tools needed for utility Pipe design.

The Jump Kit product employs Specialty Style Libraries for specific types of project tasks. For example: Levee and Floodwall design; Pond and Basin design; Beach Erosion mitigation; etc. These include all the AutoCAD Style and Civil 3D Style resources needed to perform and/or publish that from of project work.
We refer to these task-based library collections as Adaptive Template Building Blocks.

In concept we can add these Adaptive Template Building Blocks to quickly and consistently specialize a Civil 3D Template resource and/or a project drawings as needed.

Core Libraries

We must also recognize there is also a Core collection set of Civil 3D Styles, Label Styles, and Sets that are required in Working Templates, project drawings, and Publish versions of the same.

• Where we choose to draw the line between this Core set of Styles and the entire contents of a Working or Publish Template is somewhat arbitrary.
• Core Styles membership is primarily based on the collection of Styles that is always available and those unlikely to change in most circumstances.
• We should consider that the 80%+ of Civil 3D Feature collections that do not require lots of Style choice probably can be included in a Core collection.
• Most of the Generals Style collection should be included in a Core collection.

A Core Styles Library collection becomes more important when we choose to employ a Template Style Collection Target based on the Reference Template Tool (TREF) methodology.

In separate post we address in more detail the method and practice of implementation of library collections in the two currently available…

Civil 3D Template Style Collection Targets

Classic Template Method

Project and publication drawings inherit a Style and Settings collection from a Civil 3D Template (.dwt) file on creation. This was our only maintenance and update choice for many years in Civil 3D.

The Classic Template Method relies significantly upon the individual Civil 3D user being accountable and able to consistently follow a consistent Style update/upgrade process based on the overwrite of named Styles from a known good drawing resource.

Reference Template Method

The Reference Template Method allows us to update the included named Style references (both for raw AutoCAD Styles and Civil 3D Styles) from of one or more named resource drawing(s). On drawing open, Civil 3D will update all the Style references in the drawing from one or more resource drawings.
The overwrite of named Styles from known good drawing resource(s) are externalized, managed, and more automated.

Our Working and Publish drawings then inherit the external Reference Template (TREF) relationships to the attached Style Collection resources.

We can then employ the Power of Names to standardize and customize the Style resolution results consistently.

Beyond the Code
Get the Framework for Civil 3D

 

The Civil 3D Style Maintenance Handbook Post Series

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