AutoCAD Civil 3d Setup: Let`s save your eyes!

Your eyes are important and I hate the default colours. Working with a white or washed out black background will strain your eyes. I have no clue why Autodesk chose them as the default colours. As a designer you need your eyes and you'll be staring at the screen for long periods of time. 

Lets personalize our display settings. 

• Type OPTIONS in the command line
• Go to the DISPLAY Tab:

• Click on Colours

• Note the Context Window.  The two items that you`re most interested in is the 2D model space and Sheet/Layout. In the Interface Element keep the Uniform Background highlighted and then pull down Colour and highlight BLACK.
• Repeat the steps for the Sheet/Layout in your Context Window and choose Colour BLACK.
• Apply and close the windows
• Go to your Model and Sheet Tabs located at the bottom left corner and check that your model background and sheet/layout background are now showing a black background.
• Thank me later for saving your eyes

Note that you have alot of options to personalize here. You can personalize the colour of your crosshairs, block editor window, even the background of your command line. Explore the options and personalize your work settings. The rest of the default colours should be fine.

AutoCAD and Civil 3D

What is the difference/relationship between AutoCAD and Civil 3d?

AutoCAD has been around for ages. It's the base platform for Computer Aided Design (CAD). AutoCAD is an excellent way to show information in a 2-D format. You can draw in 3-D but in the Transportation Consulting world it's hardly used at this moment. 

Civil 3d is an 'add on' to AutoCAD much like how Land Desktop Developer is (or was).  Civil 3d is a fantastic analytical tool to help designers and engineers make critical design decisions. It also minimizes the guesswork and interpolation by producing accurate results quickly and efficiently in REAL TIME.

Let's put it this way. AutoCAD is your Motor and Civil 3d is the Turbo Charger which you attach to the motor. There are plenty of field specific add-ons offered by Autodesk but as a road or land developer, 99% of your needs will be answered through Civil 3d.

Recommended System Requirements: Where Should I be spending the money?

Like any good CAD ninja, I wanted to be able to run Civil 3d at home.  My laptop was well over 5 years old and could barely run the 2-D functions.

It was time to get a new machine.  I looked at the System Requirements for 2011 Civil 3d on the Autodesk website: 

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15444804&linkID=9240697#section10

For 64-Bit AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011

·         Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (64-bit); Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, Ultimate (SP1 or SP2, 64-bit); or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (SP2, 64-bit).

·         AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel® Xeon with Intel® EM64T support, Intel® Pentium® 4 with Intel EM64T support.

·         4 GB RAM minimum required, 8 GB RAM minimum recommended. 

·         7 GB disk space with 2 GB free after installation.

·         1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter (true color) 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card. 1,600 x 1,200 or greater recommended. Multiple monitors are supported.

·         Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later.

·         DVD drive.

Keep in mind that the System Requirements doesn’t mean the best performance. Getting a computer with the exact spec’s above won’t mean you’ll cut through your drawings like a true ninja.

Before you go nuts in spec’ing out your system, let’s ask yourself three key questions.

1.   What’s your budget?

2.   How large are your projects? Are you building Corridors over 4 km in length or a subdivision road with multiple intersecting roads? How about services such as Storm Sewers, Sanitary and Watermains? Or are you do simple road widening for a commercial development or putting together a few figures here and there?

3.   Do you plan to use the computer for other purposes such as games?

Unfortunately for me, I wanted a fairly high end computers because my projects were stupid big and complicated.

I had a modest budget I did a lot of research of where I should be putting my money. Here’s what I learned.

·        CPU speed is king. My personal preference is to stick with an Intel chip (sorry AMD fans!) I wanted a computer with a minimum i5 processor but my preference is an i7. Having an i5 processor is sufficient to cut through the small projects but you`ll notice considerable slow down for larger projects. There’s debate whether Civil 3d utilizes multiple processors and the simple answer looks like no, however the CPU speed does matter!

·        RAM. The guys over at Being Civil have a great article on RAM and Civil 3d. http://beingcivil.typepad.com/my_weblog/memory/

They recommended 8 GB as the sweet spot. I can`t argue with that. They have great proof. I on the other hand like to run the odd game here and there so I set out for at least 12 GB of RAM.  Besides, RAM is fairly cheap!

·        Solid State Drives. The biggest bottle neck to any system is the hard drive. Introducing the Solid State Drive and the 500 MB/s Read Speeds!  Currently Samsung makes the best SSDs as well as Crucial. No need to go for the Samsung Pro unless you want bragging rights. For capacity, I would go for a minimum of 250 GB SSD to run Civil 3d with the work files located on the SSD. Throw all your music and photos to a regular HDD or network and keep your SSD relatively clean with Windows, Civil 3d and other programs and games which requires speed.

·        Video Cards Schmido Cards. Notice that Civil 3d doesn’t really place an emphasis on Video Cards anymore. 128mb is nothing these days. Don’t go overboard with the Video Cards and good news for gamers, gamer cards are just fine for Civil 3d.  Don’t buy a super duper Nvidia Quadro video card unless you’re doing some serious 3D work on top of Civil 3d. Here’s a great youtube link showing what an i5 with integrated graphics (i.e no video card at all! Just pure CPU power!) and SSD can do with AutoCAD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUwNm9_2et0

The debate continues whether 64-Bit Civil 3d is better than 32-Bit Civil 3d.  The truth is they are the same, however without some computer skills, you can't utilize more than 4 GB of RAM with a 32-Bit installation of Windows. To make life easier, I highly recommend going with a 64-Bit installation of Windows because you'll need more than 4 GB of RAM to run Civil 3d.  

With respect to Windows, the computer I ended up buying came with Windows 8.  I was in for a nasty surprise. Civil 3d 2011 is unstable with Windows 8. How frustrating is that?

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=19048377&linkID=9240697

So make sure your new computer is installed with Windows 7 or XP.

Best of luck! And remember, kijiji is your friend. There are great deals on dual monitors and computers out there. Do your due diligence and research the specs and brands.

Practice makes perfect

Being a student definitely has it's advantages. Cheap beer nights at the pub, student discount cards and discounted bus fare. Best of all, Autodesk allows free downloads for students! Take full advantage of this fantastic opportunity to turn yourself from a pirate to CAD ninja. You can watch as many youtube videos as you want but you'll never retain the knowledge till you practice. So practice lots and don't sweat about the RCMP knocking on your door.

http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center

As a Transportation Designer, you'll only need Civil 3d. I'll show you how you can setup the environment so all your favourite AutoCAD commands are a click away.

Introductions

Hello World! Welcome to my humble blog. Here you'll learn tips and tricks as well as core functions for AutoCad and Civil 3d to get you started as a Transportation Designer. Also I'll speak to must know Geometric Design practices in Ontario and how it ties in with the program.

Enjoy your stay!