Changes to the Newly Released Civil 3D Fundamentals 2020 Guide

Subtle changes

ASCENT currently offers three Learning Guides for Civil 3D:

• Civil 3D Fundamentals
• Civil 3D for Surveyors
• Grading

These are introductory Learning Guides with no prior Civil 3D experience required. Starting with the 2020 release of these titles you will note subtle changes to these Learning Guides. The first of these to be released was Civil 3D Fundamentals. The following summarizes some of the changes that were made with this title: 

• Rebuilt dataset:  
  • The Civil 3D objects have been redone from the ground up to avoid problems with legacy Civil 3D objects.
  • The AutoCAD Xrefs have been purged, audited and layers renamed to NCS Standards.
  • The "Base-Proposed engineering" xref has new building footprints which reflect Revit buildings used in the ASCENT Revit courses.
• Folders reorganized:
  • Within the traditional Civil 3D Projects folder there are now new subfolders for configuration files, data shortcuts, survey databases and project templates for a more realistic project folder structure.
  • The drawings for the exercises still reside in the Civil3D-Training folder.
• Persistent use of Data Shortcuts in the later chapters of the learning guide.
  • Once the existing conditions (and surface) are established at the end of Surface Chapter, the course now continues to utilize data shortcuts for the surface through the remaining chapters.
  • Once the corridors are built in Corridors Chapter, the course uses data shortcuts for the corridors.
• Persistent use of Style referencing.
  • Starting in the Parcels Chapter, reference styles are attached to the dataset.
  • In the Pipe Network Chapter, we also attach a Pipe-Styles drawing for style referencing. These referenced style drawings reside in the C:\Civil 3D Projects\Ascent-Config folder
• Styles have been renamed with an ASC- prefix. (ASC for ASCENT)
  • This aims to help enforce the concept of CAD Management practices.
  • Allows students to easily identify customized styles and separate them from default styles.
• Xref files are overlaid and have annotative text (for the most common drawing scales).
• Named views streamlined for the chapters.
  • Each drawing includes named views only pertinent to the chapter.
  • The views are redefined so as not to affect the layer states of the drawing.

These changes impact the datasets that the students use to complete the exercises and there are some changes in the exercise steps that support these changes.

Conclusion

These changes support the concept that the Civil 3D program is used in real-world projects. Proper CAD Management standards and procedures are being followed throughout the Learning Guides so the student will be familiar with such concepts in their own professional environment.  These subtle changes will  be made in the other ASCENT Civil 3D Learning Guides as they get released. We invite your comments and questions.

If you are interested in learning more about ASCENT’s offerings for the 2020 release, please watch our recent Webcast - https://youtu.be/yVEcM8ah-U8

About the Author

Learning Content Developer<br><br>Jeff specializes in infrastructure tools such as Civil 3D and Infraworks, delivering training classes and contributing to the learning guides for these Autodesk software applications. Jeff has worked for several Autodesk resellers and has had roles of both CAD and BIM Manager with Civil and Architectural firms.

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