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Thursday, December 31, 2009

To exercise good character daily is to be morally fit for life... (Karen Hartz)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Civil 3D - watch a few tips and tricks from Youngs VOS on editing surfaces here: http://bit.ly/8GugY3

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Join Youngs VOS. As a member you get access to Civil 3D training materials... http://bit.ly/8CfPbS

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Boundary on Corridor Surface

So, im using Civil 3D 2010 and trying to make a border around the "Daylight" line along both sides of my corridor (just like i used to do in 2009). And i see this amazing new option... "Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary" WOW! I think.

Not quite so fast... turns out this little feature only works if you have more than one basline in your corridor. Bummer!?

Now for the work-a-round... Simply place another baseline in your corridor, you must have an alignment and profile, however just do not put in a region.


This keeps the corridor from trying to create anything, yet gives the ability to use the new amazing feature "Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary"

Till Next Time...
Visit http://www.youngsvos.com
Performance Management.... Its what we do!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Civil 3D 2010 Hot Topics

Civil 3D 2010 has many new features in case you havent seen them.

The "Intersection Wizard" is amazing, and moving an intersection, re-alignning an alignment automatically redoes the entire intersection. However, lets talk about a few of the "lesser known" yet extremely powerful features.

These are my list of "Hot Topics" introduced in 2010 of Civil 3D.

1. Ribbons... These are number one on my list because in the past, menu changes have been simply that, changes or relocations of commands, pulldowns and commands. This time, the entire menu structure not only changed, but it became extremely intuitive. For example, simply selecting an alignment changes the entire ribbon so that all the commands shown become actions associated to alignments. This method works for each of the Civil 3D objects.

2. Project Objects onto Profile... This long needed command lets you take an object, block, Fire hydrant, tree, etc. and "project" it up to the profile view at the correct elevation. Features lines can be projected to profile view, then "grip edited" to change the elevations and create conceptual grading, or corridor targets.
How about showing the ROW line as a Vertical line in your cross sections? This would help with visual inspection of daylight lines running outside the right of way.

3. Link Offset Alignments... Creating an offset alignment that is dynamically linked can be extremely powerful. This enables an alignment to be moved and have the offset alignments moved along with it automatically.

4. Create Widening... along with item 3 above, the create widening command will creates bus turnout and turn lanes with just a few clicks of a button. Grips on this widening sections make changes extremely easy to accomplish. Try it and find out.

And lastly but certainly not least:

5. Profile Label Offsets... We've all been there, profile completed, and ready for labels, but wait... the labels are too close together, they overlap, they simply cannot be plotted (much less read) like this. This very nice command will offset them automatically so they are completely readable.

Well, there you have it, my list of "Hot Topics" if you're interested in seeing these in action, visit http://www.youngsvos.com to see a video of a free webinar. While you're there, join our webinars every Wednesday at 10:00 am pst. Become a member and get even more free information.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Styles and Templates

Styles and Templates are of course necessary for Civil 3D to do its job properly. That job of course is to make objects in Civil 3D display correctly as well as plot correctly.

There is however, a "secondary" reason which turns out to be far more important than display or plotting. Styles and Templates assist in, and in fact can control the vast majority of the Cad Standards within a company. Yes, you heard correctly, i said the Cad Standards, which everyone either forces down someones throat, or has forced down their throat can be maintained and enforced through simply using the company styles and templates.

I realize this is a fairly broad statement, but just think about it... If the templates accessible by all drafters, designers or engineers using Civil 3D are the same, and utilize the same styles... then everyones drawings will look the same. What an amazing concept.

Till next time.... happy drafting.

Monday, April 6, 2009

WiFi Access on AT&T

I realize that this is off topic, but as a friendly informational post, i just discovered that if you have AT&T Uverse, or any Pro or Elite DSL from AT&T then you automatically have FREE wifi access at any of the AT&T access points.

Places like.... Some Starbucks, Some McDonalds.....

All you need to do is go to the att homepage and search for the wifi locator, find a hotspot.... then when you log in, simply use your AT&T login information which is usually an email address as the username, and a password.

Happy Internetting (is there such a word?)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Manipulating Contours in Civil 3D

Civil 3D will not allow you to “grip edit” a contour line. Land Desktop would allow this action, but then, this isn’t your dads design software any longer now is it ?

Manipulating contours to make the “correct” is simply a matter of editing the surface. This is done by using breaklines, swapping of edges in a TIN, adding or deleting edges and adding or deleting elevation points.

The big trick is to have a style set as current which displays not only the tin, but contours (in a color you can readily see) should be turned on as well. In addition, for the moment anyway, turn on the “auto rebuild” action for surfaces. This is the key, as when you perform an edit such as swap edge on a tin line, the contour will physically change making it easier to see immediately how the action changes the display.

If you would like to watch a short video of this method, select the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSPx9LhxPfc

Hope this little trick helps in making your surface the best and most accurate possible.
Till next time….

Monday, February 9, 2009

Advanced Civil 3D Corridors Class

Join us starting Tuesday, February 24th 2009 at 9:00 am PST for:

Civil 3D Advanced Corridors Class

We will cover corridor topics including:

  • Transitions
  • Superelevations
  • Street Widening
  • Intersections
  • and More

8 One hour on-line sessions, Tuesdays at 9:00 am PST

This class will cost $179 and you may sign up at www.youngsvos.com/advcorrdes.html

or email lyoung@youngsvos.com for additional details and registration.

Space is limited, so hurry.... See you there.