Is A Turning Template Program Built Into Civil 3d

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June tenth, 2019

Using Templates and Drawing Settings for Ceremonious 3D Implementation

Introduction

AutoCAD® Civil 3D® is complex software with many different and connecting parts working together to provide solutions to civil design projects. In this commodity we are going to explore how to utilise template files to capture feature and object settings that you tin can apply to get-go your new drawing or reference into an existing cartoon. For a successful implementation, the CAD manager or designer can create, update, and distribute template files to all users to ensure a standard and uniform approach to design work.

Templates

Any new cartoon in Ceremonious 3D starts with a default drawing template or a custom template y'all can create. Cartoon template files are drawings that shop styles, settings, layers, and layouts in a drawing including title blocks.

Standard Template Process

When you create a new drawing based on a drawing template, the new drawing gets a copy of the styles in the template, but information technology is a one-fourth dimension re-create. The connectedness is non maintained; therefore, if yous update the template it will not update your cartoon file. For instance, if you update the surface styles in your template and y'all wanted your drawings to get those same updates, you needed to manually re-create or import those changed styles into your drawings. You tin do this past dragging and dropping or selecting the import tab on the Ribbon as shown in Effigy one.

Figure i: Import styles

Templates are also listed under the Cartoon Templates collection in the Prospector tree Master View as shown in Figure 2. Notice the two Civil 3D templates supplied from Autodesk.

Figure 2: Templates under the Main View in Prospector

Two templates are provided when yous install Ceremonious 3D. The path for these templates can be found within the options dialog box nether the Files > Templates folder. Nosotros are going to open the _Autodesk Ceremonious 3D (Imperial) NCS.dwt and save this to C3D_Standard.dwt. The two AutoCAD Ceremonious 3D drawing templates are based on the United states National CAD Standard®.

_AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS
_AutoCAD Civil 3D (Metric) NCS

These templates contain an extended prepare of styles and settings. When you lot showtime a new drawing with the New command on the Application menu, you lot tin choose which template you desire to employ.

The QNEW command, which is available on the Quick Access toolbar, automatically uses the template specified in the AutoCAD Options dialog box.

Figure iii: The main templates provided

We are now going to change the settings of our template file (Effigy iv). Open the template file y'all created named C3D_Standard.dwt on the Abode tab of the Ribbon > Palettes console > Open Toolspace.

On the palette, move to the Settings tab.
Brand sure you are in the Active Drawing Settings View and right-click C3D Standard equally shown.
Select Edit Drawing Settings.

Annotation: If you move upwardly and down on this palette there are hundreds of different settings that can be applied to all types of Ceremonious 3D object information.

Figure 4: Drawing settings

C3D Drawing Settings

Settings in Civil 3D control many preset values, such as drawing units, scale, and coordinate arrangement. Civil 3D has cartoon, feature, and command settings. All three levels of settings in AutoCAD Civil 3D are saved with the drawing, and they tin be saved to a cartoon template.

Drawing settings: Constitute values for the whole drawing.
Feature settings: Control behavior for a feature, such as Surfaces or Parcels.
Command settings: Apply to individual commands within a feature, such equally the AddParcelAreaLabel command within the Parcels feature.

You modify each level of settings at a different location in the Settings tree, equally shown in Figure five.

Figure five: Setting tree

Let'southward focus on the main drawing Drawing-Level Settings and Feature Level Settings. To access drawing-level settings, right-click the drawing name C3D_Standard in the settings tree and click Edit Drawing Settings as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Edit Cartoon settings

At the drawing level, the Edit Settings dialog box contains general tabs for the drawing (or template) as shown in Figure vii. Nosotros do not want to alter any of these settings except for the Object Layers. Ambient Settings can be altered, but will exist overridden by the drawing and feature settings.

Effigy 7: Drawing settings

To illustrate how this works, we will edit i of these settings in the Object Layers section. Move to the Object Layers tab on the dialog box and ringlet down to Tin can Surface equally shown in Figure 8. We are going to add a suffix to the default characterization using a wildcard to ensure that our surface is always on the C-Topo- layer with a suffix of the surface name (i.east., C-Topo-EG).

Effigy 8: Object layers

Movement to the C-TOPO layer.
Change the value to Suffix.
Add a -* to the value field. The hyphen will be added to C-TOPO and the surface name volition exist appended to the end of the layer (i.e., C-TOPO-EG).

You have at present created a standard for Tin Surface layers in Civil 3D and tin implement this process. Explore other options at the drawing settings level to ensure your template is gear up to go.

Figure 9: Object Layer modifications

Feature-Level Settings

Apply the object collection level in the Settings tree to command all settings that pertain to the object type. Access the object or feature-level settings past right-clicking the object drove in the Settings tree and clicking Edit Feature Settings. For this case, we are going to select the Signal Collection.

Figure x: Point Characteristic settings

At the object level, this dialog box too contains object-specific settings, such as default signal styles. In this section nosotros can control how our point label styles are in our cartoon as default. If we want all the points to be brought in as a particular way or maker, we can edit these values every bit our default inside our template file. Figure xi shows the Point Label Style and the dialog box to change the value within the object feature settings.

Figure 11: Edit Feature settings

Control-Level Settings

Use the Commands collection level in the Settings tree to override both the object-level settings and drawing ambience settings on a command-by-command basis. You lot tin can also specify command-specific settings. Admission the command-level settings by expanding the Commands drove for an object type in the Settings tree, correct-clicking the control, and clicking Edit Command Settings. Figure 12 shows u.s.a. editing the command level settings for a surface.

Figure 12: Control-level setting

Layer Standards in Templates

Maintaining a standard for the use of layers in your drawing is easier if y'all accept a drawing template with predefined layers, and styles that reference those layers when objects are created.

For consistency, save your template as an AutoCAD® standards file (.dws format). Then, in the template, enter the STANDARDS command and in the Configure Standards dialog box, link the standards file to the template. If you want to enforce the standards, you can click the Settings button and activate notifications of standards violations or override such violations. For additional information on the CAD Standards Manager run into CSI: CAD Standards Implementation at Autodesk Academy 2017. https://autode.sk/2T0ozBa

The layers created in the AutoCAD Ceremonious 3D 2018 templates follow the National CAD Standard (NCS) rules. For more than data virtually the National CAD Standard layering settings, see http://www.nationalcadstandard.org.

Now that you take many of your standards in identify for your template, we demand to ensure that the template is used on new drawings. From the application card, select New and your open dialog box will be displayed as shown (Figure 13). Select the C3D_Standard.dwt and all your settings will exist within the new drawing.

Figure 13: New template

Note: To control the location of template files and QNEW, review the options under the FILES menu > template settings.

Reference Templates

New to Civil 3D 2018 is a process called reference templates. The command can be found on the Manage tab of the Ribbon > Styles palette > Reference, as shown in Figure 14

Figure fourteen: Import styles

When you attach a reference template to a drawing, the AutoCAD Ceremonious 3D styles that are in that reference template are copied into the cartoon, and the connection betwixt the drawing and the reference templates is maintained. Drawings can be updated on an ongoing basis either automatically or manually with changes to the styles in the templates. We are going to add a reference to our current drawing file (Figure 15).

Figure 15: Attach Reference Template

As we piece of work on our project, changes to the reference templates are pushed to the drawing then it is kept up to date:

New or changed styles in reference templates are copied to the cartoon.
Styles that are deleted from reference templates are removed from the drawing if the styles are not in use. If a style is in use, a local copy of the way is made in the drawing.

Select the update push button for the template to be added to the drawing. In the Toolspace Settings tree, styles that have been referenced into the drawing are marked with a newspaper clip icon as shown in Figure 16. Notice how the surface styles are now beingness controlled past the reference template and not the drawing settings.

Figure 16: The Paper Clip

Equally you lot continue to update and/or add new styles to the project standards template, those changes are pushed to the drawings that reference that template.

The following AutoCAD Civil 3D components tin be imported and referenced past a reference template.

AutoCAD Layers
AutoCAD blocks, text styles, and linetypes
Settings
Drawing Settings
Abbreviations
Ambient Settings
Object Layers
Characteristic Settings
Label Fashion Defaults
Styles
Label Styles
Object Styles
Table Styles
Pipe and Structure Rules
Pressure level Network Parts lists
Quantity Takeoff Criteria

If you try to edit a surface manner (i.east., rename a layer color) you volition go the post-obit error indicating that your style is existence controlled by a referenced template or a company standard. You do have options to override the setting as shown in Figure 17, but this is a good reminder to all of the states while we work on drawings and maintain our visitor standards.

Figure 17: The alert

Determination

In a perfect world, your cartoon templates and settings will have the perfect set of styles for your projects. This typically takes time to grow and can be considered a living template. Consider designing styles to reflect the data requirements at different times in the projection. The templates are there as a guide to provide you lot with the basic information needed to begin your pattern projection efficiently. You lot can create styles and templates for many dissimilar disciplines and notwithstanding follow your visitor standard. Keep the implementation procedure going and create your template to help guide your users and your visitor to a amend, more than standard approach to design piece of work.

Sam Lucido is a CAD Services Director with Haley & Aldrich, Inc. He has more than than 25 years of experience involving design, user support, and customization. Sam is an Autodesk certified professional person and an Proficient Elite Member. He uses his vast noesis about AutoCAD and Civil 3D to assistance provide support to engineering and design teams by holding hands on workshops and online training. Sam is a top-rated Autodesk University and Midwest University Speaker also equally existence an AUGI Board Member. You can reach Sam at CADProTips.com or by email
at lucido1373@gmail.com.