Civil 3D / AutoCAD Tips & Shortcuts - Pt. 2 Helpful Tools

hi I'm Jeff bartels infrastructure technical specialist at Autodesk and today we're going to be looking at a continuation of the series called civil 3d and AutoCAD tips tricks and industry shortcuts in the session we'll be exploring several time-saving shortcuts associated with civil 3d and AutoCAD these shortcuts are gonna be focused in the three major categories interface helpful tools and workflows throughout the session I'm going to be using a rapid-fire approach to the material so we can cover as many concepts as possible this recording is going to be focused on the helpful tools tips and shortcuts and it represents part two of the overall session I have just launched civil3d 2016 and I'd like to start by opening a couple drawings I'll come up to the quick access toolbar and I'll launch the open command and I'm going to select earthwork I'll hold my shift key and select the points drawing and then I'll come down and click open once these two drawings are open in the interface I'd like to switch to the points drawing I'll do that by selecting the file tab this drawing contains a large collection of kögel points that represent cross-sections of an existing rural intersection after looking at these points I might ask what's the next available point number if I was to go out in the field and collect additional data what would be the next number I could use to find that I can come down to the command line and type lists available point numbers when I launched that command we can see them right here 219 is available as well as 244 up through the maximum I can also go the other way what if I want to find out what numbers are used I'll type lists used point numbers when I launch the command we can see the used point numbers right here these two options can be very helpful when managing your kogo data let's switch to the other drawing we'll take a look at another tool in this file I have a pair of surfaces this one represents a proposed to detention base and it's called PRT P and this surface represents the existing ground it's called ext P maybe I'd like to do a quick earthwork calculation of this Basin normally when we calculate earth work we have to create a 10 volume surface to hold the data but in this case I just want to get some quick and dirty numbers I can do that by launching the command report surface volume this brings up civil 3ds classic volume tool from here I can click to make a new comparison I can select my base surface and my comparison surface and that's it there's my earth work calculation right there I'm going to click the green check to close the panorama let's pan this over we'll zoom in on this detail I'm going to start by selecting one of these linear dimensions and I'll right click here in the menu there's an option called select similar we've had this for a while if I choose select similar it will select all of the linear dimensions let me press escape when the select similar command came out there was another command that went along with it just as helpful but wasn't quite as popular at the time let me select this dimension again and I'll right click it's right here and selected probably not the best name this should be called create similar this allows me to create a new object just like the one that I selected now before I create a new dimension when they press escape I'm gonna change my annotation scale here there we go let's zoom in on this dimension I'll select it right-click I'll choose add selected and I would like to create a dimension right here this dimension is on the same layer using the same dimension style even if those settings aren't current at the time they pan the silver and I'm going to create a rectangle I'd like to hatch it using the same pattern as we're using the detail let me select the pattern I'll right click and selected I will then click inside the shape and I'll press Enter let's make a few geometric changes I'm going to click the outer polyline and then I will hover over this grip and I'll choose convert to arc maybe we'll pull this out into an arc I'll hover over this grip and we'll add a vertex and maybe we can add a vertex here as well let me press escape here's another interesting tool I'm going to draw a line across this hatch hatch is trimmable I'll launch the trim command I'll select my line and press Enter and then I can trim off this area of the hatch now that I've trimmed the hatch it is dynamic - this line segment you just want to make sure you don't drag the line off the object let me press delete to get rid of that so now what if I wanted this hatch to refill this object well there's a tool for that let me select the hatch I'll right-click and I'll choose set boundary I will then select by boundary and I'll press Enter maybe you've had an object hatched like a parking lot or something similar and somebody accidentally deleted the boundary not a problem we can get the boundary back so long as you have the hatch you can right-click and choose generate boundary this will create a new boundary outline on the current layer I'm sure you've probably used the undo command before we can do that by clicking the icon here in the interface each time you click undo it backs up one step maybe you've used the menu this allows us to backup several steps let me show you another option I'm going to press escape to close that undo is a full-blown command if I type undo and press Enter we can see several options down here at the command line I'm going to choose the mark option this allows me to place a mark in the drawing not a physical mark kind of a programming mark this allows me to explore a different design alternative if I don't like the way things are going I can undo back to this mark let's try it I'm going to make some changes I'll just select this geometry and I'll delete it and then maybe I can draw a polyline here we'll create some geometry maybe I can launch my copy command and we can copy that around let's back out maybe I can rotate some of this stuff and then maybe we can mirror so this represents my design alternative now I'm not happy with it let's go back to the way things work I'm gonna relaunch undo I'll right-click and go to recent input I'll find undo from the menu here and I'll come down and choose back when I choose back it goes back to my previous mark I'm going to press the spacebar to go back into the undo command and let's choose back again now there's no mark to go to if you do that it will back you up to the point where you opened the drawing we can see right here this will undo everything let me press ENTER to do that and I'm back where I started I'm gonna zoom in we'll take a look at this geometry right let's talk about the geometric calculator anytime AutoCAD or civil3d is asking for a value you can enter an expression for instance I'd like to offset this line I'm going to choose offset what's my distance I don't know what the actual distance is but I can put in an expression so for my distance I'm going to type apostrophe C al now press Enter this allows me to bring up a transparent calculator for expression I'll type six plus six enter you can see the value down here at the command line it was applied to the command so now I can just click this line and offset it over I'll press escape when I'm done let's press the Enter key to go back into the offset command maybe I'd like to create a center line here what's my distance posture bcal expression twelve divided by two enter I'll select my line and I'll offset it over let's try something else I'll select these lines and I'll press Delete to remove them maybe I'd like to offset this line the same distance as these two lines are apart there's a function for that let me launch offset what's my distance posture vc al what's my expression de e stands for distance between two endpoints you can see civil3d brings up my pick box I can click one endpoint and the other no running object snap necessary there we can see the value right here doesn't get any more accurate than that I can now select this line and offset it over we can even include the function in an expression so let's launch offset again offset distance ' see al expression de e divided by two in this case I can click down here this endpoint and this one click this line and offset it over let's say I'd like to fill it these two lines using the same radius as the circle now who knows what this radius is could be anything there's a function for that I'm going to launch the fill it command this time and I'll come down and choose radius what's my radius ' see al expression our ad I'll press Enter when you use the red function you can select a circle arc or polyline segments to get the radius I'll choose this arc we can see the radius right there I can now click this line and this line we can even include R and in an expression maybe I'd like to fill it these two lines with a radius that would be an offset from this one let's launch fill it I'll choose radius what's the radius pasta fec al expression red + de e I will then select my circle I'll pick my two endpoints I'll then click my two lines to fill up them let me pan this over and I'm going to create some geometries let me just make a quick rectangle here and then we'll create a polygon maybe three sides I'll pick inscribe we'll just pull that out so I've got a rectangle and a triangle I'd like to draw a circle at the center of this object let me launch the circle command now I can if I mean if I wanted to I could shift right click and say mid between two points I could use that object snap and then there's grab these two points I could do that when I press escape let me show you something else just so you can get an idea of how the geometric calculator works in this case civil3d is asking for a coordinate I'm going to type a posture of EC al and then I'll enter an expression open bracket and plus end and I want to take that quantity divided by two we can use object snaps in our expressions let me press Enter I will then click my two endpoints it adds those coordinates together and divides by two to find the center of that object let's go a little further I'm going to press the spacebar to go back into the command let's find the center of that triangle I'll type of posture bcal what's my expression and plus and plus end take that value divided by three I can then click this end and this end and this end to find that Center now let me select this and I'll press Delete since I'm using 2016 there is a new object snap called geometric Center so if I wanted to since I'm using the latest version I could say what's the center point I could type GCE for geometric Center point I could then select a closed shape to find the center we back up I'm gonna create a polyline here maybe I'd like to draw a circle five feet from the end of this line we don't have an object snap for that but I can find it using the calculator let me launch the circle command what's my Center Point posture VC al what's my expression PLD open bracket end comma and comma five PLD point line distance what to object snaps do you want to pick and then how far do you want to go from the first object snap let me press Enter I'll click my two endpoints and that circle is five units from the end of that line we select that and I'll press Delete what if I wanted to create a circle 25% of the distance along this line I'll launch the circle command posture vc al expression PLT and kana and comma point to five point line percentage what to object snaps do you want to click and then what percentage do you want to use let me press Enter I will then click these two points and the circle is 25% of the distance along that overall length just think of how quick you can draft if you create macros from some of these expressions let's pan this over we'll look at one more I'm gonna change my annotation scale here and we'll create a quick copy let me copy this line turn the running object snaps back on from the endpoint here to the endpoint here maybe I'd like to rotate these two objects around the center of the circle and I'd like to rotate them the same angle that's defined by these two line segments we can do that let me launch rotate I'll select the objects I want to rotate press Enter base point I'll rotate them around the center of the circle and now how far do I want to rotate them ' see al expression a and G and comma and comma end so I want to calculate an angle what three object snaps do I want to click and then the first one represents the apex let me press ENTER I'll click the apex and then I'll pick these two points to define the angle and I've got my rotation real quick we can verify that we can use the new dimension tool let me click these two lines at sixty three point five four they click these two lines sixty three point five four you will find the calculator in many places for instance if I press ctrl eight we have a calculator here it has several of the functions that we saw earlier as well as the numeric keypad we can convert units here as well everything that we do here we can apply to the command line let me close this you will also find the calculator in the properties palette if I select this circle for instance go over to properties come down here every one of these numeric values when I click here we'll see that we have access to a calculator I could click this and say you know what the radius of that is 11.8 2 7 9 I'd like to make that divided by 3 and I'll press ENTER and then I'll click apply to apply it to my circle if you like reverse polish notation we can type our P and calc this brings up a calculator just for you you can go through and solve your expressions and then you can use this icon in the upper left corner to paste the value of the command line let's look at one more tool in a production environment there may be times where you open a drawing and it comes up read-only and then you may wonder who's in that file there's a nice tool called who has who has operates just like the open command when I launch this it takes me to the select drawing dialog box from here I can select a file now I happen to be in the points drawing a select that and I'll click open as you can see it'll give me the login name and the computer name and it'll tell me how long that person has been in the file now this is kind of anticlimactic because I'm actually in the drawing but if this was a production environment I would know exactly who I need to go to to get access to the file if you found this content helpful please rate it by clicking the thumbs up icon this will help other acan users identify valuable content on behalf of Autodesk this is Jeff Bartles saying thank you for watching

Channel: Jeff Bartels

Views: 29,066

Keywords: Civil 3D, AutoCAD, Bartels, Tips, Shortcut, Tricks, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Tutorial, How To, akn_include

Id: dxLKzdf5Iv8

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2015