Civil 3D has some great tools for creating 3D models of ponds and swales. This document will show you how to use many of the tools provided in Civil 3D to create ponds/swales in 8 basic steps.

Download Tutorial (PDF – 3.66 MB)

For all you lazy drafters out there, CompliCAD offers, “a few tools to help make CAD & BIM a little less complicated.” These tools are some useful unit-conversion & scale factor tools.

Check them out…

At the request of Murph, I will show you how to create a block that will display the bearing in degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS) using an AutoCAD Field.

It’s actually very simple. Let’s get started. Read more »

Recently I was asked to create a grid that labels the Northings & Eastings on a map. There are a couple of ways you could do this: 1) If you have Civil 3D, create a point style that labels the Northing & Easting. 2) If you have AutoCAD create a block that displays the Northing & Easting with fields.

If you have Civil 3D, the point-style method works the best but today I am going to show you how to use fields to make this happen. Read more »

You may have noticed that when you attempt to delete a layer that is being used by entities in your drawing you will be denied.

There is, however, an easy way to delete layers that are being used by entities. Read more »

This just in: “It is time to cast your votes for your favorite Autodesk product improvement wishes for the February 2009 cycle. The ballots, populated with the wishes submitted by your fellow AUGI members, are live and awaiting your votes.” Read more »

I just found out from @MisterAU on Twitter that Autodesk has a channel on YouTube. Looking over a few of the videos it looks like a lot of marketing promos and videos showing overviews of various Autodesk software. Read more »

According to the AutoCAD help file, “Reconciling new layers is the process of manually reviewing new layers so that you can avoid potential errors before plotting your drawing or when restoring a layer state.” Read more »

I hope you had a good New Years. I sure did! I’m just getting back to blogging after a holiday break.

Have you ever been frustrated that your hatch patterns always cover other objects no matter how many times you set the draw order to send it to back? Read more »

I just read an excellent tutorial by David Watson at CADTutor.net. David writes, “AutoCAD can be used to create a simple “walk through” of any 3D model. For example, if you have designed a new pedestrianisation scheme for a town centre, you could use AutoCAD to give a slide presentation to show how the scheme would look from a pedestrian eye view as the person moved through the space. This is an extremely useful technique for presenting schemes to clients or the general public who may not necessarily have a good understanding of plans.” Read more »

I am trying to understand why companies use the “unitless” insertion scale (UNITS, INSUNITS) in their drawings as a standard. I’m sure there are uses for it, but I am having a hard time understanding. If you set your drawings to “unitless”, leave a comment here and tell me your reasoning. Read more »