Webinar ENCORE! C3D Surveyors – Take Control Of Your Data Q & A

Our last Civil 3D webinar was such a success we decided to do an Encore post with a quick Q & A! We had a lot of GREAT questions come through the webinar recording. Below are the top 5 we compiled for you along with our technical expert’s review. We hope this helpful & thank you to all who attended & contributed to the conversation! If you missed the webinar, WATCH IT HERE.

Be sure to go to the bottom for the BONUS.

HERE’S THE Q & A FROM OUR LATEST CIVIL 3D WEBINAR:

1. Is there a reason to use the flowline as opposed to using the back of the curb? One of the best reasons for using the FLOW LINE vs. TOP BACK OF CURB, would be for control. Most of my design-related experience has been dealing with existing conditions. More times than not, I will be designing to existing FLOW LINE conditions. The TOP OF CURB is equally important, however, I definitely want to make sure I have accurate elevations for drainage. Either way, it could vary depending on municipality and project specifics.
2. Can local paths be set up within C3D deployment? I believe you could get everything set up and in place on a master computer, set ALL folder and file locations, create a specific user profile .arg, and then build a deployment package based on the master computer.
3. If you need to adjust the style of certain points, for example, a structure to be removed, how do you do this within a survey database? Using point group style overrides? The workflow would be the same as if the points/survey data had been inserted directly into the DWG file. Once the points are in the file, point groups can be created to display certain points based on parameters (points, elevations, descriptions, etc.) assigning or overriding point markers/labels.
4. When you say code, do the surveyors have to code it into their machine first for it to come out on civil 3d as you presented? Can there be a template creating webinar? Yes, the surveyors need to be a part of the Description Key/Line Code Set/Figure Prefix creation so that everyone is on the page. When the surveyor is entering codes in the field data collector, those codes need to match the set-up in C3D. Yes, I suppose there could be a webinar on creating a template. There are many different aspects to creating a template file that cover many different operations within C3D. Might take a few different sessions to get through all of what would need to be covered.
5. Suggestions for dealing with needing different raw descriptions for a city standard that doesn’t match the point descriptions and field codes used as the company standard? When working with many different municipalities or surveyors, there may be a need for multiple template files and survey user setting files in order to process the field data correctly and efficiently.

BONUS!!!!

Tip from the Audience >>>>>>> One suggested workflow to test raw descriptions is to create a temp file using the point description and any descriptions that don’t match get assigned a huge label style to make them more visible.

This is great advice and one that I have personally implemented over the years.  When the survey data is imported into the drawing and there are points with raw description codes that do not match what is available in the drawing file, those points are assigned an obnoxious point marker and label style that will be obvious to the user for further investigation.

Thank you again to all those who participated! If you missed the webinar, WATCH IT HERE.

If there are any other questions, we’re here to help! Contact Us HERE

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