Civil 3D 2010: Lessons from an Author

As you know, I’ve been busy co-authoring Mastering Civil 3D 2010. There following are a few things I’ve run across I hope can help you. These items may or may not get attention in the final edition of the book, but they’ve helped me keep my sanity (to a certain degree).

GEOMARKERVISIBILITY
That pesky little looks like a grain silo from above thing that keeps popping up in the middle of my screen. It bothers me. I’m not sure why it bothers me, but it bothers me. To turn it off, change the GEOMARKERVISIBILITY setting to 0 (zero = off).

Tab key
To find commands in Civil 3D, type the first character, or the first couple characters on the command line, and select the tab key on the keyboard to tab through commands. For example: Type GEO and hit the tab key 4 (four) times, you’ll see the command line has stopped at GEOMARKERVISIBILITY at which point – you can turn it off.

The Event Viewer
If you’re new to Civil 3D, you’ll feel like a kid in trouble for throwing rocks at the neighbors cat each time this is displayed. You’ll find the setting to turn it off by switching to the Settings tab of the Toolspace, selecting the name of your drawing, right clicking, and selecting Drawing Settings. Change to the Ambient Settings tab and find the following:

LineWorkShrinkWrap
This is super-secret, and undocumented. I’d tell you what it does, but I’ve written about it in the book. I’ll go this far: Try it on a surface and tell me what you think! The full version of the command is AecLineWorkShrinkWrap. The Aec in front of the command should give you a large hint (it’s a Civil 3D command that also appeared in Land Desktop).

LockUI
Tired of toolbars and other things moving on the screen? From Help:
Locks the position and size of toolbars and dockable windows such as DesignCenter and the Properties palette. Locked toolbars and windows can still be opened and closed and items can be added and deleted. To unlock them temporarily, hold down CTRL.

A lock icon in the status bar tray indicates whether toolbars and windows are locked. Right-click the icon to display locking options.

LockUI toggled on

The setting is stored as a bitcode using the sum of the following values:
0 Toolbars and windows not locked
1 Docked toolbars locked
2 Docked or anchored windows locked
3 Floating toolbars locked
4 Floating windows locked

Toolbars
Civil 3D 2010 has 2 toolbars – the Transparent Command toolbar, and the Transparent Command Filters toolbar. The other toolbars are gone. At first glance, this may throw you. However, if you leave the Ribbon on, let it works like it wants to, you’ll find the buttons are about 3 times the size they were on toolbars, and the pictures more accurately represent what the commands do. You’ll feel the Ribbon is odd at first, but trust me, after you save your first 10,000 picks or right clicks, you’ll never want a toolbar again.

Think of how you currently edit corridor properties:
1. Select the corridor
2. Right click
3. Select Corridor Properties from the menu

This is how you edit corridor properties in 2010:
1. Select the corridor (the ribbon automatically changes, it’s “context sensitive” e.g. it knows what you picked)
2. Select the Corridor Properties button from the Modify panel on the Corridor tab.

You’ll save a click each time.

Ribbon Lingo
First and foremost, leave it on. I know, I know, it’s odd and I’ve voiced my… concerns… in the past. With the context sensitive behavior though, it’s a game changer (select an alignment and the ribbon changes to show the alignment commands). Again, there are only 2 toolbars so to speak, but the ribbon panels can be shifted around, they can be dragged and dropped, and if it makes you feel better, you can think of them as really big toolbars. In all honesty, the buttons are easier to see, and if you’re colorblind, much easier to navigate.

There are 2 things you need to know about the ribbon as there will be sort of a language shift as you begin to use it. What appears to be pull-down menu titles on the top are referred to as “Tabs,” and the rectangular areas where the commands are held are referred to as panels.

Help
If you need help, can’t find a command, want to know what others have said, etc., simply type in what you’re looking for in the InfoCenter. The InfoCenter will browse Help, the discussion groups, the Civil 3D Community, and try to help you find an answer.

And notice what the InfoCenter found in the Discussion Groups:

I hope this helps get you pointed in the right direction; I’ll write more “getting started” tips as soon as I can,

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