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Using Templates and Drawing Settings for Civil 3D Implementation

Introduction

AutoCAD® Civil 3D® is complex software with many dissimilar and connecting parts working together to provide solutions to civil design projects. In this article we are going to explore how to utilise template files to capture characteristic and object settings that you lot can use to showtime 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 drawing in Ceremonious 3D starts with a default cartoon template or a custom template you can create. Drawing template files are drawings that store styles, settings, layers, and layouts in a drawing including championship 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 ane-time copy. The connection is not maintained; therefore, if you lot update the template it will not update your drawing file. For example, if you lot update the surface styles in your template and you wanted your drawings to get those same updates, you needed to manually copy or import those inverse styles into your drawings.  You lot can exercise this by dragging and dropping or selecting the import tab on the Ribbon every bit shown in Figure 1.

Figure i: Import styles

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

Effigy two:  Templates under the Master View in Prospector

Ii templates are provided when you install Civil 3D.  The path for these templates tin can be establish within the options dialog box under the Files > Templates binder.  We are going to open the _Autodesk Ceremonious 3D (Imperial) NCS.dwt and save this to C3D_Standard.dwt. The two AutoCAD Civil 3D drawing templates are based on the Usa National CAD Standard®.

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

These templates contain an extended set up of styles and settings. When you get-go a new drawing with the New command on the Application card, you can cull which template you lot want to utilise.

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

Effigy iii: The primary templates provided

Nosotros are at present going to change the settings of our template file (Figure 4). Open the template file y'all created named C3D_Standard.dwt on the Home tab of the Ribbon > Palettes console > Open Toolspace.

  1. On the palette, move to the Settings tab.
  2. Make sure y'all are in the Active Drawing Settings View and right-click C3D Standard as shown.
  3. Select Edit Drawing Settings.

Note: If you move up and downwardly on this palette there are hundreds of dissimilar settings that can be applied to all types of Civil 3D object data.

Effigy 4: Drawing settings

C3D Drawing Settings

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

  1. Drawing settings: Establish values for the whole drawing.
  2. Feature settings: Control beliefs for a feature, such equally Surfaces or Parcels.
  3. Command settings: Apply to private commands within a feature, such equally the AddParcelAreaLabel control within the Parcels feature.

You modify each level of settings at a different location in the Settings tree, as shown in Figure 5.

Effigy v: Setting tree

Let's focus on the master cartoon Cartoon-Level Settings and Feature Level Settings. To admission drawing-level settings, correct-click the drawing name C3D_Standard in the settings tree and click Edit Drawing Settings as shown in Figure six.

Figure six:  Edit Drawing settings

At the drawing level, the Edit Settings dialog box contains general tabs for the drawing (or template) as shown in Figure 7.  We do not want to change whatsoever of these settings except for the Object Layers. Ambient Settings tin can be altered, just volition be overridden past the cartoon and feature settings.

Figure 7: Drawing settings

To illustrate how this works, we volition edit 1 of these settings in the Object Layers department.  Move to the Object Layers tab on the dialog box and scroll down to Can Surface as shown in Figure 8. We are going to add a suffix to the default label using a wildcard to ensure that our surface is always on the C-Topo- layer with a suffix of the surface proper name (i.e., C-Topo-EG).

Figure eight: Object layers

  1. Movement to the C-TOPO layer.
  2. Change the value to Suffix.
  3. Add a -* to the value field.  The hyphen will exist added to C-TOPO and the surface name will exist appended to the finish of the layer (i.eastward., C-TOPO-EG).

You take at present created a standard for Tin Surface layers in Ceremonious 3D and can implement this process. Explore other options at the drawing settings level to ensure your template is ready to go.

Figure 9: Object Layer modifications

Feature-Level Settings

Use the object collection level in the Settings tree to control 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 example, we are going to select the Point Collection.

Figure 10: Point Feature settings

At the object level, this dialog box likewise contains object-specific settings, such as default point styles. In this department we can control how our signal label styles are in our drawing equally default. If we want all the points to be brought in as a item mode or maker, we tin edit these values as our default within our template file. Figure 11 shows the Point Characterization Style and the dialog box to change the value inside the object feature settings.

Figure 11: Edit Feature settings

Command-Level Settings

Use the Commands collection level in the Settings tree to override both the object-level settings and drawing ambient settings on a command-by-command basis. You can also specify command-specific settings. Admission the command-level settings by expanding the Commands collection for an object type in the Settings tree, correct-clicking the control, and clicking Edit Control Settings. Effigy 12 shows us editing the command level settings for a surface.

Figure 12: Command-level setting

Layer Standards in Templates

Maintaining a standard for the use of layers in your cartoon is easier if you lot have 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 control and in the Configure Standards dialog box, link the standards file to the template. If you desire to enforce the standards, you tin click the Settings push and actuate notifications of standards violations or override such violations. For additional information on the CAD Standards Manager see CSI: CAD Standards Implementation at Autodesk University 2017. https://autode.sk/2T0ozBa

The layers created in the AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018 templates follow the National CAD Standard (NCS) rules. For more data almost the National CAD Standard layering settings, run into http://www.nationalcadstandard.org.

Now that you have many of your standards in place for your template, we demand to ensure that the template is used on new drawings.  From the awarding menu, select New and your open up dialog box will be displayed as shown (Figure 13). Select the C3D_Standard.dwt and all your settings will be inside 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 2022 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

Effigy 14: 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 drawing, and the connection between 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 cartoon file (Figure xv).

Figure fifteen: Attach Reference Template

As nosotros work on our project, changes to the reference templates are pushed to the cartoon so information technology is kept upwards to engagement:

  • New or inverse styles in reference templates are copied to the drawing.
  • Styles that are deleted from reference templates are removed from the cartoon if the styles are non in use. If a manner is in apply, a local re-create of the fashion is made in the drawing.

Select the update button for the template to be added to the drawing. In the Toolspace Settings tree, styles that accept been referenced into the drawing are marked with a paper prune icon every bit shown in Figure 16.  Notice how the surface styles are now being controlled past the reference template and not the drawing settings.

Effigy 16: The Paper Clip

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

The post-obit AutoCAD Civil 3D components can exist imported and referenced by a reference template.

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

If you try to edit a surface fashion (i.e., rename a layer color) you volition get the post-obit error indicating that your style is being controlled past a referenced template or a company standard. You practice have options to override the setting every bit shown in Figure 17, but this is a skilful reminder to all of us while nosotros piece of work on drawings and maintain our company standards.

Figure 17: The alarm

Conclusion

In a perfect earth, your cartoon templates and settings will take the perfect set of styles for your projects. This typically takes fourth dimension to grow and can be considered a living template. Consider designing styles to reverberate the data requirements at different times in the project.  The templates are there as a guide to provide you with the bones information needed to begin your design projection efficiently. Yous can create styles and templates for many different disciplines and withal follow your company standard. Keep the implementation process going and create your template to aid guide your users and your company to a better, more standard arroyo to design work.

Sam Lucido is a CAD Services Manager with Haley & Aldrich, Inc. He has more 25 years of experience involving design, user support, and customization. Sam is an Autodesk certified professional and an Expert Elite Member. He uses his vast knowledge nearly AutoCAD and Civil 3D to help provide back up to engineering and design teams past holding hands on workshops and online training. Sam is a top-rated Autodesk University and Midwest University Speaker also as beingness an AUGI Board Member. Y'all can attain Sam at CADProTips.com or by email
at lucido1373@gmail.com.

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