Civil Site Design V21.10

Civil Site Design for Civil 3D, AutoCAD & BricsCAD V21.10.

This readme contains important information regarding the installation and use of Civil Site Design versions as described above.

Civil Site Design is available for:

• AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 to AutoCAD Civil 3D 2021
• AutoCAD 2015 to AutoCAD 2021 including all AutoCAD derivatives
• BricsCAD V20 (64bit install)
• Civil Site Design Plus

CONTENTS

• CRITICAL INFORMATION
• INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
• NEW FEATURES
• IMPROVEMENTS
• FIXES
• KNOWN ISSUES

CRITICAL INFORMATION

BRICSCAD USERS

For BricsCAD V20 users, it is critical that customers ensure they have downloaded and installed the latest version. 

In an earlier version (BricsCAD v20.2) there were issues with the programmatic inclusion of title blocks in the drawing that contained attribute definitions. These these needed to be inserted using the INSERT tool in order for them to be included in the drawing.

BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY

After installing this version and opening a drawing, the CSD data structure may be updated and will not be compatible with Civil Site Design V19.01 or earlier. The drawing file itself (.dwg) is unaffected.

Note: A backup copy of the -Data folder is not made when the data format is updated.

In this version we have introduced Pack Mode – an option to save the Civil Site Design data inside the drawing.  If this is done and the data is opened in an earlier version, the software will not extract the data from inside the drawing and must be accompanied by the usual CSD Data folder.

NAHIMIC SOFTWARE INTERFERES WITH MODEL VIEWER

We have found that the software ‘Nahimic’ may prevent Model Viewer from displaying – the installation of Nahimic creates a conflict in Eyeshot (the graphics engine we use in Model Viewer).

If Model Viewer will not open, please check if Nahimic is installed. If so, updating Nahimic may resolve the issue. Uninstalling it will resolve the issue.

Nahimic software provides enhanced audio (typically for gamers) and is commonly installed with gaming laptops. More information about Nahimic can be found here: https://www.nahimic.com/gamers/

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

CIVIL SITE DESIGN

You do not need to uninstall any previous versions of Civil Site Design. This installation will install over the top of any previous CSD installation.

If you are upgrading from Civil Site Design V20 or earlier, you will need a V21 license key to continue use beyond the default 30 day evaluation period.

Subscription customers can obtain their V21 license keys, and obtain Home Use Licenses, directly from the CSS Subscription Portal:

An update to the Civil Survey Solutions Network License Manager is required for V21. Please refer to the Installation Guide for more information:

CIVIL SITE DESIGN PLUS

Customers installing this product will required a new V21 license.  Licensing is set for the current user and the activation process is the same (user generates trigger codes, this is emailed to us and we provide an activation code via email).

If you already have Civil Site Design Plus installed, you will need to first uninstall the application in order to install this updated version.

• Windows 10 method:
  • Open the Start Menu and click Settings
  • In the top search bar type ‘Add or remove programs‘
  • From the list, select Civil Survey Solutions Civil Site Design v21
  • Click the Uninstall button that appears

Note: Uninstalling the application will not delete your license or remove your Civil Site Design settings.

NEW FEATURES V21.10

• Pack Mode for Civil Site Design
  • Civil Site Design v21.10, has a new option for storing Civil Site Design Data. 
  • Found on the new Data Manage tab (previously Data Share), this new mode of storage allows you to pack the entire Civil Site Design project inside the drawing, offering enormous benefits for portability of your design, simplifying version control and facilitating seamless sharing with document management systems.

• Interface Changes
  • With the addition of the new Pack Mode for Civil Site Design, the General tab has been consolidated with the Data Folder management commands now found under a single pulldown on the Project Admin Panel.

• Water Drop
  • A Water Drop new command has been added for working in the drawing environment & Model Viewer, to trace flow direction analysis from a selected point on Civil Site Design surfaces.
  • If a user wants to run water drop across a combination of surface, use the Paste Surface command to combine surfaces together and water trace on that.

Update Pastes

• Update (Rebuild) all pasted surfaces in the project
• After editing any surface involved in a Paste Surface action, click on this button to update all pasted surfaces

IMPROVEMENTS V21.10

• Model Viewer
  • New quick Toggle Options have been added to the Model Viewer status bar (bottom of the screen):
  • 
    • Toggle on/off fast refresh for quicker modelling
    • Toggle on/off primary design surface display
    • Toggle on/off material transparency (users can still toggle in the Material Groups form)
    • Toggle on/off Model Viewer ribbon display

• Improved Point Cloud import to accept different .LAS formats (such as from the site https://elevation.fsdf.org.au/) and present with Classification colour assignment
• When importing a CAD file (using CAD Import) users can map render materials from CAD into Model Viewer. Process:
  • In the CAD drawing, take note of the Name of the Material assigned
  • In Model Viewer, create a Material with the same name and set the image (with scaling) to apply.

• Satellite to Surface / Satellite to Image
  • These commands now store the image locally with the drawing, rather than inside the Civil Site Design Data Folder. This change was made to avoid issues surrounding Pack Mode. It isn’t possible to pack the drawing if any files are actively open for editing, such as an XREF or Image.

• CSD Redraw (BricsCAD Only)
  • This command has been added for BricsCAD users. Opening a Civil Site Design enabled drawing after opening a non-Civil Site Design enabled drawing does not automatically re-display all the drafting (surfaces and model linework). This command updates the surfaces, linework, pipe drafting and synchronises the labels.

FIXES V21.10

• System Improvements
  • Switching between drawings could result in a fatal error.    
  • In BricsCAD, opening a new drawing could result in a fatal error.  This related to the drawing containing a trigger to check for the CSD Data folder.  Previously, users needed to run the command ARDUV7REMOVEARDRUNFLAG and save the drawing
• Vertical Grading Editor (VGE)
  • When the Read Share command is used to reference data shared from another drawing, the VGE edit controls are now disabled to reflect that control of the design is coming from the source drawing.
  • The ‘special drains’ feature has been reinstated (part of CSD Express features used primarily in Romania)
• Model Viewer
  • Walk mode didn’t work if an exaggeration was applied.
• Pits & Pipes
  • A new toggle was introduced in V20.0 to disable the software from selecting a Pit Type, based on the road longitudinal slope (when the pit was attached to a Road). This toggle was not being maintained when the drawing was closed / reopened.
  • On some projects, clicking on ‘Plot to File’ in the Long Section plotting form would present a message ‘Hit enter to cancel or [Reply]’ in the command line and the plot window would stay open.

KNOWN ISSUES V21.10

• Civil 3D Pipe Network Creation Tools
  • Inlet/Outlet type parts are not supported at this time.
  • If there is no match between a Civil Site Design part and a Civil 3D part, no pipes or structures will be created
  • Pipe Data Source is not managed at the time of creating the profile views – the first network will automatically be assigned. Pipe Data source needs to be manually set by the user post creation of the profile views
  • Alignments created by the software will not trace curved pipes – geometry will consist of a straight line between structures.
  • Selecting surface profiles at the time of creating the Civil 3D pipe network is a once off assignment. This cannot be changed by using Manage Network and updating. The Profiles will need to be deleted and recreated. To do this:
    • Delete all Profiles for the Pipe Network
    • Use the Manage Networks to Update the Pipe Network with the desired surface.
  • If the Civil 3D pipe network is created and then curved pipe/s are applied in Civil Site Design (replacing previously straight line pipes) the user will need to delete that Civil 3D pipe in the drawing and run the Sync Networks command to create the curved pipe.

• Cul-de-sac creation
  • It is possible that upon first creation of a Cul-de-sac, the centre line string of the incoming road may extend through the cul-de-sacs and result in crossing strings in Totalmodel.  Reviewing the Cul-de-sac geometry and string creation settings and then Updating the string should resolve the issue.

• Knuckle creation: Widening Options
  • Using the widening option of Move the ‘Match to Code’ may result in unexpected elevation changes at the start/end of the knuckle if the adjacent road elevations are adjusted.
    • If this widening option is desired it is recommended instead to select “None” and then use Variations and Batter overrides on the Road to associate the EB code to the knuckle string.  Section edits over the knuckle range would include: Variation > Set Code Offsets &/or Levels to String, then Variation > Delete All Sections Outside Selected Codes to remove codes outside of the EB code, then Batters > Slope Batters (set the side with the knuckle to have blank entries for cut/fill).

• Export Corridor
  • Corridor sections will be assigned to the corridor using the sampled sections in Civil Site Design, not including the ‘mesh refinement’ applied for vertical curves. Customers will need to increase sampling over these regions to have tighter sampling assigned to the corridor
  • Regions are created to support changes in default widths on the template – this is deliberate to help speed up the corridor (by reducing the number of parameter overrides)
  • It is recommended that when exporting a corridor that includes a cul-de-sac with offset geometry, the Apply targets to cul-de-sac settings be un-ticked.  Applying targets to cul-de-sacs in this case will likely result in errors in the exported corridor.  Users can review the Corridor Settings to change this option and then run Sync Corridors to update the corridor in the drawing.
• Exchange Settings
  • If Subassembly Composer was used to create the desired subassembly, it is recommended to use the Import PKT option when selecting the subassembly, and not selecting it from the Tool Palette it may have been added to. If the subassembly doesn’t live in a Catalog (even though it may be in a tool palette) it will not work in the corridor.

It is likely that a message will display when using Select Subassembly, about providing read/write access to certain folders. The software is trying to access all folders that contain subassembly catalogs and finding issue – follow the instructions in the message to resolve the issue. This does not stop you from exporting corridors, but may limit the list of subassemblies you can use.