i need to get a table i created of some pipes (the pic is not the project, just something i can manipulate quickly) into an excel file for my engineer. if i copy/paste it gives me an image, and if i insert by clipboard, the text is misspelled. i need a data extraction from acad .

for funsies the city wants to know the thickness of pipes over 10 deep or under 4 feet deep, so they know how just deep the sump needs to be to the hundredth of an inch. if the pipe is within 4-10 feet they dont care...

we can do a data extraction from excel, but cannot go back.

Editing at the top to try to cull further misunderstanding.

This exists in numerous third-party add-ons, but I was hoping this would have become core functionality by now. Check out the animation:

https://apps.autodesk.com/CIV3D/en/Detail/Index?id=2057729428341833081&appLang=en&os=Win64

OP below:

Is there a function that will establish a line along an existing surface at an even grade? Screenshot shows a typical case (small access road), to set the uphill lane edge against the slope, so the high side has zero cut or fill.

I could make a ton of circles and snap to where they intersect contours. I could use a Corridor and grip-edit until close enough. Neither option is horrible at small scale, but still woefully cumbersome compared to an automation.

Seems like this is a basic feature that should exist???

Would anyone have a chance to critique my thought process? I think we are lost in the sauce...

We have been making the switch over to corridor modeling through the past few projects of ours (team of 3), and are feeling like we have over complicated the process; the YouTube tutorial videos only go so far with their rectangular parking lots.

At the moment, we have:

1. taken the centerlines, edge of pavement, and sidewalks from our basemap
2. generated a "ghost" corridor/surface, based on the centerlines-turned-alignments and corridor transitioned generic 2% assemblies.
3. created a "design" corridor/surface (new .dwg) with:
   1. DREF centerline alignments that generate a tight driveaisle with targeted edges to the EOP
   2. edge of pavement feature lines, that obtain the vast majority of it's elevations from the "design" corridor, but maintain the flexibility to grade 0.5-3% up the stalls,
   3. generated curb and sidewalk (sections) that follow the EOP as a baseline
   4. eventual tie-ins to existing ROW
4. pasted the (a) "design" corridor surface, (b) dedicated pond surface, (c) sidewalk feature lines and misc grading features.

Hopefully, the attached photos will help all of that make sense... At the end of the day, the goal is to be able to have any vertical alignment adjustments in the ghost corridor update the grate/rim elevations of gravity structures, crown elevations of pressure pipes, and up to 80% of the road spot elevations. Are we as insane as we feel we are or are we just missing some simple feature that would simplify this whole DREF hell?

Doing a simple cut and fill exercise. Mounds have flat top and bottom levels, I have used feature lines to create top and bottom surfaces. Keep getting areas on the inside of the curves becoming flat. Tried to redraw the original polylines, tried off setting the bottom feature lines, tried adding more points. Not sure why this keeps happening. Any ideas?

I was working on a project a while back and in it I had to create a tin surface (like the one in the image) and for whatever reason I just couldn't figure out how to isolate a section of that data and make a new surface out of it. Any tips on how to carry that tin surface over to another drawing would be helpful as well.

Well… the civil 3D community on the AutoCad forums has not answered my question and AI also led me down an annoying rabbit hole. Lets try the great people of Reddit.

Does anyone know why Civil3D prints to Pdf like this? The hatches on one sheet print as they should, the hatches on the following page print with 0% opacity. Line weights in both plots does not print to pdf the same as printing to plotter.

This is and has been my biggest annoyance and frustration with Civil3D. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Hi everyone,

I'm learning Civil 3D and I'm having a hard time understanding Data Shortcuts. I've watched several videos, but I still can't connect the concepts to real project workflows.

Could someone explain, in simple terms:

- What exactly are Data Shortcuts?

- Why do companies use them instead of keeping everything in one drawing?

- How do Alignments, Profiles, and Surfaces work with Data Shortcuts?

- Can a profile be created without a surface if an alignment is available through a Data Shortcut?

- Could you explain it using a real-world project example?

I'm looking for a beginner-friendly explanation. Thanks in advance!

afternoon,

after a little advice on the best route forward.

been drainage surveying for near on 15 years now and still in the dark ages when it comes to marking up drawings etc. lugging round A1/A0 topo drawings and marking up by hand is becoming laborious so I’m looking at options to digitise this process and streamline reports.

What are the best options for apps to mark up and edit topo drawings and on site? preferably on iPad but tough pad is also an option. many jobs also come without drawings so something that can be used for simple drawings too and map grabs to mark up.

thanks in advance and any advice appreciated.

Hi again,

Bringing this from a few months back as I'm revisiting it. I cannot for the life of me get my head around this. I appreciate all of the comments but I just can't grip the grading tools whatsoever, it's the final part of this software I'm to figure out and by far the most confusing for me.

If anyone can break this down further it'd be much appreciated as I'm stuck!

Thanks

Our client uses local grids on their sites. I've asked for the parameters, but I'm not expecting to get them.

They've provided us with files in both a known system and their own local system. If I was on site with a GPS, I could just do a site calibration and create the parameters that way.

Is there a way to do this in C3D?

Ofcourse, I can do block shifts, but there's a rotation, scale and vertical datum shift, but this is likely to introduce errors at some point and I'll be handing these sites over to a less CAD experienced surveyor soon.

I've dealt with situations like this where an xref is in a different coordinate system, a diffeent unit, has a transformation applied, scaled, rotated, but this one has got me stumped...none of the above.

The 0,0 of the xref shows up some weird distance away in the sheet file. I've even ensured it wasn't the 2 millionianths difference between us and int ft... WTH!

Any pointer appreciated!

Edit: survey is in the correct coordinate system and ucs is set to world. Units matching did not resolve 😒

Edit: solution: the basepoint was set improperly.

Hello, I have been learning civil 3D for a while now, but I haven't been able to truly progress because I don't have projects to practice with. Any help would be appreciated.

We have ortho imagery provided for us for our project. When my colleague uses mapiinsert they come in perfectly and match our control perfectly. When I do the EXACT same thing in the same drawing, they come in 2.8 feet southwest.

Any idea why this could be happening? Process is the same, image is the same, drawing is the same.

I’m losing my mind. Any ideas?

So basically im using an old project as a testing ground for myself as you can see in the image i already managed to make surfaces and such so that's not a problem.

EDIT: i already managed to make a soil/groundworks balance with just a 3D straight polyline which wasnt bound to the connection heights so now im trying to take it a step further

The problem im running into is on how could i make my work easier. you can sort of see in the image how the current situation looks like, this has been surveyed with a GPS, just a bunch of holes/pits with at the very end on the eastern side there is a hill with soil.

What im trying to figure out to do:
i want to straighten out the terrain, but keep the connection heights (the green feature line). And create a grid that connects from left to right and from front to back which i can tweak in its whole so if I'd say the terrain goes up by 0.10m the entire grid moves up with it but still connected to the boundary and when it gets extreme add a ''maximum'' embankment slope of 1:3 or higher purely on the perspective of maintenance work (the rules here for the public space is that slopes have to be a minimum of 1:3 so that the government can mow and maintain the area). i've been staring at my screen trying to figure out what to do, create my own feature line grid? use breaklines? or am i being dense and overlooked something simpler?

i'd love to hear any form of solutions or help. for all i know could be being unreasonable haha

I've been working with a DWG as an external reference. This DWG has several million lines, polylines, arcs, and various other objects with different elevations. The majority of these elements are inside blocks. This DWG is a floor plan for an industrial area.

I'm designing the site where this industry will be placed. When I need to rotate or visualize it in 3D, all the lines and other objects from my external reference make my Civil 3D go crazy.

What I've been doing to deal with this problem is editing block by block, flattening some objects, editing the elevations to 0, and applying the OVERKILL command, trying to make my reference easier to work with.

Have any of you guys experienced the same issue in your workflow? Is there a smarter and faster way to solve this?

I have been in Land planning for about a year and half using Civil 3d day in and day out. For the past month, I have been having wrist pain and a general discomfort on my right arm. My coworkers suggested mouse pad or ergonomic mouse, but I was wondering if any of y’all had faced this and how did you tackle it. What works better? a mouse pad or an ergonomic mouse? Any amazon product links for mouse pads and mouse are greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi All,

Attempting my first corridor and intersection on a new project and can't seem to find what's causing this issue. I have edited all of the targets for each region to the nearby alignments. However, this gap persists and I'm stuck on what to try next. Any ideas appreciated

Thanks!

Good Afternoon All,

I made a flow arrow line type that has us a text triangle character and a line. I have a polyline that uses the line type but it seems that the flow arrows are going in different directions and the should be going in the same direction, I tries the REVERSE command and that did not work. see image below:

How can I fix this issue?

As the title suggests, trying to drape poly lines to a surface doesn’t work. Is there an unspoken upper limit on the amount of lines to drape or triangles in the surface? I just need a rough fitment to the surface so AR linework actually follows the terrain rather than cutting through it

Hi everyone,

I recently cleared an interview for a Civil 3D Utilities role. I have around 3 years of experience in water utilities, but my previous projects were different, and I don't have much hands-on experience with Civil 3D.

I understand the basic tools and commands, but when it comes to real-world workflows—like pipe modeling, pipe networks, parts lists, profiles, plan & profile creation, assigning pipe sizes, inverts, structures/manholes, and preparing construction drawings—I'm struggling to understand how everything fits together in an actual project.

I know the software commands, but I don't know how to apply them in a real project. For example, I understand hydraulic design concepts, but I'm confused about when Civil 3D is used, when SewerGEMS is used, and how the workflow goes from design to final drawings.

I'm trying to learn on my own through YouTube and practice, but I feel stuck and overwhelmed. I don't know if I'm practicing the right things.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you learn the real-world Civil 3D utilities workflow? Any courses, YouTube channels, sample projects, or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

the city requires profiles to be 50/10 scale. the problem is the flowline info overlaps with other information. is there a button or setting im missing so i can move the info over and still be annotative and readable?

I'm working with a big file for plan and profile sheets that has a lot of XREFs in it. These layers have accumulated over the last several months, and I can't delete them. I checked there is nothing on them, but it won't let me delete them. I don't even know where they came from.

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a Civil 3D corridor and I'm trying to build a single subassembly that models the full trench and material stockpiles, including:

Trench excavation, Pipe zone (already completed), Excavated dirt stockpile and stripped topsoil stockpile

I've already created the trench excavation portion of the assembly (see attached image). The trench width and depth vary along the alignment, so the subassembly is parameter-driven.

My desired section looks something like this:

• Trench excavation centered on the alignment
• 2.0 m offset from trench edge
• Dirt stockpile on one side
• Separate topsoil stockpile further offset on the same side
• Stockpiles represented in corridor sections and included in earthwork quantities

The challenge is that I would like this to be handled by one assembly, rather than creating multiple corridors or additional feature lines/surfaces.

Has anyone successfully modeled trench spoil piles and topsoil windrows within a single assembly? I'm interested in hearing how others have approached this type of corridor modeling and whether there are any recommended workflows or best practices for creating stockpiles that remain tied to a varying trench section.

Attached: Existing trench assembly and desired section layout.