Civil 3D – 3D Laser Webcast

Autodesk sent out invitations to a webcast Thursday, February 25, 2010, presenting the first in a 3-part series discussing laser scanning technologies for infrastructure projects.  The 1 Hr event kicks off at 10:00 hrs PST.

• Laser scanning technologies available
• industry perceptions
• various point cloud topics

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AUGI World Mag – Civil 3D SAP

Check out the Civil 3D column for details on the Civil 3D Subscription Advantage Pack in AUGI World Magazine.  Page 26.

AUGI World issue 6 low-resolution (9MB) version

AUGI World issue 6  high-resolution (47.5MB) version

Browse all AUGI World issues

Civil 3D – SAP Roundabouts

Back to SAP – Point Clouds

Previously I discussed being invited to watch a preview of the Civil 3D 2010 Subscription Advantage Pack, and had been quite surprised at the features.  We discussed the Point Clouds, and today we’ll peek at the Roundabout Layout.

Roundabout Layout

This was cool.  Dana Probert showed us how easy it was to start the tool, pick incoming alignments, preset standards, and a variety of options to include, like offsets, widths, standardized markings, etc.  The configuration pages were huge, but most had presets available, making it easy to run through typical layouts.  Yes, that’s paint and signage shown in the image, and it updates well.  All the additional alignments are created automatically.

The edits were probably the best part.  The incoming alignments were edited, and the Roundabout would keep up.  Dramatic changes with no tip-toeing at all (Civil users know exactly what I mean).  This thing is sick. You can even add incoming alignments after the fact. There no vertical profiling at this time, but perhaps in the future it will be available. For now you just have to add that yourself.

This was my favorite part of the SAP.  Sadly I have no roundabout designs before me, but I’ll be a lot happier to tackle them in the future.

Civil 3D – SAP Point Clouds

Autodesk released the Subscription Advantage Pack recently, and can be downloaded at he subscription site.  I’ll summarize some of the items that we were shown during the preview.

Point Cloud support

• New point cloud objects
• Control display density, thematic display control
• Ability to snap to points in object

The point cloud utility is included in this SAP to prepare the market, and to stage future integrations into other applications.

Dana Probert added a 1 gig dataset of the Manchester office, and showed us some properties that included dataset count limitation (she was at 500K), and styling (which included display size and categorical coloring by elevation range). While the main dialog was up, I noticed that multiple sources can be used to create the cloud.

It looked awesome.  You could see every detail.  Imagine being able to walk the site, preplan your storage and parking, and see vertical problems that might not have been noted on a survey.

I am concerned about the impact the dataset will have on a processor and RAM.  There is no way currently to thin the cloud density.  Subsequent discussions with co-workers has brought up various scenarios for the use of the tool, but also many reasons not to.

I think that as Autodesk enhances the toolset, and broadens the scope of it’s adaptation, we will see many more demands for this type of data, and many uses we have not yet conceived.

 

Next is Roundabouts!