Last week in Part I of “Civil 3D 2023—What’s new and exciting?”, we explored the new performance enhancements, corridor modeling updates, and drawing transformation improvements.
In Part II of our series, we will examine how Autodesk has updated Civil 3D’s Project Explorer functionality, optimization grading, and more!
Civil 3D – Project Explorer
Since its introduction in Civil 3D 2021.1, the functionality of Project Explorer has continued to expand.
The 2023 release makes reporting and tables even more powerful by allowing you to display quantity totals for rows and columns, as well as custom notes. When you enable the Total Cell setting, these values are displayed in both the Object tab and report.
You can display the totals row for AutoCAD tables by setting the Total Cell to yes in the Object Sets. You also have full control over text size and row heights for tables using the Edit Table Styles function. In this dialog, you can adjust the size and text of data rows and total rows independently.
The “Compare to” feature now allows you to evaluate COGO points and parcels to feature lines. This is something I do on almost every project and will save me a ton of time!
Grading Optimization (GO)
As this is one of the best new tools in Civil 3D in a long time, I’m sure you’ll be seeing plenty more information and upgrades to come. GO debuted last year and GO 2023 adds the following new functionality:
Non-Colinear segments returned to Civil 3D – In previous versions, when the optimized surface was returned to Civil 3D, feature lines often were overlapping and returned as “colinear feature lines.” In 2023, feature lines are returned as non-colinear, which reduces the number of feature lines a customer must manage and reduces drawing instability.
Enhanced Convergence and Validation Graphs – These graphs provide information to customers to monitor the progress and quality of the optimization. The graphs have been enhanced to provide better visibility and more useful assistance during the optimization process.
Notification Center – This new interface provides information about the optimization process, including conflicts between constraints.
Help Center – This new interface provides access to user assistance, including the GO help system, basic workflow assistance, tutorials, and sample files.
Enhanced Progress Bar – The progress bar has been enhanced to show visual cues regarding the current stage of the optimization process.
Geotech Module
Sam Lucido absolutely killed it with two recent articles for AUGIWorld on the Geotechnical Module!
With the Geotechnical Module you can manage and update borehole information within a Civil 3D profile using the same functionality of Civil 3D styles and settings.
Take a look at the March 2022 article titled “Autodesk Civil 3D: Exploring the Geotechnical Module”.
Rail Switches & Crossings
Rail features continue to be added to complete the rail design capabilities. The new turnout feature now supports U.S. standards and continues to expand to accommodate custom inputs. Civil 2023 added the following functionality:
U.S. Catalogues and conversion scripts. There is a set of scripts for US catalogue conversions.
Catalogue replacement. Existing catalogue can be replaced by a catalogue with the same catalogue name and units. The following modifications are supported:
- Add/Remove models
- Modify model parameters
- Modify model parameter values
CANT information labels can be placed anywhere along a rail alignment. Users can add stationing, cant, elevation, and several other elements.
Subassembly Composer
I don’t remember the last time SAC had an update! I was happy to see a couple items that will definitely help in my workflows.
Subassembly Composer Enhancements
- Added the ability to create an auxiliary curve object (comparable to the auxiliary line and auxiliary point objects).
- Customers can use the auxiliary curve to create temporary geometry to base other design elements upon.
- Added indicator to inform users when the subassembly they are working in has unsaved changes.
AutoCAD Platform Items
Here are a couple new things to look forward to in all AutoCAD platform products:
- MY INSIGHTS
- As you are working, you can see the pop-up that will provide helpful insights to recommend features that can help you complete the steps you are working on faster, by automating some of the repetitive processes or suggesting something new that you may not have tried. The pop-up will provide the information to you at the right time and context.
- MARKUP IMPORT & ASSIST
- After the release of Trace last year, Markup Import and Markup Assist helps you send and implement comments and feedback from colleagues faster than ever before.
Conclusion
I may not have covered all the features and there may not seem like a ton of new features, but the new features and enhanced features will help in your everyday workflows.
I would love to hear from you regarding the new features and features you would like to see added or enhanced, so feel free to call or email me anytime.
To read “Civil 3D 2023—What’s new and exciting? Part I” click HERE.
