4.0 Planning a Successful Project


Think of the project end, how many data shortcuts will there be, plan and profiles etc. What is the folder structure going to look like? Is there a naming convention to follow? Plan with the end in mind and you will avoid many of the issues that slow Civil 3d down.

4.1    Regionalizing the Civil 3d Data

When you are planning the project and the estimate for data shortcuts is more than a thousand, the project needs to be split into multiple data short cut project files.

There is a tendency to divide the work into multiple data shortcut projects by task or organization as shown above. This joint venture project is divided by who is doing the work. To form a complete drawing, (as shown on the left) data shortcuts are used from three different data shortcut projects.

This is not a best practice; it is recommended that you regionalize the files to allow the drawings to be created from one data shortcut project. ProjectWise as the repository will facilitate the sharing of data between groups/organizations.

When you regionalize your data shortcut projects you want to balance the data shortcuts so the files are roughly equal in size. Once the project starts it is very difficult to split the data up when a data shortcut project becomes too large.

 Setting Regions on an Alignment or Corridor Project

If you are auto-generating P&P sheets, you can size your region based on the limit of 10 sheets to a file.

This picture illustrates a highway that will need about 1500 data shortcuts. Dividing it into three sections with one of them being the more complex intersection is another way to keep the files smaller and faster.

 Setting Regions on a Campus or Site Project 

This picture illustrates a large campus type of project. A grid is a more logical division for this type of project.

4.2    Working with Surfaces

Civil 3d has a limit of 1,500,000 points in the surfaces in any single .dwg file. Points in excess of that limit will overflow into into a companion .mms (grid surface) or .grs (Tin Surface.) file.

In the picture above each of my files has one or more companion files. If I move or copy these files in Windows Explorer or Civil 3d I must bring those files also, or Civil 3d cannot display the surface.

When you DREF the data shortcut of the surface into another file that file gets its own companion. XREF'ing a file that has a companion file will result in another companion being created for the destination file.

The issue with this is the companion file is large. At times opening one sheet file may bring out 4 or 5 companion files. This can take a long time and is one the reasons that Civil 3d projects are difficult to move.

ProjectWise is aware of and will manage the companion file as a dependency. When you are copying out large numbers of mms or grs files it adds greatly to the amount of data being transferred at file open.

Surface Simplification

Civil 3d offers a tool for surface simplification. It is a topic with a lot of discussion in Autodesk forums.

The surface simplification wizard is intended to remove data from the surface in a way that keeps the precision. The example that expresses this well is do you work the site with a teaspoon or a bulldozer.

I recommend reading the help for this tool and always use it in conjunction with a Civil engineer to validate the result.

 Dividing Surfaces

If simplifying the surface is not possible without putting the precision and accuracy at risk, you may be able to plan the surveying to divide the surfaces into multiple smaller files. Working with Data Shortcut Projects

4.3    Plan the Project Structure and File Locations

 Create a new Project from a Template

Consider from the start where to put the data shortcut folder. The best practice is to build this folder into a ProjectWise Work Area template. A work area template is a folder structure that is kept in an area of ProjectWise designated by a setting at the datasource level.

For more information about work area templates see:

For this next exercise it assumes you have an existing work area template.

1.  In ProjectWise Explorer select the parent folder for the new project.

2.  Right click and select New Work Area

3.  Then select Next

4.  Select the Template you want to use and select Next

You need to fill in the Project Name and Description

The remaining fields are prepopulated with the information in the template. You should not change these settings unless you are instructed to do so.

5.  Select Next

Fill in the attributes, in this example it is the Project Name and Number.

6.  Select Finish

One of the big advantages of this method is that it duplicates not just the structure, it includes all the settings including security.

 Create a new Data Shortcut Project

Creation of the data shortcut project can be done any time. It is included here as this point of the project is a logical time to create it.

1.  Open AutoCAD Civil 3D to a new blank drawing and log in to ProjectWise

2. In the Toolspace, right-click on Data Shortcuts and select Set Working Folder

3. Select the folder where the data shortcuts are stored. In the previous example it was Civil Data.

Notice that the working folder doesn’t appear between the brackets. This is because there is no data shortcut project folder in the folder that was selected.

4. Right click on Data Shortcuts select New Data Shortcuts Project Folder

5. The name you fill in will be the name of the CivilDSProj file

6. If you want to use a Project Template you can assign it from ProjectWise after you save the file.

4.4    Best Practice for Planning a Successful Project

 Data Shortcut Files

 Data Shortcut Specific Considerations