What this book covers
Chapter 1, Taking Civil 3D to the Next Level, explores what it means to actually take our Civil 3D BIM designs to the next level. We’ll explore strategies that will set our design teams up for successful design and collaboration and put in our homework to understand full design requirements before a project even starts.
Chapter 2, Building Blocks for Civil 3D Designs, will recap several objectives and learning paths discussed in our previous book, Autodesk Civil 3D 2024 From Start to Finish. We will summarize a lot here, but just focus on setting the stage for our next leg up.
Chapter 3, Advanced Design and Analysis Capabilities within Civil 3D 2025, begins to expand on our design capabilities and explores more recently added tools and functionality Autodesk has made available in Civil 3D 2025.
Chapter 4, Rail Design Capabilities within Autodesk Civil 3D 2025, explores how we’ll continue building onto our Roadway Modeling Toolbelt and how we can apply similar workflows to design railroads/railways within Civil 3D 2025.
Chapter 5, Harnessing Reality Capture to Enhance Civil Projects within Autodesk Civil 3D 2025, looks at the capture methods that can enhance our civil projects. As an industry, civil engineering is based upon the capture of existing conditions data. This was typically done with traditional methods of capturing points of interest on the project site, whether curb and gutter or the center locations of manholes for utility capture, and so on. The industry primarily responsible for this capture is surveying and it has dramatically expanded and changed over the past few years with new technologies for a more expansive capture of reality. Now, the surveying industry can be compiled into the broader category referred to as reality capture, which has primarily been taken over by techniques such as terrestrial laser scanners or aerial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), and even photogrammetry techniques. This chapter will dive briefly into the capture methods beyond typical point capture in surveying and into how to handle such immense amounts of data and make them manageable for our design purposes.
Chapter 6, Streamlining Design with Grading Optimization, jumps into the world of advanced cloud-computing grading tools that, when used properly, can increase design efficiencies and save teams’ valuable time earlier on in the project as alternative designs are being considered.
Chapter 7, Exploring Content Catalog Editor, explores the Content Catalog Editor. Content Catalog Editor allows design teams to develop custom solutions where out-of-the-box Civil 3D utility parts can be limiting for design teams.
Chapter 8, Empowering Utility Modeling with Infrastructure Parts Editor, explores the Infrastructure Parts Editor. Infrastructure Parts Editor allows design teams to develop custom solutions where out-of-the-box Civil 3D utility parts can be limiting to design teams.
Chapter 9, Custom Roadway Design with Subassembly Composer, looks at the world of customized roadway design. Subassembly Composer allows design teams to develop custom solutions where out-of-the-box Civil 3D subassemblies can be limiting for design teams.
Chapter 10, Information Modeling with Property Sets, explores the ways we can bolster our models and objects to inform project stakeholders of pertinent information related to our civil BIM designs. Information related to our models and objects can greatly improve collaboration, construction processes, and asset management and maintenance after design is complete.
Chapter 11, Introduction to Project Explorer, dives into the world of Project Explorer. Project Explorer has many benefits that can improve and speed up model adjustments, design changes, design reviews, and reporting capabilities.
Chapter 12, Automating Routine Workflows with Dynamo and Scripting, dives into the world of Dynamo for Civil 3D. Utilizing Dynamo for Civil 3D has many benefits for design teams, from streamlining design workflows to drive consistency in how we develop consistent designs, to improving collaboration across all project stakeholders, to simply spending less time on routine and mundane tasks.
Chapter 13, Preparing and Extending the Purpose of our BIM Designs for Collaboration and Visualization, explores how we can integrate BIM designs in a multi-disciplined environment. We’ll also learn how we can extend our civil BIM designs and integrate directly into collaboration and visualization tools. By doing this, we’ll find new ways to work more efficiently and become even better civil BIM model managers.
