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Geolocation Ribbon Tab in Civil 3D 2014
So AutoCAD 2014 has this cool new feature called Live Maps and Geographic Location (basically, AutoCAD now owns the coordinate systems for Civil 3D and Map 3D). When a coordinate system is assigned to the drawing, you get a new tab on the ribbon allowing you to display an aerial map, a road map, and do some cool stuff.
The problem is, this isn't in Civil 3D 2014 at all.
Good post by Brian Hailey.
Geolocation Ribbon Tab in Civil 3D 2014
So AutoCAD 2014 has this cool new feature called Live Maps and Geographic Location (basically, AutoCAD now owns the coordinate systems for Civil 3D and Map 3D). When a coordinate system is assigned to the drawing, you get a new tab on the ribbon allowing you to display an aerial map, a road map, and do some cool stuff.
The problem is, this isn't in Civil 3D 2014 at all.
Good post by Brian Hailey.
PDF to DWG Convertor
Attaching PDF’s to drawings can be somewhat of a pain. For one, the performance with panning and zooming is horrible. Wouldn’t it be nice to convert these PDF’s back to a DWG? Well there are programs out there to accomplish this.
Once the PDF is converted back to a DWG, you can then edit linework and text as well. Most of these programs are fairly inexpensive. I have been introduced to a website that will convert these files for free!!
Some of its distinct features are:
- High quality conversions with lines, arcs, scale presets and texts preserved, and no need for further touch-ups.
- Files of up to 40MB can be uploaded and converted quickly.
- All uploaded user data, including emails, is deleted in accordance with their privacy policy.
- Everything is free – they support their selves via ads on the homepage (please, don’t be confused by them).
You can start today by clicking here.
New Feature in Civil 3D 2014: Apply Vertical Closure Between Surface Automatically in Quantity Take-off Calculations
Being Civil has blogged about another new feature in Civil 3D 2014. Keep in mind, that the closure between the surfaces does NOT affect the actual surface. It’s only for the QTO calculations. You can read more about it here.
Why is My Linework Gray?
I ran across a drawing that had red lines in it and some of them, plus some of the text was gray. The linework and text were on their own layers and all of the properties were set to BYLAYER. I banged my head on the wall for hours trying to figure this out. A friend of mine, the one that had this problem, figured out what the issue was. But I was on the road and couldn’t do much about his “fix”. So the next day I sat down and went at it again. Turns out that in my Map Task Pane, if I unchecked Default, the lines showed up correctly. This must have been a drawing that was converted from a shapefile. See below…
Click on image to open up separately
Autodesk 360 Desktop Companion Live Update 1
Autodesk has released an update for the Autodesk 360 desktop companion. If you have version 4.0.27.1 to 4.0.32.100, then you need to apply this update.
To read more about this and to download the update, click here.
Changes to Drawing Template Files in Civil 3D 2014
There are a few changes to the template file in Civil 3D 2014.
To note these changes, check out Being Civil’s blog on these changes, here.
Civil 3D 2014 New Feature – Create Sections of A Projected Solid
Being Civil’s blog has updated to show a new feature in Civil 3D 2014.
You can read more about it here.
Infraworks 2014 “Bug” Resolved
If you have been using Infraworks 2014, you might have noticed that there is an issue with some of the trees. Notably, the road style Boulevard with Trees and another particular tree. The result shows the trunk of the trees as transparent. See image below…
You can read about my post in the Infraworks Discussion Group.
Thanks to the user Henrik-B, there is a solution!!
Henrik-B states that the workaround is as follows:
1. In Windows explorer, find your Infraworks resource folder. The path is usually something like this:
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\InfraWorks 2014\Resources
Note that ProgramData is a system folder that is often hidden by default, so that you might not see ProgramData in c:.
2. Inside the resource folder, the texture file that causes the problem in your case is in this subfolder:
<Your_ResourceFolder>\assets\3DSMaxContent\Trees\PalmTree007_Var01
Here, there should be a file called PalmBark001_Diffuse.jpg
Henrik-B also states the problem is that the models contain some monochrome .jpg textures that are not handled correctly by Infraworks 2014. The attached file is another version of the same image, but converted to color-rgb. I obtained it by opening the jpg in IrfanView, choosing "Increase Color Depth" in the image menu, and overwriting the texture file with the converted one.
The other tree that is known to have this issue is…
<Resources>\assets\3DSMaxContent\Trees\tree016_var05_darkgreen\Bark001_diffuse.jpg
Thanks again to Henrik-B for the help and support!!
