Civil 3D, Grading and 1 Lot Single Family Residential?

[brandonbw]

I am curious how Civil 3D has come along since it first came out? Does anyone use this to do grading plans for 1 lot Single Family Residential? Basically a demo the existing house and put a new larger house on the lot project. Is this faster to use than Autocad or Land Desktop? Generally this would be for 1/4 Acre Lots normally on hillside, but sometimes more flat. I think the last release of Civil3D I used was 2007 and it almost worked for what I was trying to do at a past company, but wasn't quite there yet.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

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http://bwstructuralengineer.com

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http://bwcivilengineer.com

 

[MrBachelor]

We use it for 1 acre commercial jobs where we have more stuff to fit inside that small site. We end up with an abundance of feature lines to create our proposed surface for the amount of detail we require. I'm sure it would be easier for a residential development. There is a pretty steep learning curve for those who have never used it before. Feature lines and Autocad's grading utilities are very powerful tools. Define the building footprint, driveway, sidewalk, property lines (or other grade-to boundary) with feature lines and check the slopes for compliance. Use the stepped offset or assign elevation by reference commands and it shouldn't take any time at all. You can raise and lower multiple feature lines together to adjust finished floor elevation.
It is a good tool.

Nate the Great

http://www.ceieng.com

 

[brandonbw]

The past job I worked at was trying to switch out the whole company to Civil 3D right as the housing market bit the big one. So I didn't have more than a month of teaching myself and posting on forums back then. But I got how it worked. The main problem at the time was how slow it made fast computers crawl, and the amount of crashing was just not right.

Are you able to only use Civil 3D on its own? Or do you still need something else for your designs?

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

|

http://bwstructuralengineer.com

|

http://bwcivilengineer.com

 

[MrBachelor]

We use C3D alone to produce our project drawings. C3D is basically the combination of Autocad and Land Desktop. Autodesk also includes Hydraflow software to evaluate the detention requirements (for commercial sites or full subdivisions). The grading portion of C3D should be all the 3D components you need on a residential lot. I would not recommend using pipe networks or other 3D objects on sites like that as it would add unnecessary complication to the project and drawing file.
We too had a hard time with crashes and CPU usage when switching to C3D. I believe a full uninstall of all Autodesk products prior to install of C3D was required to reduce the crashing problems (although some drawings still have issues). If used incorrectly, the grading tools can still cause stability problems.
The recommended specs for a C3D machine are pretty high, especially the RAM.
Here's a good place for Autocad tips:

http://forums.autodesk.com/

Nate the Great

http://www.ceieng.com

 

[MusicEngineer]

Civil 3D has come a long way since 2007. It is an extremely powerful and flexible tool that can help you accomplish complex grading and corridor generation. There are several features of C3D that I do not use and have not even explored. I'm a Civil 3D 2011 user and I have read about several enhancements that have been made to the new release. There is certainly a learning curve involved. I highly recommend using this software for commercial, residential and industrial projects.