Welcome to the Civil View User Community
The Civil View User Community is designed to allow you to stay current with the latest developments in the civil visualisation industry.
The primary aim of this site is to empower users of Autodesk Civil View (formally Dynamite VSP) and associated technologies to share and contribute information to help improve visualisation skills throughout the civil engineering design community.
A26 Dualling - Glarryford, Northern Ireland
A recently produced animation showing proposed improvements to the A26 (Frosses Road) in Northern Ireland, between Glarryford and the A44 (Drones Road) junction to dual carriageway standard.
Courtesy of Arup.
3ds Max Design 2013 and Civil View 2013 Announced
Autodesk yesterday announced the forthcoming release of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2013. You can read all about the more general new features in these products in Ken Pimentel’s blog.
However, I’d like to focus on the improvements made to Civil View itself. First up is the fantastic news that Civil View has now become an integral feature within 3ds Max Design 2013 itself, for the very first time.
This means that there will no longer be a need to track the product down as an optional install from the DVD, the Civil View pull-down menu will now appear as standard in every 3ds Max Design 2013 installation. There are a couple of important associated benefits to this.
Firstly, Civil View documentation will now be found in the main 3ds Max Design User Guide which is published online by Autodesk. Secondly, as an integral feature in 3ds Max Design 2013, the Civil View user interface and documentation will now be available in all languages which are supported by 3ds Max Design (English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese).
The product will continue to be unavailable for 3ds Max 2013.
Here is a quick run down of some of the new features you’ll find in Civil View 2013:
- Rotating wheels for animated vehicles placed using Object Placement Style Editor
- Rotating wheels for animated vehicles generated from imported traffic data files
- Import support for AutoCAD Civil 3D Pipe Network geometry
- Import support for AutoCAD Civil 3D Alignment/Profile geometry
- New LandXML Import Panel
- Improved performance for 12D Ascii File Import Panel
- Optimized Object Placement Style Editor: when the Apply button is pressed to update the viewport, only the style elements which have been modified since the last update are applied to the scene. Previously, all style elements were updated in the scene when the Apply button was pressed.
- Improved surface tracking performance for objects placed using Object Placement Style Editor
- Start station data is now permanently retained for imported AutoCAD Civil 3D Corridor Baselines
- The following panels now support start station data for imported alignments and corridor baselines: Object Placement Style Editor, Swept Object Style Editor (Build New Parent Shape option), Station (Chainage) Text Placement Tool
- Fully Context Sensitive Help
More news coming soon….
Autodesk BIM for Infrastructure
A video showcasing the value of BIM for Infrastructure, and highlighting Autodesk offerings (including 3ds Max Design and Civil View) that help transportation professionals imagine, design, create a better world and build efficient, safe and sustainable infrastructure.
Kuwait Regional Road South
A recently produced visualisation of the Regional Road South Part (Section 1), in Kuwait.
Courtesy of Mouchel and Gulf Consult.
A465 - Heads of the Valleys Section 3 Proposals
A recently produced fly-through of the Heads of the Valleys A465 Section 3 Brynmawr to Tredegar road improvement scheme proposals.
Courtesy of Arup. For more information about the scheme visit:
www.a465brynmawr2tredegar.co.uk
Autodesk Civil View 2012 - Quick Preview
Dynamite VSP relaunches as Autodesk Civil View
It’s exactly 10 years since Dynamite VSP was launched by 3AM Solutions way back in 2001, so this is a fitting time to announce that the product is this month being relaunched by Autodesk under an entirely new product name. There are also a few associated announcements which are very important, and which we think you are going to like. Read on….
Introducing Autodesk Civil View
It’s now just over a year since Autodesk acquired Dynamite VSP, and there is been a lot of work going on in the background both here at 3AM and within Autodesk to fully integrate the product into the Autodesk product range.
Last year, the product received a partial rebranding. Although the product itself was still using the Dynamite VSP name, it was widely promoted by Autodesk as the Civil Visualization Extension as part of a package which included the Dynamite VSP Exporter for Civil 3D.
With the recent release of 3ds Max Design 2012 and Civil 3D 2012, I can now confirm that the products are now fully integrated into 3ds Max Design and Civil 3D and have received their new, permanent Autodesk branding.
From this point forward, the product will be officially known as Autodesk Civil View, and it’s a name that we rather like.
Here is the official blurb from Autodesk:
“Transform complex civil design geometry and models into compelling 3D design visualisations faster and more efficiently with the Autodesk 3ds Max Design Civil View feature set. With simple, style-driven functionality and an extensive library of parametric civil-orientated objects and materials, Civil View helps civil engineering professionals - even those with little or no detailed knowledge of Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design software - achieve stunning results. Civil View links dynamically to data from AutoCAD Civil 3D civil engineering software and certain other software products, such as Bentley® MXROAD® software. When design changes occur, design visualisations are more easily refreshed, enabling them to evolve in tandem.”
Announcing 3ds Max Design 2012
Autodesk’s ultimate aim last year was to integrate Dynamite VSP into 3ds Max Design 2011, but in the event there just wasn’t time to get it done. As a result, the Civil Visualization Extension was only available to subscription customers via download from the Autodesk Subscription Center.
This year, it’s all change again. Autodesk Civil View has finally made it onto the 3ds Max Design 2012 DVD, although you might not immediately notice that it’s there.
Civil View is an optional item on the DVD, so you need to install it manually after you have installed 3ds Max Design 2012. Here’s the instructions on where to find it:
- Load the DVD into your Optical Drive
- Install 3ds Max Design 2012
- Go back to your Optical Drive and restart setup.exe, but this time choose “Install Tools and Utilities”.
- From “Install Tools and Utilities”, select the Autodesk Civil View option and you’ll see the familiar (but now rebranded) installer from the Dynamite VSP days spring into life. Just follow the instructions on screen to install Autodesk Civil View.
Note that this installer is included (and supported) only on the 3ds Max Design 2012 DVD, you will not find it on the 3ds Max 2012 DVD.
Native Support for Civil View Content in 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design
Have you ever needed to set up a render farm and felt frustrated that the render servers wouldn’t recognise Dynamite VSP content unless you manually install the necessary Dynamite VSP plugins on each computer? Or perhaps you’ve sent max files containing Dynamite VSP content to third parties and run into problems because unless they were Dynamite VSP users, they were unable to load your max files?
I am happy to report that these problems are now firmly consigned to the history books.
From the 2012 releases, both 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design feature native support for Autodesk Civil View content (including older releases of Dynamite VSP).
This means that any user of 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012 will now be able to load and render max files which contain Dynamite VSP and Civil View scene content. You will still need to install the full Civil View product if you which to edit any of that Civil View content though, which means that editing can only be undertaken in 3ds Max Design.
What about the Civil View Exporter for Civil 3D 2012?
If you are a Civil 3D user, you’ll also be interested to know that you no longer need to manually download and install the Exporter for Civil View - it is now fully integrated into Civil 3D and installed with the product as standard. So where is it?
Well, the option has moved. You’ll no longer find the exporter in the Civil 3D Toolbox. It now has a dedicated icon in the ribbon, and you’ll find it in the Output tab.
I’ll be posting more news on the Autodesk Civil View release shortly - there have been a lot of changes under the hood which you might not pick up from the Autodesk release notes.
Some Useful Tutorials
Marion Landry of Autodesk has produced some useful quick tutorials which cover topics like creating trees with the 3ds Max Design Object Paint Tool, and adding clouds and moving the horizon on a mental ray Physical Sky map. Check them out!
Object Paint
Adding Clouds
Moving the Horizon
Alex Roman
OK, so it’s not civil related, but if you haven’t already seen these movies by Alex Roman and you are looking for inspiration - you should really take a look.
Both of these were created primarily with Autodesk 3ds Max, and they are so good, they’ll both leave you wondering whether they really are CGI generated.
...and if you simply don’t believe that these were created using CGI, check this out:
For more info on Alex and his work, visit: www.thirdseventh.com
Point Clouds in 3ds Max Design
Just in case you missed Jamie’s blog this month, thanks to an Autodesk Labs project it’s now possible to import and manage point cloud data in 3ds Max Design. Here’s how:
This tool is available now. For more information visit the Autodesk Labs web site.