What the Grading Optimization for Civil 3D is not
Alla Zemlyanskaya
BIM in Infrastructure Evangelist | Civil 3D Expert | Tangl Ambassador
There are a few things that are helpful to understand when starting to optimize the design terrain in the Grading Optimization module of Civil 3D so that you are not disappointed in your expectations.
The first thing to understand is that an optimisation result is not a finished surface. GO has always been positioned as a preliminary design tool, but there is still an expectation that we will end up with a finished surface. Yes, a true TIN surface comes back to Civil 3D from GO, but it doesn't contain the objects we're used to modelling project terrain with. It is not a dynamic surface where you can edit the slope with feature lines, for example. Such a surface cannot even be edited because of the large number of calculated points and 3D faces. It can only be used as a reference surface.
The second thing you should not expect from GO right now is the ability to save results from different design constraints, compare them and choose the most relevant one. The current workflow allows each iteration to be returned to Civil 3D as a new surface, and the user can then analyze the cut and fill using standard tools in Civil 3D. This is not bad, since it is really easy to send the result back to Civil 3D, but what is missing is the ability to save the configuration of settings and constraints for the algorithm.
I really hope that this feature in Civil Infrastructure Public Roadmap will give users the ability to both save configurations and present the results in a format that allows to compare them by selected criteria.
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Finally, the third important thing to realize about GO is that it is not an AI application. Creating constraints for zones is not like writing a good prompt for Midjourney. It's really non-trivial engineering work, because GO doesn't create layouts from something like a text description, it optimizes the design surface according to guidelines from an engineer. And if the settings for the project are inconsistent, there will be no solution possible.
What you can definitely expect from GO is significant savings in effort and time, because Grading Optimization iteratively solves for the best grading option based on target parameters with much less user interaction.
#GradingOptimization #Civil3D #earthworks
President & Senior Water Resources Engineer at Land & Watersheds
2 个月I have certainly used it for much more than that. Sometimes, cropping and pasting surfaces from unusual sources is just what time permits. THIS IS NOT ADVISABLE, but true nonetheless. You do get a hang of it for whatever you need to do. It is very well polished, just unconventional. It is funny that it generates much better contours than the standard tools. Sometimes, we forget that we are dealing with dirt. Civil 3D contours do not reflect that. It does not matter how you treat mid-ordinates and tesselations. Please look at the picture to my left; it resembles more crumpled paper than dirt.
Modelador BIM| Beta TesterC3D|Civil 3d| Infraworks | Navisworks.
1 年Hello, very good topic of what you mention. GO is a relatively new tool, which as you mention is not an AI, but has the development of generative design, where its objective is to balance the movement of earth. In being able to use the software in housing development projects, these are the projects in which GO works best. The good advantages of GO are: You can quickly know, based on a good analysis of land slopes, alternatives for earthworks and reduce the cost of earthworks. You can analyze earthworks including cutting and embankments, including platforms, roads, and defined or obligatory points. You can export the results as points, feature lines, and surfaces. Disadvantages: The exclusive drainage options are complicated to manage and it would be great if they gave better results for an analysis of projects integrating earthworks, platform and surface runoff, but the tools still do not work adequately. You need to know each and every one of the tools very well to be able to have a good analysis. The little information about how the tools work forces you to use them in different ways. It lacks tools to be able to generate a final project surface. Let's hope that this tool continues to be developed and we have great results.