Topic: Books on Civil and Land.

[mjfarrell]

Start with this


Take the blurb off of the back cover promissing Complex Corridors like a Round A Bout, OR include one in the book.

Include a full intersection design.

Have the user create every style object they need without using ANY of the preinstalled or provided DWT's

Explain the Ramifications of the Various Surface edits as described/discussed previously.

Remove or Expand Part builder entirely.

Explain more completely sub assembly component naming processes.

Explain each step of getting material quantities FROM scratch with no preloaded data set.

Include the use of Median Objects, (that would be a good step towards MASTERY)

Clean up the known errata

And before going to press with it let a few of your PEERS review the thing. By peers, this would be other people NOT vested in the book. I suggest sinc, or Dino, should my endorsement help them.

[scout]

Now THIS is good feedback. Thank you.

Include a full intersection design.

Tell me more about what you would like to see here.

[scout]

And before going to press with it let a few of your PEERS review the thing. By peers, this would be other people NOT vested in the book. I suggest sinc, or Dino, should my endorsement help them.

Our tech editor this year fits that description. He is not a part of the EE team, and has never been our client (not EE or any of us in our previous incarnations). When the book comes out, turn to the back of the first page and his name should be listed, but since I have not asked his permission, I will not print it here. Anyone who reads the Autodesk DG will recognize his name as a practical, honest and thoughtful Civil 3D user who goes through many of the same struggles as Dino in both practical application and implementation issues in his firm. I lobbied to have him added to the team after the first round of comments called for more robust peer review (from the Swamp and other sources) and the fact that he went through the entire book last year on his own and emailed us a steady stream of useful commentary. From that interaction, I had a real evidence that he would provide constructive and applicable feedback for these two book projects (mastering and introducing 2009).

[Dinosaur]

Well, scratch one more possible employment option.   

[mjfarrell]

You could use the full intersection to cover NEARLY the entire application. And if all styles and object were done from scratch as suggested then you might suggest the reader might achieve mastery.


Lets see, Importing survey data from a field book for existing conditions. Or importing points, with descriptions, and label styles.
Or importing a surface from TIN, or DEM could also be shown.


If your 'intersection' scenario where to be approximately 1000 units long you could expose them to Templates that do NOT transition and those that do. You could include Offsets for bus bays/turnlanes and medians on at least one of the intersecting streets. You could include Alignment creation, and editing tools. Profile creation/editing tools explain the pitfalls of the targeted profile needing to be as long as the parent alignment early. Show them importing profiles from text files, and copying them. Show them how they can or should create a dummy corridor surface and include that surface in a profile to use as a design aide.  Show them the toolbox, and the various alignment reports they can create. Have them build all the assemblies as required for the above, include Daylight targeting , and perhaps a drainage feature. Show them some replacement or new pipesconstruction. Finish it all off with Materials reports, and sheets creation. To give them a bigger picture of how it all works together starting with nothing other than the default acad.dwt.

[scout]

To give them a bigger picture of how it all works together starting with nothing other than the default acad.dwt.

I know this has sort of come up in previous discussions, but I would be curious to hear what other how other users in the group feel about learning how to create everything from scratch using the acad.dwt in a few contexts:

1- In a reference text
2- In an exercise and tutoral resource that you personally would use to learn
3- In a text you would use to train your pilot team, then the balance of your staff

This is great feedback. Thank you.

[scout]

Remove or Expand Part builder entirely.

After reading your post about starting from nothing but the acad.dwt, I am curious if you have your classes build all of their parts from stratch as well. I am intrigued by this idea.

[sinc]

We found that we HAD to build our template pretty much from scratch, because the Autodesk does not seem to use or care about Named Plot Styles.

Autodesk shipped a number of CTB templates, but the only STB template is an empty one.  And many of the things they did in their CTB templates are just obnoxious when imported into an STB drawing.  It's possible to convert them all, but given the UI for Styles, it's easier to just start from scratch.

[mjfarrell]

Remove or Expand Part builder entirely.

After reading your post about starting from nothing but the acad.dwt, I am curious if you have your classes build all of their parts from stratch as well. I am intrigued by this idea.

Not part builder parts, in the first session. However in most instances the users take the information about part builder and leverage it to good advantage.

However for Every other item in the class we create all styles for all objects as we need. It gives the user a higher lever of understanding of styles and how to drag and  drop them to keep the Template Current or modify existing style to match other standards.

Usually during a one week session most are trying to keep everything else straight in their head, I wouldn't dare make them work through part build too.

[scout]

I do need to clarify something here and if you want to give me a hard time about this, there is nothing I can do to stop you.

Mastering 2009 is in the final stages of preparation. While there are still a few chapters being actively developed, the book will go forward without the complete tear down that is being suggested here. There is an additional text with a little bit more wiggle room (introducing) and if this brainstorming session rings any bells for me, I have no doubt I will incorporate some of it.

However, I hope that this does not discourage the discussion from continuing. This is valuable information for all of us that read this group- and I really would like to keep it alive. There may be future Mastering and Introducing texts, there will be AOTC and other class material produced, help files written, AU classes conceived, and more.

Since all of us who read or actively post in this group are involved in the education of new users in some capacity, I earnestly hope this will continue.

[mjfarrell]

I have classes if they want classes

[scout]

I have classes if they want classes

Who is they?

[mjfarrell]

I do need to clarify something here and if you want to give me a hard time about this, there is nothing I can do to stop you.

 

Not a hard time just an honest look at your actions.
You asked for feed back, and then discount most of it.

And then inform us that nothing will really be done with it for our efforts.


Now why would I want to give you a hard time?

This is pretty much why I did not vest too much effort in original request for comments; it seam to be disingenious.

[mjfarrell]

I have classes if they want classes

Who is they?

you know who they are, let's not be coy.  whomever needs other class materials that would be who.

[scout]

Not a hard time just an honest look at your actions.
You asked for feed back, and then discount most of it.

And then inform us that nothing will really be done with it for our efforts.

I understand why you feel this way. Perhaps I should have positioned the discussion differently as- What would you (the swamp) as instructors and experienced users, use for reference text, learning material and exercises. How would you approach creating the perfect text?

As you and Dino have reminded me, this is a friendly, open forum outside of the jurisdiction of any interested party that could potentially censor us. I have also been assured that we are all here to learn and improve. I want to know more about how I can personally improve, while I cannot promise that they will be absorbed into this particular project(s), I know that whatever is discussed here by all of the contributors will be absorbed into the arsenal for my future projects and I would hope that everyone else would feel the same way.

I do a weekly live webcast for EE at civil3d.com, and I also participate in other learning material creation. If perhaps it can't be worked into Mastering this year, maybe I could work up a series of blog posts on timely subjects, or work it into a webcast.

My main interest is getting Civil 3D information into the hands of users in an approachable and helpful way. And if I need to adjust my personal understanding of what users really need to know, I want to hear it from as many experienced users and instructors as humanly possible. Which is why I do my best to contribute to the public conversation when time allows.