Jeff, sorry but most of the beta stuff at present is ALL about INFRAWORKS, unless I'm reading the page totally wrong.
The API is great for developers, however core functionality and improvements to same seem to be no where on anyone's agenda.
Does anyone really think that they are not aware of the serious mess that pipes and part builder really are at this stage of the game? Really?
I am a member of the Beta group. I do NOT use, test, or even look at anything that has to do with Infraworks. I am ONLY interested in Civil3D, so I'm thinking you are either reading the page wrong or not on the right one.
"Serious mess", really? I use the Pipe Networks (NOT Pressure pipes yet) with very few issues. Granted, I don't use the SSA tool so not sure how bad that back and forth trip is. I also rarely need to swap parts after creating sheets so had never noticed the issue Alan brought to light. AFAIC, this "mess" is far better than what I was using prior to C3D (LDT). Sure, there are some things I've learned to workaround. There are others that I wrote new commands to handle (PipeElevationEditor and SPAddPipesByPolyline in Sincpac, for two). And there are others that could/should be better/fixed. But I'm still far more productive with this mess than I would be without it at all.
An obvious statement, any tool is better than none.
However a tool that is at best a 40% 'solution' this far into a products' life cycle is abysmal to me.
The pipes in Land desk top were better than civil 3d in that structure inverts would attach to the bottom of the structure without playing games in the label composer to force them. Further elevation editing and or maintaining slope across the network was so easy one need do nothing more than lower the start or end pipe in the run, and
ALL other pipes and structures would adjust. But try lowering a pipe in C3D, and notice all other pipes just sit there like nothing ever happened.
The round trip into and out of SSA is so very poor, little if any information assigned within C3D makes the trip into SSA, and the same is true with information assigned in SSA making the trip back into C3D. Also no real integration, so IF one edits the network another trip must be made because the network model is not linked to SSA in any
way.
And I wont even start on the poor implementation of Part Builder, largely unimproved since its initial release.
And pressure pipes are useless as a design tool as NO analysis of the network can be performed, i.e., they are little better than just drawing with polylines.
Because there are no analysis tools. The part creator is far better, however add in no support for exporting pressure networks via LandXML those pipes are largely a dead end.
And please point me to any Civil 3D beta projects by title (that are not 'programming' related) and I'll see if I can find them.