Author Topic: Civil 3D - Layering standard used  (Read 8798 times)

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alanjt

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Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« on: March 03, 2014, 11:38:42 PM »
I recently changed jobs and have come on with a company that is slowly making the switch into civil 3d. Including myself, there are a couple others that want to switch to NCS (or something pretty close) layering, and there are a few that just want to stay with the old P-*, etc. layering that predated civil 3d, and just figure out whatever new layers are required (corridors, etc.). I think NCS looks nice, it's clean, easy to organize, works well with the way civil 3d functions, and it seems the way most people are going. I'm just curious about the opinions of others. Particularly those, if any, that held to their old layering system, and how they handled the newly needed layers for corridors, etc.
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Matt__W

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2014, 08:11:11 AM »
We have our own custom company standards...  XXX-XXXX-XXXX
The first three characters is the company name
The second set of characters identifies the major category (UTILities, GRADing, etc...)
The last set of characters is identifies the minor category (TEXT, TOPO, etc...)
It's our own version of the NCS I guess.
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BlackBox

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2014, 10:00:41 AM »
I recently changed jobs and have come on with a company that is slowly making the switch into civil 3d. Including myself, there are a couple others that want to switch to NCS (or something pretty close) layering, and there are a few that just want to stay with the old P-*, etc. layering that predated civil 3d, and just figure out whatever new layers are required (corridors, etc.). I think NCS looks nice, it's clean, easy to organize, works well with the way civil 3d functions, and it seems the way most people are going.

Firstly, congrats on the new position, my friend.  :-)

This is exactly the same situation I'm in with my new employer's legacy LDD-style CAD Standards. I too am planning to implement an NCS style layer system. Some here are not going to like it, but once they see that it's mostly Style based, and that they don't actually have to do much work at all to use the new layers, methinks it will be less of a horse pill for them to swallow... At least I hope so.

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cadtag

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2014, 05:17:42 PM »
Unless the organization never teams with anyone else, never works as a sub, never delivers drawings to anyone else, then NOT using NCS causes more work.  with all the NCS limitations (espec. for civil) and even with Autodesk's poor understanding of NCS's purpose and scheme,  the fact that it's a vendor neutral, organization agnostic, multi-discipline system will save time and money by simply increasing interoperability.

Transitions can be painful....
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mjfarrell

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2014, 07:27:47 AM »
Same thing I've said for years, that IF autodesk is going to attempt to offer NCS layers
there should be documentation that comes along for free.

I know, some thing the cost of buying NCS documentation is fair, however I still content that it should be free.
As if it were free more people would and could implement it correctly.
Otherwise it isn't so much of a standard as it is a target to aim towards.
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alanjt

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2014, 10:44:54 AM »
Same thing I've said for years, that IF autodesk is going to attempt to offer NCS layers
there should be documentation that comes along for free.

I know, some thing the cost of buying NCS documentation is fair, however I still content that it should be free.
As if it were free more people would and could implement it correctly.
Otherwise it isn't so much of a standard as it is a target to aim towards.

I couldn't agree more. More and more are adapting to a bastardized version based on the bastardized version put out by autodesk.
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BlackBox

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2014, 04:11:16 PM »
Same thing I've said for years, that IF autodesk is going to attempt to offer NCS layers
there should be documentation that comes along for free.

I know, some thing the cost of buying NCS documentation is fair, however I still content that it should be free.
As if it were free more people would and could implement it correctly.
Otherwise it isn't so much of a standard as it is a target to aim towards.

Well said.

... More and more are adapting to a bastardized version based on the bastardized version put out by autodesk.

"How we think determines what we do, and what we do determines what we get."

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2014, 12:49:23 AM »
I have been involved with cad layering systems on both sides of the fence - or is it all four sides? Client, consultant, AutoCAD and MicroStation. Anyway, I've had to use numbers only and named layers. NCS, while not perfect, is also as good as any I have seen, and in some cases, way better than others.
We have a number of clients that use an NCS like system, with either no discipline letter, a single letter or two letters. We had a mixed standard in LD where if the largest client (no discipline letter) had a layer, we used it, but when there was nothing in the clients layers to match what we needed, we used NCS like layers. When our second largest client adopted an X-XXXX-XXXX... NCS and we had to migrate to Civil 3D, it made sense to cut from the past and adopt NCS 100%.
I was also on a team of consultants that assisted our local DOT on their migration to MicroStation V8. (10+/- years ago, by now.) Actually, I was at the DOT as both an employee and as one of the larger departments' CAD Managers when they developed their pre-V8 standards (all numbers, 1-63, lots of external references since you only had 63 layers) and since leaving has seen what other DOT's had done with named levels.
I really had to stress that just because you now had named levels, that some restraint was called for. I'd seen some where the layer names were so verbose that you needed an extra wide layer dropdown menu, and others that base their layers on the codes the survey crews used - so short that you needed a lookup table to know what layer to use and many that seemed to by striving to get in Guinness for having the most layer names in existence.
But while we kept the raw number of layers down, we lost the battle over keeping a discipline letter as part of the layer name. They believed you did not need it since the filename also implied a discipline. But then, we also lost the battle on using bylayer. But that's a whole other story.   

mjfarrell

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2014, 11:50:56 AM »
And in adopting 'ncs' did you buy than manual?

If so, that is my complaint - if they want to create out of thin air a "NATIONAL" standard.
And have folks like autodesk foist it off on to people, then the documentation should be FREE.


Think about it from this perspective; if you want a drivers licence in your state they give you a manual for free.
Because they want everyone to be driving to a certain standard.
And driving is far more dangerous than simply putting a line or symbol on the wrong layer.
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Jeff H

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2014, 10:36:09 PM »
I think it is actually AIA layer standards and NCS just adopts it and covers most of it and think have to buy that separately.

cadtag

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2014, 10:48:39 AM »
And in adopting 'ncs' did you buy than manual?

If so, that is my complaint - if they want to create out of thin air a "NATIONAL" standard.
And have folks like autodesk foist it off on to people, then the documentation should be FREE.


Think about it from this perspective; if you want a drivers licence in your state they give you a manual for free.
Because they want everyone to be driving to a certain standard.
And driving is far more dangerous than simply putting a line or symbol on the wrong layer.

Priced ANSI standards lately?

Free?   not really.  it's paid for by license fees, taxes, etc.  TANSTAAFL

The NCS  committee is _not_ collecting taxes or a cut of building permit fees, nor charging royalties for using the layering standard, or symbols, or abbreviations, or file organization/naming, or drawing set organization,  yet some form of revenue is needed to support the effort.
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Matt__W

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #11 on: March 31, 2014, 11:10:00 AM »
Think about it from this perspective; if you want a drivers licence in your state they give you a manual for free.
But then you have to pay for the required lessons and/or classroom training.
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mjfarrell

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #12 on: March 31, 2014, 02:10:55 PM »
yet some form of revenue is needed to support the effort.

Yes; however NO ONE asked them to do this.

They simply decided it would be a good way to make some money.

And then started pushing it onto people...for that perhaps WE should be paid for using it.
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mjfarrell

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2014, 02:11:49 PM »
Think about it from this perspective; if you want a drivers licence in your state they give you a manual for free.
But then you have to pay for the required lessons and/or classroom training.
Actually in most states there is no class room training required.
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cadtag

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Re: Civil 3D - Layering standard used
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2014, 04:58:38 PM »
Yes; however NO ONE asked them to do this.

They simply decided it would be a good way to make some money.

And then started pushing it onto people...for that perhaps WE should be paid for using it.

well, that's sorta true, for the initial AIA Layering Guidelines from back in the last century - a strictly ad-hoc group who got together under the umbrella of the AIA and TriServices and made a start at thinking about inter-organizatin interoperability. Currently NCS is part of the National Institute of Building Science, a Congressionally authorized NGO. So 'We the People' did ask for it via our duly elected representatives.....  And if you have any evidence that they are 'making money' (eg turning a  profit, buying private islands, yachts, or what have you) please back it up.  I can tell you quite honestly that I've never received any kickbacks or lucre for my participation on the NCS committee.

And of course, usage of the NCS in whole or part is completely voluntary, so if you don't want to use it, and your clients don't care what you do or don't do, and of course your primes/subs/team members agree with you, don't use it.  That's hardly 'pushing'.

that will make it a bit harder to get work with NavFac, GSA, VA, and a bunch of other federal, state, and commercial clients, but that's your call.

I would personally prefer that the cost was lower, but for that you'll need to get the CSI folk on board, and they do sell their product separately.   they are a non-profit corporation I believe, but not gov't funded AFAIK.

If you've got a better mousetrap, go ahead and publish it.  Heck, sell it to every AEC firm ion the planet, and buy that yacht.
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