Just like you, we’re getting buried this morning as people get bck to work. We’ll be starting up next week with the ongoing series of EECasts on C3D subjects far and wide. If you have a topic you’d like to see us discuss throw it in the comments below. We’ve got some already on the burner:

• Basics of Pipes and Part Families
• Laying out and Labeling Parcels
• Intersection Design (yes, it would be a repeat, but it’s a popular recording, so….)
• Grading with Feature Lines

What’s on your wish list?

In the back of the room at my Best of the Blogs class at AU, a sidebar discussion broke out regarding why C3D doesn’t/can’t automatically label a surface for you. While I had to stop down the discussion to keep things on track, one of the attendees actually had a good tip on this subject, shared it with me after the class, and now I share it with you. Follow the jump to see Steve Boon’s solution for nearly instant surface labeling.

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Year everyone!

It’s been another busy year hear at civil3d.com and I thought it’d be fun to share some blog statistics with you.

• Absolute Unique Visitors:  59,002
• Unique Page Views:  494,640
• Visits:  164,440

Site visitors are from all over the world:

• Visitors came from 177 different countries/regions
• Top 5 regions
  • US
  • Canada
  • UK
  • Australia
  • Belgium

Top 5 Posts (based on unique page views)

1. Death, Taxes, and the Annual Release Cycle
2. REGEN Rules: What You Can Do About Slow Plots and Regens
3. Land Desktop Discontinued
4. What’s My Favorite New Feature of 2009?
5. 2009 and Subassemblies - a “heads up”

Thanks to everyone who stopped by throughout 2008 and an extra special thanks to our clients!

We’re looking forward to a great 2009 and hope you are all part of it!

Happy New Year!

They are still are a few true drafters out there. Those who expect, no demand that their drawings look correct according to tried and true drafting standards and are willing to spend extra hours drafting to make it so.

With Civil3D there is less need to draft and more need to make the styles do the work for us. We are just going to briefly look at using an overlooked tool in label styles that will give you a lot more control on label placement after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this difficult economic market its more important than it ever has been to make sure you get your money’s worth. As readers of this blog, you know that FREE is great. We at Engineered Efficiency gladly share our knowledge via this blog, via EECasts, magazine articles and more (and sometimes swag too!) under the premise that a “rising tide lifts all boats”.

When FREE isn’t an option, the next best thing, of course, is low-cost, high-value. You need to get the most bang for your buck.  That’s why we launched our EE CivilAccess and EE GuidedAccess programs last year and they have been a huge success. (As one of our clients said, “Wow, what a great way to learn! We absolutely loved it!”)

IMPORTANT: Engineered Efficiency is an Autodesk Partner in the ISV program and we can provide bundled software sales and service to the Americas (North, South and Central). Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Lately, we’ve seen several imitations that portend to offer a similar quality and quantity of training, but in reality fall far short. (Remember shortly after the iPod was released, the number of sub-par imitators that flooded the market?)

So when does $775 not equal $775? Well lets look at what it can get a single user these days. (Of course, with Engineered Efficiency, the price drops substantially the more users you add)

EE CivilAccess gets you:

• 9 classes totaling over 80 hours of instructor-led hands-on training EVERY MONTH FOR  A YEAR. You can attend the live classes each and every month if you want to.
• Recorded versions of most classes, available online 24×7x365. Again, you can watch these as many times as you want from any Internet-connected PC. These are the same hands-on exercises as presented in the live class, but viewable on your schedule at your own pace. (Some classes are more work-shop in nature and address specific user’s needs, so they are not conducive to recording)
• Custom courseware, created by Engineered Efficiency, based on real-world projects, used for both instructor-led and recorded classes.
• Instructors with real-world production experience. They learned engineering and drafting by doing engineering and drafting in a production environment.
• EE ProPack Base, a custom add-on that gives you the features you say you wanted in Civil3D.
• Web- and phone-based tech support from the experts you’ve come to trust.
• Exclusive client-only Civil3D knowledge base for self-help and in-house learning.

Our clients told us that others are stating they offer “online-training too”, that “they provide recorded classes”, and that they do it at a “similar price point.” So I looked around online and this is what I found you can get the old way. (I strongly encourage you to do your own research and compare EE to everyone else):

Most offer training the old static way:

• Classroom training ranges from $200-$450/day (depending on location in country). So a SINGLE 3-day class will cost between $600 and $1,350! For ONE class! Some vendors will let you repeat the class as often as you like throughout the year, assuming there is space. There are no recordings of these and the quality of the courseware varies.

Some are dipping toes in creative training:

• “Blended Learning”: For $220 you can get about 125 “lessons”. Per the web, this is less than 20 hours of recorded training. This amount of training would likely cover the Essentials of Civil3D and not leave time for much else.
• “Citrix Training”: 1-2 hour intensive sessions intended to supplement in-person training. No recordings; not sure about courseware or pricing.
• “Virtual Training”: For the same high cost of in-person live training, you get to remote into a workstation at the training center. At $325/day, $775 gets you about 60% through an Essentials class. No recordings; no repeats.
• There are other offerings out there, but these are those that I found doing a quick search.

Now don’t get me wrong; I am 100% in support of alternate training methods, as long as they are of high quality and cost effective. Engineered Efficiency has structured its services around combining technology with rock-solid expertise to give you the best service at the best price. Seriously, why should it cost more to learn (really learn it, not just scratch surface with Essentials) your software than it does to buy it? It shouldn’t and we’re proving it. Ultimately, it’s the end-user who needs to come first and get the best they can possibly get within a reasonable services budget.

If you haven’t done so already, check us out at www.eng-eff.com. And remember, we can provide you with a solution regardless of your geographic location.

During my AU class, "Best of the Blogs," I created a style for a Vertical Curve label that didn’t fall apart when the profile view was manually clipped in the middle of a vertical curve. The stock label for curves looks like this picture if you clip the view in its midst.

To fix the problem you’ll need to adjust the attachment points of some components.  I’ll show you where after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, we’re pulling names from the comments to send out various books, discs, and EE/Autodesk swag until we get to the Million Hit date. That day, someone will win a Civil-icious prize bag with all sorts of goodies. Shawn Swanberg, Michaela Gehn, and David Voith, please drop me an e-mail with your preferred mailing address. james.wedding@ this domain. Thanks!

And yes, I’m trademarking "Civil-icious."

Just cause Autodesk is resting doesn’t mean we are! Join us Monday for another great webcast. This week we will look at some advanced corridor used with Eric. Based on a whitepaper we just prepared for Autodesk, everyone is sure to learn something new! Register at www.eng-eff.com/eecasts and we will see you there.

A few weeks ago I asked you about your local user group (LUG). Thanks to all who responded, both in the survey itself and with the direct emails to me. View the survey results and more after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Good Wishes to All! It’s Monday, so that means another in the series of EECasts. This week, Eric will run through the basics of corridors to get everyone on the same page for next week’s more advanced corridor EECast. Register here for the Noon Eastern presentation. Just cause Autodesk is taking the week (two actually) off doesn’t mean we are!