Dynamic Blocks in the Civil World

[Jeepin]

I just read the AUGI class for Dynamic Blocks and as I sit and ponder for the life of me I can not see a benefit for us to use it in the Civil world. Are there any Civil Industry users out there that can think of how Dynamic Blocks can ease any of our pain? I'm not asking for the blocks themselves, just asking how this can help. Thanks, Rich

[Glenn Pope]

There are several places to use dynamic blocks.

Pipes:
If you are showing the pipe walls then using blocks for things like valves, tees, etc. can be made to fit the pipe by stretching. I can have blocks for pipe bends. Just go to the lookup list and select if I want a 90%%d or 45%%d bend.

Points:
I use blocks in my point that I get from surveyors. Guy down lines are always a problem because they were hard to rotate and stretch to connect to the pole. Not with dynamic blocks.

North Arrows & Scales:
I have a bar scale set with different scale views. I have made really cool north arrows that contain a symbol in the center that didn't rotate while I rotated the arrow. I also made different views so I had one block that contained all my north arrows.


Inlet structures that can be expanded to other standard sizes. Switching a manhole to a proposed or existing symbol. There is just a lot of places you can use dynamic blocks.

[Jeepin]

Thanks Glenn, maybe I need too look into this a bit more deeply as I am currently setting up tool pallets for everyone too be able to select an inlet and be able to choose what type of basin they want w/ it. From what I just learned at the augi cad camp, tool pallets are definitely the way to go for details and all kinds of other things, striping, inlets, heck the possibilities are endless! I'll take a closer look though. Thank you, Rich

[rkmcswain]

Barscale

Fire Hydrant

Other misc symbols

[Jeepin]

I guess I really need to see this in action as my pinheaded brain isn't seeing it. I am also wondering if I should go through the trouble of putting all of our existing blocks into Dynamic when we will be going 3D within 2 years? Hmmmm Just so you guys know, I use blocks two ways, one is for our details (only thing that gets changed there are elevations or material types) and then plan view items such as striping, inlets w/ catch basins, etc. Thanks, rich

[Chris.N]

I guess I really need to see this in action as my pinheaded brain isn't seeing it. I am also wondering if I should go through the trouble of putting all of our existing blocks into Dynamic when we will be going 3D within 2 years? Hmmmm Just so you guys know, I use blocks two ways, one is for our details (only thing that gets changed there are elevations or material types) and then plan view items such as striping, inlets w/ catch basins, etc. Thanks, richyou can do a TON with making annotation blocks into DB's alone. That's where i've made the biggest impact in our department. I also heard (don't know personally) that DB's can now handle 3D...... i hope it's true.

[rkmcswain]

I guess I really need to see this in action Ok. :-) ........

[dfarris75]

I've made one for a particular city standard inlet which has a variable width of 4' to 9'. I made it to stretch in 1' increments between the minimum 4' and the maximum 9'.

I'm also toying around with a parking space block that stretches for rows of parking and arrays the parking stripe, but I'm having trouble getting it to work so that the stripe doesn't array at the end of the row. I've attached this block so you can see what I'm talking about. Maybe some of you more experienced folks could help me out with this one?

Another useful way to use them would be with x-sections along a roadway where you have a structure. If you have a dynamic structure section block you can adjust the height of the structure components (ie - box, riser, etc.)

If you check in the civil tool palette (we have land desktop 06) you will see that they have a few in there like a manhole block that you can expand to different sizes, a pipe block that shows the bell of the pipe and adds sections as you stretch it, and several other dynamic blocks. I suggest playing around with them.

I think there are many different ways to utilize dynamic blocks in the civil field. With a good group of dynamic blocks in your corner I think you could potentially increase production quite substantially.

[dfarris75]

Now that I look back in my tool palettes there are already several dynamic blocks for composing parking lots. Stalls, Islands, H/C Stalls, etc.
I'd still like to know how to fix my own so that it will work the way I want it to.