Saveas/Export to Civil3D 2010 from Civil3D 2011

Hello Everyone,

We have one person in our survey department that has installed Civil3D 2011 (tester) and did a project for me that comes in proxy to Civil3D 2010...we have saved-as, exported it, and export/import XML methods, but we continue to get proxy data from one version to the other. The XML worked for the surface/tin and the points, put we can't get the line work/features/parts/etc...to come in correctly. Why is there such a conflict between the two versions? How can I get this fixed?

Thanks for all post and comments.
Attached my error message as a .bmp

Civil 3D is not backward-compatible, even by one year. The only option is to use "Export to Autocad 2010", which will strip out all your C3D entities and convert the linework to plain Autocad entities, losing all Civil intelligence.

I was afraid of that…I guess I’ll have to upgrade also so we don’t have to do it over again, because we need all the Civil intelligence.

Curious, if it was done in Civil 3D 2010, would Civil 3D 2011 view the features correctly? Based on your reply Sinc, I would think that it would, but I don’t know that for sure or not…wondering if you do.

Are there hardware upgrades that should be in place before moving to Civil3D 2011?

Once again, thanks for all your insightfulness to this topic Sinc. It’s great to hear from you again, I haven’t or needed to post in awhile. With a new version come new problems.

2011 will update the objects to the newer version, no problems moving forward. If you can use the 64bit version of 2011 you will be far better off. This a little more than a hardware upgrade, but it really helps Civil 3D users from reducing the crashes.

Thanks for the reply Christian Barrett, great to hear from you as well.

I have also heard that Windows 7 may make it run worse, is this true? But Windows XP will be phased out with support if it hasn't already. Anyone’s have problem with Windows 7 operating system?

I recommend Win 7 64bit with at least 4gigs of RAM and an Autodesk approved video card to every one that uses CAD software. People will complain about anything new, don't believe it. People still say Civil 3D sucks, but that isn't true either!

Windows 7 does use more resources, so on an old computer it will make it worse, because you don't have the resources to run the OS or the CAD software.

There are some problems with upgrading files to 2011. One is that Superelevation changed, so if you have any custom subassemblies, they'll need to have the portions that deal with superelevation rewritten for 2011.

There also seem to be problems with Expressions getting lost in some Label Styles, so you may have to fix some Label Styles after the upgrade. There seems to be a similar problem with 2012. Although it doesn't seem consistent - some labels are fine when upgrading ro 2010 to 2011, but not from 2010 to 2012. Others are broken in the upgrade from 2010 to 2011. It's usually a relatively simple fix, it's just annoying.

Both of you guys tips/advice are well received and appreciated! I hope that others can give some valuable input on this topic as the thread grows.

Thanks to you both for replying, I’ll share this information with our IT and CAD guru.

FYI…this is a follow-up for this topic and to inform everyone of what I had problems with when I ungraded to 2011 Civil 3D.

It loaded fine, but when I got into the file I got a message of a Autodesk uncertified graphics card for the program and could not do anything within the file because it kept hanging up when I passed over any object/feature so I went into the “CONFIG” to look at the “System” tab, then tagged “Performance Settings”, I had to “Manual Tune” my hardware settings to allow me to move around the file freely. If you “Reset to Recommended Values” it does it again and you’ll have to check the box for “Enable hardware acceleration” when you don’t have the optimal hardware on your PC. I exited the program and reopened it with no problems moving around. It’s a nice upgrade; I feel the ribbon is more compact and less cultured.

Hope this helps someone in the future!

I have a procedure on saving back to previous versions that I wrote that works pretty good on my blog. "mastercivil3d.blogspot.com" Look for the "Exporting to Previous AutoCAD Versions" post.

You can also export surfaces, pipes, etc. using xml that works also