About Converting VBA Pipe Network Rules to .NET

In drawings, you can convert AutoCAD Civil 3D pipe and structure rules that are VBA-based to .NET.

In Civil 3D 2008, and in earlier versions of Civil 3D, the pipe and structure rules that were included in the product were created using VBA, and maintained in a .dvb file (C3DPipeNetworkRules.dvb).

In Civil 3D 2009, new pipe network rule sets that are created now point to the .NET dll version of rules, and therefore point to a .NET .dll file (C3DPipeNetworkRules.dll).

The .NET-based rules typically provide optimal performance over VBA-based rules. Civil 3D 2009, and later versions, still support VBA-based rules.

If you have not made any modification to your VBA pipe networks rules file (C3DPipeNetworkRules.dvb), it is recommended that you convert the pipe and structure rules in drawings to .NET using this command. If you have made edits to the C3DPipeNetworkRules.dvb rules file, it is not recommended that you convert rules to .NET because you will lose any VBA changes you made to C3DPipeNetworkRules.dvb.

If you create a new rule set in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 or later, the rules will point to the .NET dll version of rules. If you open a drawing that has a rule set that was created in Civil 3D 2008, or earlier versions of Civil 3D, the rule set will still point to and execute the VBA version of rules, unless you run the convert to .NET command.

Please note the following:

• This command only converts the VBA-based AutoCAD Civil 3D pipe and structure rules that were included with the product. It does not convert any VBA custom rules you may have created behind the scenes.
• By default, the rules files are installed to the following location:
• Internally, this command just changes a pipe rule reference to the .NET version of that rule, instead of the VBA version of that rule.
• In drawings, you can have a mix of pipe networks that point to VBA-based and .NET-based part rules. For example, when you open a drawing that was created in Civil 3D 2008 or earlier in Civil 3D 2009, that contains pipe networks, and then create a new rule set, that drawing will contain references to both VBA and .NET rules.
• In a single pipe network, you can have a mix of parts that point to VBA-based and .NET-based part rules.