Autodesk Civil View

Autodesk Civil View for 3ds Max is a visualization tool for civil engineers and transport infrastructure planners.

Civil View offers close integration with a wide range of civil design applications including AutoCAD Civil 3D software, allowing visualization models to be updated almost instantly when design changes occur.

General Overview of Functionality

• Simple-to-learn user interface

  The simplicity of using Civil View lies in the Civil View Explorer panel, from which you can access almost every command.

  The upper portion of the panel provides a hierarchical tree view of the contents of the current scene. This provides direct access to every aspect of the visualization. The lower part reacts to viewport interaction by providing context-sensitive editing capabilities for any selected object.

  
• Geometry import

  Civil View is capable of importing 3D geometry directly from the following file formats:

  • Bentley MX Model files

  • Bentley MX GENIO files

  • AutoCAD Civil 3D files (using the VSP3D intermediate file format)

  • 12D ASCII files

  • LandXML files

  • DXF files

  Civil View objects derived from any of these file formats retain permanent links to the original source file. This lets you update a Civil View visualization model whenever a design change occurs.

  The Imported Object Manager panel provides an overview of all imported geometry. From this panel you can update all imported data in a single operation, and check the status of imported data to see at a glance whether your visualization is out of step with your source design data.

• Swept object styles (SOS)

  The Swept Object Style Editor can remove the need for the production of triangulation data.

  At its simplest, you can use it to loft objects such as bridges, tunnels, and other structures that follow the path of one or more 3D shapes. Swept Object Styles can then be saved for later reuse. These styles hold all the parameters necessary to rebuild complex swept objects, including independent sub-material assignments for each element in the style.

  You can also use it to build complete highway surface models. Such models can include road markings, traffic barriers, embankments, ditches, and variable offsets. All this is possible from a single parent shape and a Civil View Swept Object Style.

• Object placement styles (OPS)

  The Object Placement Style Editor places additional (not imported) objects along the path of a shape. Objects are linked to the parent shape and you can drag them along the shape to a new position. Horizontal/vertical offset and rotation parameters provide further control; objects can even track the level and slope of an underlying ground surface.

  The Placed Object Manager panel provides an overview of all objects created from the Object Placement Style Editor. From this panel you can update the position of all placed objects in a single operation, and check the general status of placed objects.

  The Placed Object Animation Editor provides control over the animated placement parameters for objects created from the Object Placement Style Editor. From this panel you can specify acceleration/deceleration and lane changing for animated vehicles.

• Road marking object styles (RMS)

  Civil View lets you create road markings. Markings can be draped as "ribbons" along shape objects, with fully adjustable line widths and mark/gap lengths. Road-marking objects are automatically updated when you update or move the parent shape.

• Rail object styles (ROS)

  Parametric rail objects represent a range of safety fences, walls, and even railway tracks. These objects can be associated with any parent shape.

• Building object styles (BOS)

  Parametric building objects can generate a range of fully textured 3D buildings quickly and effectively from 2D floor-plan strings. This is an ideal way to quickly populate cityscapes or add simple buildings to the background of your civil engineering visualization model.

• Feature interpretation styles

  You can use Feature Interpretation Styles to associate imported civil-design feature lines with object-placement instructions. This works by associating predefined OPS, SOS, BOS, ROS, or RMS styles with a series of simple imported feature masks. This automates the placement of road markings, street furniture, animated vehicles, and so on.

  Civil View assigns textures automatically, so this feature can have you ready to start rendering within minutes of loading your design model data.

• Sight Checker tool

  Civil View features a render time Sight Checker tool that analyzes rendered frames for Z-depth and geometry-ID information. You can track objects in the scene (such as vehicles or road signs) through an animation, with distance and other information relating to the camera and target object being displayed in the rendered frame or written to a text file.

• GIF Checker tool

  Civil View features a GIF Checker tool that searches for GIF files and converts them to PNG files. GIF files can often be found in Country Resource Kits, and as they are not supported by the Arnold Renderer, you may need to convert them to PNG files.

• Traffic import

  Civil View lets you import traffic data from third-party applications such as VISSIM and Quadstone Paramics.

  Surface-tracking functionality ensures that vehicles cling to the underlying surface terrain. You can reassign vehicle geometry and color to vehicle proxies to obtain a realistic rendering of real-world traffic-flow data.

  Traffic import is an aid to visualizing public transport projects such as arterial corridor studies, development of freeway management strategies, and traffic calming schemes.

Resource Kits

Civil View includes a localized Country Resource Kit for each target market. You can also define your own personal or project-specific resource kits by activating the associated option in the Civil View Preferences panel.

Each resource kit consists of the following features:

• Localized parametric and static object libraries

• Localized material libraries

• Localized sign face libraries

• Sample Swept Object styles

• Sample Building Object styles

• Sample Object Placement styles

• Sample Road Marking styles

• Sample Rail Object styles

• Sample Feature Interpretation styles