Autodesk Civil 3D objects are stored in drawings by default.
Use the list at the top of the Prospector tab to control whether only the active drawing is listed in the Prospector tree or all open drawings are listed.
Drawing Templates
Use drawing templates to eliminate duplication of effort and to help maintain consistency across drawings.
You start a new Autodesk Civil 3D drawing using a template file. An Autodesk Civil 3D drawing template can contain standard AutoCAD information, such as AutoCAD settings and layers, and AutoCAD objects, such as lines and text. In addition, it can include any Autodesk Civil 3D drawing information that is listed in either the Settings tree (including Autodesk Civil 3D settings, styles, label styles, tables, description keys, and point import/export formats) or the Prospector tree (including any Autodesk Civil 3D object, such as point groups).
Templates are listed under the Drawing Templates collection in the Prospector tree Master View.
The Drawing Template File Location path on the Files tab of the Options dialog box specifies where Autodesk Civil 3D templates are located.
Object and Label Styles in Templates
Consider designing styles to reflect the information requirements at different times in the project.
For example, create styles for objects in the design phase, and other styles for their final presentation. Also, you can create styles for different users of the drawings, showing object details and labels that present the data each type of user needs.
The styles for labels are another template item that should be developed with a top-down approach, similar to drawing settings and feature settings. At the drawing level, click Edit Label Style Defaults. In this context, you can set global standards such as those for text font, size, and label behavior around curves. As with the object styles, after setting label style defaults you can review the feature-level settings and apply any required overrides.
Ideally, your drawing template will have the perfect set of styles for your projects, but this usually takes some time to evolve. To assist the process, create a demonstration drawing that contains one or more surface, alignment, and other object types. Or you can explore the Sample_styles.dwg, that is supplied with Autodesk Civil 3D. After a default installation, you can find this file in the following location: C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2025\C3D\Help\Civil Best Practices Guide. This drawing provides a good laboratory in which to display and develop styles. Consider designing styles to reflect the information requirements at different times in the project. For example, create styles for objects in the design phase, and other styles for their final presentation. Also, you can create styles for different users of the drawings, showing object details and labels that present the data each type of user needs.
Out-of-the-box Templates
Autodesk Civil 3D drawing templates are included in the product.
The Autodesk Civil 3D drawing templates are based on the United States National CAD Standard®. The following templates are included:
- _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS
- _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Metric) NCS
These templates contain an extended set of styles and settings.
When you start a new drawing using the New command on the Application menu, you can choose which template you want to use.
The QNEW command, which is available on the Quick Access Toolbar, automatically uses the template specified in the AutoCAD Options dialog box. For more information, see the AutoCAD Help.
Plan Production Drawing Templates
Drawing templates for Plan Production tools are included in the Plan Production directory.
Layer Standards in Templates
Maintaining a standard for the use of layers in your drawing is easier if you have a drawing template with predefined layers, and styles that reference those layers when objects are created.
For consistency, save your template as an AutoCAD standards file (.dws format). Then, in the template, enter the STANDARDS command and in the Configure Standards dialog box, link the standards file to the template. If you want to enforce the standards, you can click the Settings button and activate notifications of standards violations, or override such violations. See the AutoCAD Help for more information about the use of standards files.
Drawing Template Layer Naming Conventions
The layers created in the Autodesk Civil 3D 2025 templates follow the National CAD Standard (NCS) rules. For more information about the National CAD Standard layering settings, see http://www.nationalcadstandard.org.
The layers follow the NCS standards as follows, with each element separated by a dash:
<Discipline Designator> - <Major Group> - <Minor Group> - <Status>
- Discipline Designator: Required; the Autodesk Civil 3D templates use the C and V discipline designators, which stand for Civil and Survey/Mapping.
- Major Group: Required; identifies elements such as roads, topographic elements, and storm sewers. To adhere to the standards, custom Major Group fields are not allowed.
- Minor Group: Optional; identifies sub-elements such as road profiles. You can include up to two minor groups per layer name, and you can define your own custom Minor Groups. For example, the layer C-ROAD-LINE-EXTN has two Minor Groups: “Line” and “Extn”.
- Status: Optional; identifies phases of work.
For example, C-TOPO-MINR-N stands for Civil - Topographic element - Minor Contours - New.