What’s new in Civil Designer 2015
We have concentrated on adding in additional functionality requested by our extensive client base as well as optimising
existing features.
Survey & Terrain
Significant DTM performance improvements include the redraw speed of points and lines, quick contours and height
shading as well as the speed of certain operations such as importing ASCII data, re-scaling survey data and generating
contours. The graphs below illustrate side by side evaluations of the 2014 and 2015 versions with 1 million points.
In addition the following functions have been added and/or improved.
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HEC-RAS data import and export along a defined alignment.
Point selection speed improved by not showing all the selected points before allowing you to continue. This
is similar to Civil Designer 6.5.
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Survey & Terrain continued…
Save and load DTM surface names to file which is useful if you want to use a standard naming convention for
DTM surfaces across projects.
Specifying an unusual delimiter during ASCII import has been simplified with a dropdown list of available
delimiters, removing the requirement for you to know the ASCII code.
Terrace merge improved. Historically a terrace merge has led to poorly formed triangles linking the ground
with the terrace edge. In Civil Designer 2015 a proper triangulation is performed in a buffer area around the
terrace. The result is triangles that not only look better but will model the point data more realistically.
Civil Designer 2015's LandXML import is faster and supports larger data sets. The speed increase can be as
much as 1000% (excluding the "Adding line information" stage of import which is unaffected). Imports that
would timeout on Civil Designer 2014 now import within minutes. The benefits will be most noticeable when
LandXML is used to read terrain point/surface information. Other civil infrastructure data tends to be more
manageable.
More flexibility in reading LandXML fieldbook data with support for both <ReducedObservation> and
<RawObservation> elements.
Roads
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Full profile control over individual chainages in roads using the Cross Section Editor or the Edge Level Editor.
You may now edit compulsory and cut/fill batters for each individual cross section. This could be a simple as
changing a cut/fill slope, or the addition of side drains over a specified chainage range.
Road Components allow you to define parts such as side drains or side walks complete with thickness and
layerworks.
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Roads continued…
Components will calculate a full list of quantities just as kerbs did in earlier versions. They may also be inserted
into individual cross sections using the Cross Section Editor or the Edge Level spreadsheet.
Stockdale Roundabout design is now supported as well as mini-circles
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Improved interface for vertical alignment, super elevation and road widths displays VPI details, high/low points,
left/right road edges and user-defined comments and lines.
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You may also move points only vertically, horizontally or on grade.
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Roads continued…
Cross Section Editor now displays additional information such as longitudinal grade, cut/fill height indicator at
the last compulsory point and carriageway and cut/fill slopes.
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Road longsections with slaved pipe longsections in the road reserve. This requires a specific sheet file with
sections for the slaved (secondary) services.
Contour labels on road contours of string roads.
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Sewer
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Add nodes and links at an offset to CAD lines or parallel to CAD lines.
Up to 9 user-defined node types. These are used to display user-defined symbols and determine quantities.
Harmon method now allows for infiltration based on a percentage of flow or on the length of pipe.
Vertical Alignment enhanced to make changes to all incoming branches in a manhole and handle various
manhole conditions correctly.
If you select a node or link and select the Edit Longsection option from the right-click context menu the
branch that the selected node/link is in will be displayed.
Export longsection to Windows Metafile.
Enhanced error check before an analysis.
Be able to specify multiple inlet levels per manhole.
Change the way we apply attenuation or a peak factor in calculating the design flow.
Option to load and save link table entries.
Option to store standard default files on a system server for uniformity among designers. The
SetSharedFolder utility needs to have been used to specify the shared network resource. The default files as
well as the symbol files will be read from the specified shared network resource.
Include columns headers when writing a CSV file from spreadsheets.
Storm
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Add nodes and links at an offset to CAD lines or parallel to CAD lines.
Up to 9 user-defined node types. These are used to display user-defined symbols and determine quantities.
Vertical Alignment enhanced to make changes to all incoming branches in a manhole and handle various
manhole conditions correctly
If you select a node or link and select the Edit Longsection option from the right-click context menu the
branch that the selected node/link is in will be displayed.
Export long section to Windows Metafile.
Enhanced error check before an analysis.
Be able to specify multiple inlet levels per manhole.
Ability to disconnect sub-catchments from outflow nodes.
Enhanced error trapping to ensure runoff area percentages do not exceed 100% for Illudas and Rational
methods.
Allow user to specify manning factor for paved area entry time calculator for the Illudas method. Previously
a manning factor of 0.02 was assumed as documented in the HRU reports.
Option to load and save link table entries.
Option to store standard default files on a system server for uniformity among designers. The
SetSharedFolder utility needs to have been used to specify the shared network resource. The default files as
well as the symbol files will be read from the specified shared network resource.
Include columns headers when writing a CSV file from spreadsheets.
SWMM Usability
• Extend support for displaying SWMM node and link types in the View Input table as well as the printed output
• Improved handling of node types (JUNCTION and OUTFALL) when graphically adding nodes or connecting
nodes
• Changed link display to show diverted links in SWMM data just as we display overflow links in other runoff
methods
• Changed SWMM Results window to display "Maximum Values" when selecting a
year, month or day in the time tree Display SWMM results in index order
• Display SWMM RPT file from the SWMM menu. Currently only shown during analysis.
• SWMM Shape Dialog - compatibility
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Water
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New feature: Boreholes - Standalone borehole hydraulic modelling.
New feature: Water Quality Analysis - age, trace and chemical.
New feature: Pipe Routes - Display of relevant info (chainage, coordinates, bend angles) next to alignment
points.
Network Analysis now includes pre-calculation of required pump duty point to assist with pump selection and
System Curves generation.
Graphical Functionality now includes, drawing pipes parallel to CAD lines or polylines and trimming pipes to
pipes
Plan View functionality now includes, New Drawing chainages along pipe routes, displaying coordinates, angles
on horizontal alignment points and any additional user selectable info next to alignment points
The Vertical Alignment Window now includes a quicker pipe selection options using pipe routes as well as
vertical alignment smoothing and air or scour valve positions Indicators.
The Longitudinal Section (sheetfile) now includes, bend angles (horizontal, vertical and compound), pipe
direction, bedding class, minimum and maximum hydraulic grade lines in addition to current grade line;
New Plotting Functionality: Auto defines plan views along pipes when drawing combines Water longitudinal
section and plan;
New Plotting Functionality: Plotting pipes contained in a road reserve while plotting a road;
Pump Catalogue Update: Inclusion of Mono positive displacement and Franklin submersible pumps
Pipe Catalogue Update: Inclusion of Hall-Longmore SAW and ERW steel pipes, Sangio HDPE pipes and additional
PVC pipes.
Plotting and Sheetfiles
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Slaved longsection plotting. In Civil designer 2015 you can create a sheetfile that will allow you to plot a road
long section drawing that includes Sewer, Storm and Water pipes that lie within the road reserve. The secondary
longsections (Sewer, Storm and Water) will be projected onto the road centre line and will be drawn using the
road’s chainage system.
Multiple plans regions per sheet. This option allows you to plot multiple plan views below each other when using
the Auto Define option for roads.
CAD
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Splines may now be edited by adding, inserting or deleting fit points using the right-click context sensitive menu
Layers may now be grouped and selected using layer filters. This makes working with multiple layers more
convenient, especially for drawings with a large number of layers as you can make just a group visible.
You may now use the "*" and "?" wildcard codes for locating text. In addition you have the option to either
select all the found text items or to zoom in to consecutive text entities that satisfy the search criteria.
Exploding an attribute converts the attribute text to a single or multi-line text entity.
Easier ways to pan a viewport's contents, step into the drawing or model space from a viewport.
Arcs and circles are now exported to Google Earth KML format as well as lines and polylines
Pattern origin on hatch tool bar. This new feature means that hatch patterns can now be adjusted to line up
with your hatch boundary. A bricks pattern, for example, can be aligned with a wall elevation.
The Visual Snap indicator is significantly faster to work more effectively on large drawings.
The Snip function no longer explodes lightweight and 3D polylines or arrows. For instance, if you snip the middle
out of a lightweight polyline you will now end up with 2 smaller lightweight polylines.
Diametric dimension arrows can now be drawn on the inside or the outside of the arc/circle depending on where
the dimension text is placed.
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