Civil 3D 2013 Underground Hotfix

This is not an official hotfix.

This fixes a pretty gnarly, insidious little issue where object names and styles look weird. The worst part is that, unchecked, the problem spreads between open files. 

Eew. 

A fix for Civil 3D 2014 was released OFFICIALLY via sp2
A fix for Civil 3D 2015 was released OFFICIALLY via sp1

The good news is that I have files to fix the problem for 2013. Imagine me passing this to you in an unmarked manila envelope in a darkened parking structure. 

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Issue:

This issue manifests itself in several ways.  Users may see one or more of the following effects:

·         AutoCAD Civil 3D object names may appear corrupt.  The most frequently affected objects include surfaces, alignments, feature lines and site names.

·         Anchor components of the label styles may display an error, as seen here with an example surface style.

Cause:

This is a known issue in Civil 3D 2013.

Solution:

To resolve, follow this procedure:

·         Confirm AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 service pack 2 (SP2) is installed by launching AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 and typing “about” in the command line

o   The product version will be followed by “SP2” if the service pack has been installed

o   If necessary, download SP2 for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 from the Autodesk Support Page

o   http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-civil-3d/downloads/caas/downloads/content/autocad-civil-3d-2013-service-pack-2.html

·         In windows explorer, under C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013, back up the following files: AeccLand.dbx, AeccNetwork.dbx, AeccPressurePipes.dbx, AeccvBase.dbx

o   Unzip the provided folder with .dbx file versions dated 7/23/2014

o   Close AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 if it is still open

o   Copy and replace the four .dbx files from the unzipped folder to the Program Files location stated above

·         Launch the affected file in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 with SP2

·         In the Settings tab, under General, Label Styles, the anchor component can now be set to “<feature>” and the default naming convention is restored.

Important Notes:

·         Everyone using Civil 3D 2013 must have this service pack installed or the object names will revert to the pre-fixed state.

·         This fix applies to Civil 3D 2013 sp2 only!

o   If you use Civil 3D 2014, the official service pack Civil 3D 2014 sp2 will prevent the same behavior.

o   If you use Civil 3D 2015, the official service pack, Civil 3D 2015 sp1 will prevent the same behavior.

·         Note that object names will not be restored to their pre-corrupted value, but you can rename them in the object properties.

·         This fix is language neutral

·         This is not an official hotfix. I am providing this to the public out of my sense of goodwill and duty to the user community.

Downloads:

Civil 3D 2013 32-bit: https://autodesk.box.com/s/66tdy3z43fiyb01fllmu

Civil 3D 2013 64-bit: https://autodesk.box.com/s/pa7slkg3rfsnkuid1mv8

Book Recommendation: The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway

Readable books about engineering topics are few and far between. Some of my favorites include:

•  The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, as well as other books by Samuel C. Florman that encourage engineer types to think and be well-rounded.
• Devil in White City, by Erik Larsen - this one's focus was the Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer, but in my mind the hero is the structural engineer who invented the Ferris wheel
• Inviting Disaster, by James R. Chiles - the book that inspired Engineering Disasters on The History Channel. I confess that I'm a bit of a sucker for a good structural collapse (assuming no one gets hurt, of course).

I saw a review for The Race Underground, by Doug Most, in Boston Magazine while was on a recent trip to the Autodesk office in Waltham, MA. This book is about the history of urban transportation in Boston and New York, with interesting offshoots into London and Paris. The publisher's summary oversells the concept that the Whitney brothers' rivalry fueled the development of the subways of their respective cities. When you get into it, there was little rivalry and more two guys that happened to be in the right places at the right time when electricity, need and money came together to make a subway happen. Another misnomer is the concept of a "race." Nothing about these projects happened quickly. It took enormous will and money to overcome the fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

My favorite bit was about William Barclay Parsons' involvement with New York City's subway. He and Henry Steinway (yeah, the piano guy) designed the first few tunnels of what is now the IRT line of the New York subway system. Parsons went on to found Parson's Brinckerhoff  and became *THE GUY* to dig tunnels all over the world. What tickled me about his story is that at age 32 he was considered nearly too young to be heading up a project as large as the New York subway tunnels.

Gotta love civil engineering - the only field where being over 30 can still be considered young.

It does get a bit dry and protracted in parts, but overall a worthy read. 

SCCM: Advanced Deployment Tools for Autodesk Products

SCCM (or System Center Configuration Manager) is a Microsoft tool for deploying products and managing systems from a central location. Many organizations use this product for doing everything from distributing software to tweaking the registry to managing security updates. There are similar tools by competitors to Microsoft of course, the most common ones I bump into are Alteris, Zenworks and LANdesk to name a few, but Microsoft SCCM seems to rule the roost.

Autodesk products deploy nicely with SCCM, and full instructions on how to do this can be found here.

Depending on the task you are trying to perform with SCCM, you may need product ID numbers. These are the crazy-looking alpha-numeric codes used by Windows to uniquely identify installer and uninstaller resources. You can find these codes after a deployment is created in the text files located in the SMS_SCCM Scripts folder.

If you are trying to create a fancier script than what Autodesk deployments make for you, it can be tedious to gather the information from each product, add-on and service pack. I found a tool that will provide these numbers for any product MSI file. This is not an Autodesk tool, a colleague pointed me to it in an IT forum.

I've tested it to verify that it works and does not do anything harmful to the files.

The link will take you to a zip of a VB script. Extract the VB script to a convenient location, such as the desktop.  Drag and drop any MSI file onto the VBS icon.  The result will be a text file (automatically saved to the same directory as the MSI) that shows the product code at the bottom.

https://autodesk.box.com/s/rm8g4khm2wq50akf0huo 

Odds are, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Count yourself lucky! For those of you have been hoping to find a published list of product ID numbers - this tool is even better.

Happy Friday.