offtopic: any dual cad head here: Civil3D and OpenRoads Designer

hi

I wonder if anyone here was/is quite proficient with Civil3D and now with OpenRoads Designer.

I switched to Microstation from Autocad in 2005 and have never regretted it. Then I learned InRoads v8i to later made a transition to OpenRoads. I feel quite fully conversant with it, I am using in on highways, small streets, runabouts, site projects, runways, aprons, taxiways, and harbors, etc. I am providing training in ORD for Bentley Institute. And would rally stay with ORD.

However now more and more clients both external and internal at my company ask me to work in Civil3D, with no other reason than "we work in Civil 3D, we don't know ORD and we want you to work in the same software". Frankly, I can not say what is better to what tasks, I see sometimes colleagues struggling with assemblies that I can do in seconds with ORD templates, and I appreciate the flexibility and working in 3D environment rather than creating solid as exports of corridors. I know they are suffering from lack of surface templates, etc. On the other hand, they produce solids, not meshes that have sometimes issues with volumes.

Briefly, what I would like to ask, if you can use both ORD and C3D, what would be the software of your choice.

Adam

  • Hi Adam,

    Although originally an MX user, I spent a few years as a Civil 3D user and was hired by my current company to actually help them implement Civil 3D as they transition to digital delivery. This period coincided with the release of OpenRoads technology and the rest is history...

     

    My experience is that Civil 3D is very poor for large scale infrastructure projects, hence my success using it in a local council context but disastrous in large highway projects. The one space it is a winner is in the Points space - very easy to organise, use and control in my experience. Also Geometry is quite simple to manipulate (mainly because they have an offline edit mode as ORD urgently needs!). Corridor modeling is far inferior and cumbersome in comparison and the lack of incremental saving can result in hours of lost productivity when it crashes (not as much as ORD used to, but often enough to drive you crazy).

     

    You are correct in saying that Civil 3D using solids gets better volumetric "compatibility", but this is also the weakness of Civil 3D. The fact it can't create live Corridor solids without completely bogging down to a halt is one major reason we could never use it for BIM delivery. Effectively users need to generate static solids for every output which would not work in our environment where we constantly need to share weekly models for collaboration and federation, etc.Our ORD workflow is to make sure all users (sometimes dozens located in multiple states and countries) have their latest changes updated on ProjectWise and we use a single container file with all the models referenced in and publish to IFC in an hour. That workflow is impossible in the Civil 3d world.

     

    I am obviously very biased, but like myself our team includes many ex-Civil 3D users who have never looked back since making the move. The biggest issue is that Civil 3d is marketed much better than ORD and the fact it uses AutoCAD at its core makes it a more comfortable interface for many users. 

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4

    Answer Verified By: Adam Wieczorek 

  • I don't know if I would call myself proficient in either one...but my takeaway is that I prefer the design methodology of OpenRoads, but I prefer the plans production of Civil 3D.

    The C3D design process feels very convoluted to me. Assemblies look like they should act as templates, but they don't (in the way I understand templates, They just aren't (in my mind) intuitive. And the entire data shortcut concept is fragile at best. The ORD method of saving the design into the model, which can be referenced and used everywhere, is a lot more robust. Data Shortcuts work when they work, but if they get screwed up it can get messy.

    But the labeling in C3D is far more simple and intuitive. I don't know if it's any more powerful, but it's SO much easier to create and edit labels on the fly. I copy a label style, make the changes I need, and start labelling. I don't have to jump out and create a text favorite, then create an element template, then an annotation group, then a civil label style (and I still probably missed a few steps). C3D label styles are saved into the drawing itself, so it's one-stop-shopping to create what you need. Design is important, but we still have to put out sheets, and C3D is more straightforward for that.

    MaryB

    Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918
    Power InRoads 08.11.09.918
    OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2

        

    Answer Verified By: Adam Wieczorek 

  • I deal with these products more on the IT and CAD Manager side, so my take is a bit different.

    If both can do the job, then from upper management it's an easy decision - C3D. A seat of C3D is typically much less expensive than a seat of ORD.

    From a CAD Manager's perspective it's ORD. ORD has the configuration files and external resource files (dgnlibs, cells, etc) you can put just about anywhere, local or network. C3D has many locations for its resources locked into locations on the local C drive. In addition, the C3D profiles and other data is stored in the user tree of the Windows Registry making it much more difficult to update. Don't get me started on building GUI components - ORD is much easier.

    From a developer's perspective it's C3D. The C3D API allows more access to features than the ORD API. You don't have to be a part of the Autodesk Developer Network to get access to documentation and examples, where as ORD you have to belong to the BDN.

    Then there's the issue of file format stability which has been completely flipped. MicroStation users used to make fun of C3D because of the frequent changes to the dwg format and lack of backward/forward compatibility. The C3D format hasn't changed since 2017, but the ORD civil schemas change about once a year causing the same  version compatibility issues we used to ridicule the other side for.

    For Project Management Autodesk doesn't have anything that can compete with the functionality ProjectWise.

    It all depends on what is important to you and your organization beyond the basics of what the software can do.

    Rod Wing
    Senior Systems Analyst

  • Does anybody have any experience with using the Microstation/Openroads .DWG Work Mode? I have seen config references to this, as well as some small bits of documentation but have never used it or actually seen it in action.

    Does this functionality solve any issues with the whole "we work in C3D so you must too" argument or is there just no comparison when using a CADD platform, other then using it in its native interface. Just a thought.

    Answer Verified By: Adam Wieczorek 

  • I seriously doubt that it would work as a number of tools will make design models and drawing models in the same file. Since AutoCAD only allows one model space per file, this would most likely break down very fast.

    And I suspect that even if you could export 100% faithful DWG files with the 3D models, they would most likely be "dumb graphics" to Civil 3D. Useful as background images but not able to be part of the design data.

    Ideally, the target is the intelligent 3D models with linked attribute data, such as materials, specs, etc. Efforts seem to be getting closer and closer to being able to share this, but while I have no real experience with that, what I keep seeing is that the technology keeps getting better, but it still seems to miss the target in some areas.

    I tried experimenting with this years ago in V8i with InRoads, but never felt that it was reliable enough to suggest it as a production methodology. 


    Charles (Chuck) Rheault
    CADD Manager

    MDOT State Highway Administration

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996