FILE MANAGEMENT

 

Working with Civil 3D files can sometimes be very aggravating!!
Ok, ok, they are most likely ALWAYS aggravating. Slowdowns, crashes, missing information and all sorts of corruption can creep in if you’re not careful and sometimes it’s almost impossible to identify the cause. Over the past 15 years or so I’ve seen a little of everything when it comes to Civil 3D files, and in this article, I want to walk you through a few things I look for when cleaning up files and/or recovering problem files.

DAILY FILE MANAGEMENT

This is something you’ll want to do to every file you touch throughout the day. It takes five seconds to run these commands, but it can save you hours and hours of lost time and headaches. I run these several times a day on all the files I touch/save. This is the first thing I do when someone sends me a problem file! I’d recommend a routine such as “-purge (regapps), Audit, purge, Audit, save” to finish up your file(s) at the end of each day.

PURGE (Command Line), Type R for “RegApps”

• This is NOT the regular PURGE command. Even
a “PurgeAll” can leave plenty of leftover junk in
your files.

• NOTE: Be sure to start with your xrefed files first
and then move to the drawings where the files
are being xrefed!

AUDIT

Audit runs a check on the drawing itself and
corrects any errors within the database. It removes
things that cannot be removed by the purge
command, such as zero-length lines. 

PURGE

Purge clears your file of anything you haven’t
used like line types etc. this helps reduce the size
of your file.

Drawing Purge Add-in

https://apps.autodesk.com/ACD/en/Detail/Index?id=
3773138176974634673&appLang=en&os=Win32_64&
autostart=true

 

 

FILE SLOW DOWN?

Slow files are something that just drives me absolutely nuts!! I’m such an impatient person and if I have to wait more than 30 seconds for any result, especially open/save, then something in my office may get broken! A few things to keep in mind:

LARGE SURFACES

There are a ton of things you can do when working with large surfaces. Things like simplifying surfaces, using No Show or Border only styles until you need to turn on contours, data clip, cropped surfaces, etc. But there is one thing that is overlooked by almost everybody!
This would be the “Store Referenced Surface in Drawing Command Setting”:

•  In 2017, Autodesk introduced a new feature
  which stores the geometry of a referenced
  (data shortcut) surface. This setting is found by
  selecting the Settings Tab of the Toolspace by
  expanding the surface commands.
• Taken from the Autodesk Knowledge Network,
  there are two options for this setting:
• Yes: Saves the geometry of reference
  surfaces in the drawing. The drawing will
  become larger, but it will open more quickly
  unless the source surface has changed. The
  referenced surfaces will be visible even if the
  source drawings are not available.
• No: Does not save the geometry of reference
  surfaces in the drawing. When set to No, the
  reference is checked every time the drawing
  is opened. The drawing will be smaller, but it
  will open more slowly.

LARGE IMAGES

Images from drone data and satellite imagery can
really slow your file down at times. Here are a few
things I do to help avoid this as much as possible.

• QGIS – This is a free program that can greatly
  reduce your image size. I mean, who really need
  a 0.5” resolution photo? 3” resolution typically
  works just fine!
  
• GEOLOCATION – Although the Bing Maps aren’t the greatest quality, and definitely not always up to date, this is a good way to have some preliminary images in your background. Unload your larger images and this until you need to print or refer to the “main” images. This can save a lot of time throughout the day!

 

 

LAYOUT TABS

Autodesk recommends no more than seven layout
tabs per drawing. I recommend no more than two
to three. Technically, you can add 256; most people
on the forums say between five to ten layouts are
the max they will use.

CIVIL 3D LABELS

Use data shortcuts and label live in the sheet les.
Try not to label a really long prole, corridor, or large
surface that spans multiple sheets. This can really
slow down the performance because AutoCAD and
Civil 3D will process/cache every object whether you
are viewing it or not. Also, use XCLIPS.

TURN OFF

• Hardware Acceleration: http://autode.
  sk/2raUPDK
• Smooth Line: http://autode.sk/2rf4LY5
• HPQUICKPREVIEW – Controls whether a hatch
  preview is displayed when specifying a hatch area.

 

DELAY TIME

When entering certain commands at the command
line in AutoCAD, the program pauses or hangs for a
moment before continuing to function. Or, even
more annoying, you input a command and hit
enter, then it does a completely different command!

• INPUTSEARCHDELAY – Type this into the
  command line and change the setting to
  anything (3000, 5000, etc.).

Some more time saving tips are below. Some are
very simple and save seconds, but seconds add up
to minutes, and minutes add up to hours!

• Layoutregenctl = 2 (To stop regeneration between
  switching between Model Space and Layouts).
• Regenmode = 0 (To stop automatic
  regeneration after certain common tasks, like
  thawing a Layer).
• Cachemaxfiles = 0 (To disable caching and
  delete files in GraphicsCache folder not in use).
• Cachemaxtotalsize = 0 (Similar to No.3).
• Taskbar = 0 (To increase maximize/minimize
  latency by only displaying current drawing of
  multiple open drawings in Windows Taskbar). Also
  stretched AutoCAD program window manually to
  screen width instead of letting Windows do it and
  increased the max/min as well.
• Ssmpolltime = 600 (To lengthen auto refreshing
  of Sheet Sets when displayed)
• Created Desktop Shortcut to AutoCAD temp
  folders for regular cleanup of leftover files.
• Created new Desktop icon and removed
  “\UserDataCache” from path to increase
  startup - This helped a great deal!
• Tweaked other Setvariables from the start of
  install like: Whipthread = 3, Isavepercent = 90,
  Paletteopaque = 0, and Draworder = 3.

 

 

MISC. COMMANDS

Anytime I get a drawing from an outside source,
especially architects or landscape architects, I go
right to the OVERKILL and MAPCLEAN commands.
The WBLOCK command is a great tool to block
out just the items you want, or even to completely
rebuild a very troublesome file.

MAPCLEAN (Command)

• Drawing Cleanup actions can be used to
  detect map errors (for example, duplicate
  objects, undershoots, or zero length objects),
  simplify complex 2D maps, and to weed and
  supplement 3D polylines. Because Drawing
  Cleanup can alter your data, make a backup of
  your data before cleaning up a map.
• Drawing Cleanup affects objects on layers that
  are OFF. It does not affect objects on layers that
  are FROZEN. It is recommended that you use
  drawing cleanup on a layer-by-layer basis, or on
  selective sets of layers. Avoid using automatic
  cleanups for all objects on all layers.

 

 

OVERKILL (Command)

•  Removes duplicate or overlapping lines, arcs,
  and polylines. Also, combines those that are
  partially overlapping or contiguous.

WBLOCK (Command)

• This is the number one way to really purge
  unused layers, blocks, REGAPPS, and any other
  funky junk that someone has done to that
  drawing. It will even remove bad settings that
  a user has changed! The Entire File option will
  take drawing layouts with it, which is great if you
  have a corrupt Sheet file.
• WBLOCK does a good job removing it as long
  as you select the objects in the drawing and
  PURGE and AUDIT the New Block.dwg. 
• In some instances, WBLOCK will carry over
  corruption. It is rare. LandXML does not carry
  across corruption. If it doesn’t come across in the
  LandXML then it is best to rebuild what it didn’t
  bring across. I understand that requires more
  work up front but in the long run it can prevent a
  larger loss down farther down the road. 

 

 

FILE RECOVERY

No matter how diligent you are with keeping files
clean, you will at some point come across a file that just
refuses to stabilize and needs to be further recovered.
Here are some additional tools that are helpful.

DRAWING RECOVERY MANAGER

• Drawing recovery manager AutoCAD uses to
  Access “Recoverable Drawings” after a program
  or system failure. This is a great way to show the
  recover file, the autosave file and any temporary
  files. This speeds up the file recovery process
  and lets you access those files from one central
  location. Simply type in DRAWINGRECOVERY into
  the command line to get the panel to appear.

RECOVER

• Run RECOVERALL on corrupt drawing file
  (Repairs a damaged drawing file along with all
  attached xrefs).

WHOHAS (Command)

• You can use WHOHAS to find out who has a
  specified drawing file open.
•  Also, check for and delete the hidden dwl and .
  dwl2 files in the drawing folder directory.

INSERT THE CORRUPTED DRAWING AS A BLOCK:

• Open a blank DWG and run
  the INSERT command (or CLASSICINSERT).
  
• Select the problematic file.
  
• If it inserts, run EXPLODE and select the inserted
  block.
  
•  Run an AUDIT command.
•  Run a PURGE command.
  
•  SAVEAS.

 

 

RECOVERY FILE TYPES

• Locate the corrupted drawing directory or storage location. 
•  Find the drawing file backup denoted by the .bak extension. 
• Rename the .bak extension to .dwg. • Attempt to open the newly created .dwg file.
• Note: to preserve the original backup file, make a copy before changing the extension.

 

Recovering from an autosave file (.sv$): 

• Locate the autosave folder location (typically C:\ Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\).
• Find files with an SV$ extension. Look
  for files with a similar name and different times
  and dates as compared to the corrupted .dwg
  file.
  
• Rename the extension from .sv$ to .dwg.
  
• Attempt to open the newly created file.

Try opening the drawing using DWG Trueview: 

• Convert the drawing using DWG Trueview to an
  older DWG version.
  
• Attempt to open the newly created file.

Instead of opening the whole File, open the file
partially (See To Partially Open a Drawing). 

• Select a view and select one or more layers.
• You can load only geometry from model space
  views that are saved in the current drawing.

 

 

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to help yourself, and the
company, save a lot of time and rework when it
comes to your Civil 3D files. Hopefully this helps
you keep your hair in place and blood pressure
down!! I’d love to hear from you and what you do
to keep files clean and what has been successful in
your practice.
Thank you!