Goodbye Part Builder, Maybe

JOSH CLAWSON: We're going to talk about some different authoring options, Part Builder and infrastructure Part Editor, as well, mainly. But first, I guess, just a little bit about myself.

My name is Josh Clawson. I work for Master Graphics AEC out of our Madison, Wisconsin, office, where I'm a design technology specialist, do content creation for civil engineering firms, onsite mentoring, training-- all of it. I've got about 13 years experience using Autodesk tools professionally.

I'm originally from North Dakota, the land of the frozen, flat tundra. So everyone in Wisconsin, when I first moved there, they're like, "Oh, you get to experience an Wisconsin winter. " I go, "Well, I'm from North Dakota." Then they just shut up and stopped talking.

But, yeah, I'm an avid outdoorsman. If I'm not working, I am out in the woods or on the river somewhere, lake, hunting, fishing. That's in my blood. I grew up doing that.

So today, what we're going to talk about-- a little bit of background on different authoring options over the years, and then we're going to touch on Part Builder and kind of go through how Part Builder works. And then we're going to look at Infrastructure Parts Editor and how that works, and how it's different. It's quite a bit different, but it is still very similar. And then we'll look at the inner inventor piece, the shape modeler portion of it. And it's really a comparison of the tool.

This class, we're not going to get into picks and clicks and how to do everything. It's more so comparing the two options-- what you can do with one, what you can do with the other, why you would use one for one task, why would you use one for the other task.

So I think I've got a survey next. So who knows what Kahoot is? Anyone heard of that? If you've got a cell phone out, go to just a web browser on your cell phone and go to kahoot.it. And it's going to bring you to a page, and it's going to ask you for a code. I got to flip my monitor here to get that up, so one sec. And for some reason, my machine keeps not duplicating my desktop on that, so I'm going to be jumping back and forth.

AUDIENCE: Do you have your Wi-Fi on?

JOSH CLAWSON: My Wi-Fi is on. I got to have it on it to--

AUDIENCE: Turn it off.

JOSH CLAWSON: But I need the internet for the survey.

AUDIENCE: Oh. I was just saying I go through that when I--

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah, no, and that's probably what it is. I'll turn it off after the-- we get through this survey portion. Keep changes. All right. So-- and this will go through-- that's up there? All right. Ready to join.

So we're going to get a PIN here. That's the PIN. Enter it in, and it's going to ask you to throw a nickname up, and it's going to list everybody up here. This one is just a survey. We can do quizzes with this, and they're kind of fun sometimes because you get a standings for a second, third as you're going through them. Makes it interesting. Nicknames are always funny. Cool? Everyone in? OK.

First question-- there is music that plays with these. It's kind of silly, but-- have you ever used Part Builder? Yes, extensively; opened it and got scared, closed it; dabbled some; or no. And I did throw a 20-second time limit on these, so. And we'll see the results. This just gives me a feel for where you guys are at with everything.

So a lot of people have dabbled some.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: Right. And there's a handful in here that are extensive users, and that's good.

So next question-- have you used Parts Editor? The Infrastructure Parts Editor piece came out in 2018. 2 release of Civil 3D. Was out in the release prior in InfraWorks.

A lot of noes, that's good. Some yes, extensively. Cool. So don't hound me too bad with questions, those that answered yes, extensively. Again, this is just exposure to the options of the tools, not diving real deep into each tool.

Have you used Inventor? I'm assuming most of us in here are civil, if you're in here.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: All right. And that's about what I expected, so. Good. Let me jump back into my PowerPoint here. All right.

So history-- not a lot of options in the history of authoring catalog content for Civil 3D. In the initial release of Civil 3D, we had Part Builder, parametric drafting inside the Civil 3D interface, just like a DWG. Then, in 2013 release, we add Content Catalog Editor when pressure networks came out. We're using AutoCAD solids and putting pipe connectors on those, authoring them out and do Content Catalog Editor.

Then, in the 2018.2 release of Civil 3D-- does anyone in here familiar with Project Chameleon? Yeah. And the futures of beta testing? That's essentially what Infrastructure Parts Editor is. So it had been out there in testing for two or three years, and then they finally put it into the product. Again, that's the 2018.2 release, and everything moving forward for Civil 3D, as well as InfraWorks, is going to have this functionality in there.

The Shape Modeler portion sits, sits on Inventor, either Inventor Pro or Inventor LT. So you're in the Inventor workspace while you're using it, but you can author these parametric shapes with it. So-- and this is kind of the basis of this whole thing-- is parametric drafting.

Now being AutoCAD and civil users, we don't generally draw parametrically. We're saying, "I want to draw a polyline or an alignment, and it's going to be this long. I'm going to define how long that line is." Where in parametric drafting is you draw a line, and then you tell it how long you want it to be. Then you can put parameter references in that dimension, and then you can have a table of different dimensions.

So you can have one object that changes size, like drop-down arrows. If you've ever populated parts network, or a parts list for a pipes network inside of Civil 3D, all of the drop-down menus, those are parameter options that would be defined through constraints. So parametric drawing is a technology that is used for designing with constraints, which are associated and-- associations and restrictions applied to 2D geometry.

There are two kinds. There are geometric constraints-- centered or perpendicular or parallel-- those are geometric constraints that hold the shape of the object. And then there's dimensional constraints. Those dimensional constraints are where we can have our varied input to get different shapes and sizes out of one object.

So Part Builder, it lives inside of Civil 3D-- and we're going to look at it here in a minute-- based off of parametric drafting and parametric drawing. And I know the first time I jumped in there, I went, "I don't even know what this is. What am I looking at? It looks like a skeleton of a manhole, but all this stuff on the left side doesn't mean anything to me."

I know what it is now. But it's based on working plans, and you can see the yellow kind of diamond shapes there. Those are your different working plans and offset distances between those working plans with extrusion in between them.

But the parameter naming is absolutely critical, and that's going to be a theme moving forward with any of this-- the Civil 3D, as well as InfraWorks, only recognizes a handful of parameters, and they have to be very specifically keyed in for it to work. Otherwise, your object will break or your structure will break.

So a catalog structure for Part Builder. Again, the catalog sits outside of civil 3D on your network somewhere. It comes with the out-of-the-box install. Everybody gets one. Generally, what you see companies do is they have a single source of truth pipe network catalog that sits somewhere that everyone can point at, or it's the Wild West and everybody does their own thing. So it's kind of two different ways.

Now, you can have multiple catalogs. So you can select different catalogs that you want as you're drafting or was the project, whichever project you're on. It has the pieces it needs. So the catalogs do contain multiple parts. There's not a single catalog that is for slapped-top manholes. There's not a single catalog for flair-down sections or end aprons. There's not a single catalog for concrete pipes. It's a bunch, and we'll look at them.

So inside each of these catalogs, there is a bitmap, which is a preview image of what that piece is going to look like. There's a DWG that holds all of the geometry, and there's an XML file. That XML document is what carries that link of those parameter tables to that geometric shape. You just saw how it works.

Just so you know, I don't, I mean, if you're not doing any real heavy customization, you're never going to go into those XML files. And if you do, and you do something wrong, you break it. So it is kind of tricky. But there are ways to go into an XML document with Notepad and actually make some edits to some of the parameters of your structures and pipes coming out of Part Builder.

So I'm going to jump into Part Builder live here for a little bit. And I'm just going to do a simple parameter change on a pipe that's probably going to be the most common one people run into that they get annoyed with. And again I'm going to disconnect my internet here and see if this helps holding my screen.

So Civil 3D 2019-- I believe this is .1, I haven't got the new update in. But anyways-- and actually, let me do one thing I forgot to real quick. So Part Builder, as well as Parts Editor, is accessed off the Create Design panel of the ribbon. There's a dropdown or flyout, whatever you want to call it, and Part Builder is in here.

Now, also setting the Pipe Network catalog, that's kind of critical because that's going to set what catalog you're going to edit inside of Part Builder. So if I set that catalog-- and this is just the default out-of-the-box location-- I'm set to my US Imperial and my US Imperial for both pipes and structures.

Now, let's look at these real quick because-- now notice in my pipes, I've only got Imperial or Metric, but in my structures. I've got these generic drainage catalogs. These catalogs are the catalogs created with the Inventor pieces. So they're not going to be able to be edited inside Inventor, or inside Part Builder, excuse me. So I set this to this generic Drainage Catalog with Connected Pipes Imperial and say OK. And then I come up to Part Builder and say that I want to edit my structures and try and edit one. It's going to give me a warning-- can't do it. It doesn't have the right components. It's a different folder structure makeup than what is required for Part Builder. So we can't crosstalk with these. If we have content in one, and we want to get it in the other, we either have to custom make it to match. But they did a really good job of replicating the out-of-the-box catalog from Part Builder in Part Editor. So they're very similar. But I'm just going to change that back and then jump into Part Builder here.

So accessing Part Builder. What I'm going to do-- so we have structures and pipes, and they're in two different folder structures. And this window is basically a replication of the folder structure. As you drill down into your individual pieces, it sits out on your C-- well, in your Program Files, your C drive coming directly out of the Civil 3D install.

So I'm going to go to Pipes, Circular Pipes, Concrete Pipes. Who likes the way that reinforced concrete pipe labels? If you pull the material parameter for a label? I don't think anyone does.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] right there.

JOSH CLAWSON: The what?

AUDIENCE: XML [INAUDIBLE] right there.

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah. You can do it in the XML. We're going to go the other way with this because getting into XMLs ls like-- it's a little bit different level than just drafting. This is a little closer related to drafting. So this is what a pipe looks like. It's just a cross-section of the pipe, and then it gives a line to keep it parallel to.

If I go into these size parameters on the side. So I'm going to kind of just touched on this a little bit. Pipes are simple. If we look at structures, they're are a little more. But there's working planes, modifiers, layout data, model parameters inside of here. But these size parameters, these are the critical verbiage. These need to be matched to create a pipe-- AC Main, Body Diameter, Raw Material, Pipe Inside Diameter, Part Size Name, and Wall Thickness are what those are.

So if I come in and edit some of these, I get tables. And here are my parameters across the top. Pipe Inner Diameter, Wall Thickness, Manning Coefficient, Material, Part Size Name, and Body Diameter. So this Part Inside Diameter is referencing the Body Diameter, but it's taking that Body Diameter Dimensional Constraint and giving it a Part Inside Diameter parameter, which Civil 3D can read.

Now, this material, reinforced concrete pipe. If I want to pull material on a label and I want it to say RCP, instead of reinforced concrete pipe spelled out this long on every single pipe, I have to do something different with my label, or I have to come in and change my material inside the catalog.

So that's all I'm going to do, is edit the material. You can do it in here. Just double-click in the material column and type in RCP. And because it's a constant, the material is a constant, it's going to change all of them instead of just the one instance on the 12-inch pipe that I had selected.

Now, if we look at our parameter configuration in here, you can see Material is a constant, and that's why it changed all of them. Part Inside Diameter is a table, so we're going to get different options to choose from. Manning Coefficient, again, it's a list. We're going to get different options, but.

So what about that Part Size name? Now when you populate a pipe or a structure to a parts list, and you get that description coming in-- and you'll see this along with structures when you add part family and then you add a size and you get this really long string of Wall Thickness, Floor Thickness, Height Diameter instead of just like a type-A manhole.

You can change that in the, in the Part Size name inside here. So to do that, you've got to go to the Calculations drop down instead of the Values because we're going to actually edit the formula. So it's pulling from Parameters, Part Inside Diameter, and then the Inch-- you know, just IN for Inches-- and then MAT for Material.

So we could reconfigure this any way we want, and then when we bring that into Civil 3D into a parts list or adding from a family into a parts list, it's going to pull what is defined in the part size name. That's the parameter that gives it its name. We look at a structure, it's going to be quite a long string of things because there's a lot more parameters inside of a structure.

That's about as deep as I'm going to go into Part Builder, just kind of exposing you to the interface and how it works. So I'm going to hop out of here. One thing, too, just to make note of-- if you do make some edits-- and I'm going to save this-- and you have an existing pipe network in your drawing, it's not going to update because it already read the information when it was populated in your drawing.

So you need to do two things-- save the changes that you made in Part Builder to your catalog, and then there's a command Part Catalog Regen. I'll just type it in and zoom on it. So that Part Catalog Regen, it's going to reread your Part Catalog again. That way, you can go and swap your pipes so just with swap part and it's going to update.

So then it'll pull that newly updated material or whatever other parameters you've changed in it. It'll update your labels as well, so you don't have to go back and redraw everything again.

All right. See if the internet trick worked or not. So-- no, it didn't. Where did my clicker go?

So Infrastructure Parts Editor. A little different animal. A little lot different interface. A little more user friendly. It's not so scary when you open it and you just get those big tree of parameters, and you actually have some windows to go through.

It's accessed inside of Civil 3D. You can also access it inside of InfraWorks But it opens up in its own interface. It doesn't live inside of Civil 3D, but you access it that way, and then it opens up a secondary program. Based on parametric solids instead of just skeletal structure, like Part Builder is.

All of this is made inside of Inventor. So it's parametric solids authored inside of Inventor. The one thing about this, and I'll throw this right out there, is there's no pipes. Noticed it in my catalogs when I couldn't, I didn't have the option for a generic pipe. It was just the structures. So if you're doing anything with pipes, you're going to still use Part Builder.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: It will do culverts for use in InfraWorks with flared end sections and head walls and things of that nature on them. But no, it won't. So flared-end sections as well will still need to be done inside of Part Builder.

Again, parameter names are critical. But there's three pieces to each structure. This is the one thing I found annoying with this, is because you have to have a cover, a surface structure, and an underground structure, always. So the cover casting, whatever and then the frame that the casting sits on. And then your underground structure, and you only get so many options to make that underground structure.

Inside of Part Builder, you can get really creative and get different functionality than you can inside of Parts Editor. But for just simple modifications and changing materials and sizes and making some adjustments, this is a lot more intuitive interface. It's easier to go through, so.

Catalog structure, same thing, sits in the same folder structure as the ones coming out Part Builder. You point to the desired catalog, just as I showed earlier. The catalogs contain multiple, parts so it's one catalog for everything. It's not just a folder for structures or a folder for rectangular, no-frame structures. It's a folder for everything, so it's a little different. And then each one contains an XML and a JPEG. So it's a little different. It doesn't have to DWG-holding geometry.

In the catalogs themselves, if you create custom stuff, there's going to be in Inventor IPT file that you publish out and then import in, and then it adds it to the catalog. So it's a little different. That's why you can't, they can't crosstalk. You can't build stuff inside of Parts Editor and then edit it in Part Builder or vice versa. It's got to be this was created here, this is how I author it, this is how I edit it, both ways.

So, yeah, and that's just a couple pictures of what the file structure looks like and the files that are inside of them, so.

Shape Modeler-- this is the one that scares everyone because you've got to jump in Inventor, and then when you zoom in, it zooms out, and it really makes you mad.

AUDIENCE: But you can reverse--

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah. You can, absolutely. You can go in the options and change the zoom scrolling.

So the Inventor piece is going to be for structures that would be created for use inside of Civil 3D, but there's a lot more we can do in that. Was anyone in the last lab about custom bridge components for InfraWorks? No? You? Yeah, one. Right on.

So you can author a handful of different things. And now that they've got generic objects that you can put inside of InfraWorks, you can also author those generic objects and give them parametric constraints, push them into InfraWorks, and have things adjust automatically. It's mainly for bridges and then roadway decoration. So there's some options there.

Inventor, as scary as it looks upon first glance, it's not that difficult. I mean, if you can do basic AutoCAD drafting, you're going-- and I'll show-- I will-- we'll walk through just a quick little example. There's a lot of flexibility in there, and it's just matching these parameters up and then kicking it out to either InfraWorks or Civil 3D.

But inside of Civil 3D, just structures. So let's take a look at that. And again, my screens are going to be goofy, so bear with me. Those are my kids.

AUDIENCE: So cute.

JOSH CLAWSON: Right?

AUDIENCE: I didn't say [INAUDIBLE].

JOSH CLAWSON: All right. So we're back in Civil 3D. We're going to look at Part Editor. So Infrastructure Parts Editor is just below Part Builder. I guess we'll zoom in on that. So when you select it, like I said, it's going to open up a different program, essentially. It's opening up this different program. So here's my generic drainage catalog imperial that I was pointing to or I was-- by default path to. I can't open and navigate because there were four different ones. I had two metric and two imperial. We're just going to stay in this one, but I do need to open this. Also, this, I don't know anything about this-- import from Plant 3D. Anyone do anything with Plant 3D in here?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] sometimes.

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah?

AUDIENCE: Pipes.

JOSH CLAWSON: You can bring the pipes into this?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

JOSH CLAWSON: Cool. I'm civil--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't do anything with buildings other than show where they're going to sit. But so there's, I mean, there's going to be more use for this component as they move forward, or Autodesk moves forward. The developers are working on this quite a bit.

So opening up my Generic Drainage catalog. These are a little easier to look at because I get an actual image preview of what's going on. And I believe I'm just looking at structures right now. So I've got my Underground Structures are at the top. I've got my Surface Structures, and then I've got my Grates. And it's a combination of these three components, and you make what's called an assembly.

So down at the bottom here, it says Structures. It's kind of highlighted, but there's 45 different structures in this catalog currently. And we can go in and edit each of the structures individually, parameters of them. We'll jump in and look at one, and then we'll come back and look at an assembly.

So if we go with, I don't know, I'll say this guy, Circular Centric Structure. It goes through kind of a wizard. You go, there are steps involved. So I click on one, I get this window, Part Family Properties, and I can just click in here and change these.

So this Part Family Name is going to be-- that's not where you're going to see you when you bring it into your parts list, but you can just click in there and edit it. There's no restrictions that way. So it's set up a little easier, a little more intuitive.

Then you hit Next, and now it says what shape do you want to use? So these are my parametric objects. I could take and pick a different shape for this if I want to modify it that much, but I'm going to stick with that same eccentric manhole and say Next.

Here these are some of the parameters that we're going to be able to pull labels from. So I can come in here and just type in what I want, as opposed to going through the table using the values and things inside of Part Builder.

And then next, so in here is where I would add different sizes. So I can add rows to this. So right now, I've got a 36 to 60 inch, a 42 to 60, a 48 to 60, but add a row. I could come in and name this whatever. We'll do, I don't know, 52. I'm not going to fill the rest of that out. So the size in here will be 52, space 6, 60.

And then once we get into some of these parameters over here-- so the ones with a little asterisk by them, these are the critical ones that need to be read by Civil 3D. And in the handout, I have a hyperlink to a list of all of the required parameters. I don't know if that handout got uploaded. I uploaded it a couple days ago. I didn't see it on there yesterday, but it will be.

So just these are the ones that are critical. These are also the same parameters that you would see inside of Part Builder, just a different way of editing them. You do get a nice preview of what your structure looks like. I can also add properties in here, and the properties are just the different columns.

So Part Size ID, if I wanted that in there, which all of them are currently present. Where did that go? Yeah, there's Part Size ID. So this is the one you would want to change to populate inside of your parts list. It's like the part size name coming out of Part Builder. Then when you bring them in and it's this crazy-- that-- you can fix it.

So then, next, and it's going to give us a preview of what this piece looks like, and I can actually orbit around and look at this. It looks very similar to InfraWorks. Like you're whole InfraWorks model is one chunk of a manhole, and that's it, floating out there in the clouds. But I can go through and check my sizes out, and notice that opening's getting larger. So it's just size validation, and then you say Done.

And that's one of the three components to a structure, so I went through and checked out some of the parameters of one single construct-- one single structure.

Now when you get to an assembly-- so assemblies are things actually put together. And like we had mentioned earlier, we see a bunch of pipes with end walls, head walls, flared wing walls, and things. Those are only for use inside of InfraWorks. We can't use those in Civil. I'm thinking the direction they're going is this stuff's all going to be compatible in both platforms, just haven't seen it yet.

So if we want to go in and put one of these together-- we'll do, I don't know, rectangular, square-- my base part is going to be my surface structure. So it's what's actually touching the surface, like your insertion point. So I can also-- and I don't want to do pipe-collared barrel, but that's the other option. Those would be for pushing into InfraWorks. So surface structure, I'm going to grab that rectangular one and say Next.

So these are my three components for this particular structure. And then it shows what options I have that match those that are going to fit with them, as far as the dimensions, so that if you've got a length and a width that matches, then it's going to show up in the list here. And then it's just grab them, drag them over, drop them. Maybe you want a different grate on this.

Now it's going to lock up. Sweet. There. Say Next. A short description, part family global name. Again, in here, this is all just editable. Has sump or does not have sump. That's a nice one. We can just not check it and there's no sump. Is an inlet or not. And that's more InfraWorks drainage analysis if it's an inlet structure, so you can bring water into it instead of just through pipes.

And then we get a preview of our structure, and we can go through and check out the different sizes. Now one thing to note, there's these little dots. These are authored inside of Inventor, or Shape Modeler, which is actually Inventor. So there is one benefit, and this is a very recent development with the Shape Modeler. You can add different pipe connection points, and you can also change your insertion point just by placing it graphically inside of your model. So if you wanted two pipes to connect to the front side of this instead of just one in the center, we could add different pipe connection points.

So that's a definite benefit to using these types of structures is you get a little more flexibility. And that's the type of functionality that the design team is really working on with this product. They're not, they're not doing anything with Part Builder. Part Builder is where it's at. It's not going to change. This is what they're developing for moving forward, but.

So from here, after you've made any edits, adjustments, anything-- well, sorry, my computer's got Wisconsin time, and I'm like 5:15, holy crap-- so then you would say Done, and it would add it into your assemblies.

Now to publish this thing out, now we've got a Publish tab up here. So I go through and I make adjustments, change the naming conventions of different pieces of my structures, maybe adjust some of the sizes to make it match more with what you use in your region, and then you go through and you need to publish that catalog out.

Up at the top, Publish tab, you get a Publish button. Its your only option. Hit Publish, and it's going to ask what structures do you want to publish. So I've got 41 selected. A lot of these are the wing walls or culverts that are unchecked. So you want to go through and make sure they're checked, so you can pick and choose what you want to push out in your catalog from this kind of master list, if you will. Say Next.

Now, this is important. Where am I publishing it? Am I going to InfraWorks or am I going to Civil 3D? It writes out a little bit different catalog, one for InfraWorks versus one for Civil 3D. We're just talking Civil 3D today. So if I uncheck InfraWorks, I lose a lot of options. If I check Civil 3D, it asks me what version I want it to be in-- so 18 or 19-- a location where I want to put it. And I would say OK. And it kicks it out.

If you get warnings-- so this was successful, but there is a log file you can look at if there are warnings. And it will-- warning, no value defined in geometry-- so there's no value in some of these. Some of them might fail if you don't have your parameters configured correctly, but you can get this report and inspect which ones failed, And then fix them, essentially.

So let's take a look at Inventor.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: I haven't had any issues with it using the 18 stuff in the 19 platform. I haven't gone the other direction, though. You know, I haven't gone with the 19 catalog into 18.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] moving forward [INAUDIBLE] said publish [INAUDIBLE].

JOSH CLAWSON: Right. Right. Yeah, and I would suggest keeping it consistent, otherwi-- I don't know why there's those both options are in there, and this, again, is about six months old, maybe nine months old.

So this is what Inventor looks like, and we're just going to kind of walk through what the interface looks like to work with. So we create a new part. Now the one spot that most people get scared of Inventor-- and actually, I'm going to change this.

So this is one thing to really note when you first jump into in Inventor. If we look at our UCS in the bottom-left corner, Z is pointing right at you, and we've got X and Y. But our View Cube says that's the front, not the top. So if we model anything up, it's going to come in sideways. So we need to address that right away. And the easy way to do that is just on the View Cube, hit that little drop down and say Set Current View As Top. And then now Z is pointing up, just how we like to have it in civil referencing elevation.

Everything inside of Inventor is based off 2D sketches, and then you make extrusion from those. So top left, I've got a Start Sketch, and it's a 2D Sketch. So when I say that, right here, most Civil users go, "All right. I'm done." What is that thing?

So you're picking what working plane you want to work on, is what it is. So notice the direction of Z. Generally, you're going to be wanting to be working on the X,Y plane because you're going to be building things from the bottom up. So if I say X,Y plane, then it just turns into very simple 2D drafting. I've got a Line Tool, Circle Tool, Arc, Rectangle. I just draw a shape, and then I use that shape and make an extrusion out of it. Our reference point is that little dot in the center of the screen. Think of it as 0, like a block insertion point, a new 0,0 on a block that you would insert into a drawing is a good way to think about it.

So I'm just going to do a simple one here. I'm going to draw a rectangle. Now, parametric drafting, so I draw that rectangle. I didn't give any dimensions to it at all, but-- is it up there? Oh, yeah, It's hard to see the green from the side. Notice all the parallel geometric constraints that come in automatically.

So now that I've done that, if I want to throw some dimensions on this, I just click this line, and-- I'm going to want that a lot larger, but we'll say 24-- it got wider. So that's 24. And then if I select this one and say that I want this to be 36-- notice it automatically adjusts. This is parametric drafting. We're drawing a line, and then we're telling it how long we want it to be. Now also in those dimensions, I can reference a parameter.

So in this dimension, if I say-- I can't remember what parameter that is-- but I can put a parameter value in there that equals, that's referencing a dimension, as opposed to actually typing in a dimension. And that's where those like US width or US length, that's one it is-- US width equals, oops, equals 36. So that will hold that value., so I've added the US width parameter to that. That should have been the length, but you get the idea.

So on the ribbon, we have this Parameters dialogue. Now, I've got two parameters in here so far. This US width is one that is required for Civil, use in Civil. This D0, that's just Dimension 0. That's the first dimension I dropped in. For some reason, they start at 0 with counting inside Inventor.

So I would go through and add these dimensional constraints, and a little bit easier way than you do inside of Part Builder because we're just looking at it in a 2D fashion, and that I want a length, I want a width, I want a wall thickness. And it would add these parameters in this parameter table. Then I can start referencing those.

Now, when I change the value of those parameters-- so let's see if we can do this-- so instead of 36, if I say 24 here, it adjusts my model. So now I am have a tabular input format that's going to adjust to three-dimensional object in various ways, depending on the parameter configuration. I feel like I've said parameter about 500 times. So I'm going to change about 36.

Now, some other things in here-- like this isn't centered on my origin, yeah, insertion point. I can make a concentric constraint out of this. No, I don't know if that's going to work. I know you can do a dimensional one, so if I just do a dimension from here to my origin, and drop that down and say that's 12, it's going to push it over. And I can put that as a parameter formula in here, to be, so this dimension two can be--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah. I was trying to-- I would do US width divided by 2, essentially, or US length divided by 2, but. So I'm not going to center all of this on here, just for time's sake because we are about at the hour. Or actually, no, we've got about 15 minutes.

AUDIENCE: Or you can use the rectangle to drop in. You can draw a rectangle from the center origin.

JOSH CLAWSON: Oh, OK.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] origin, and then you would already be constrained to the origin.

JOSH CLAWSON: Yeah. Yeah. Good call. So I'm going to delete this.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: OK. Yeah. So I was just going to show-- I'm going to draw another rectangle in here. Actually, no, I don't want to do that yet. Sorry, I finished gasket and we've got our sketch I don't have any dimensions on this anymore because of that, but I'm going to extrude, extrude this out. And I could put a US height in here, parameter-- US, oops, which is another, going to say equals, I don't know-- 24. And then it extrudes it out 24 inches. And then I could come in, and if I want to do a 2D sketch on this face, I come in and draw another rectangle. Which one do I pick?

AUDIENCE: That one's fine.

JOSH CLAWSON: OK.

AUDIENCE: I would lock it in the origin.

JOSH CLAWSON: There. So I could come in and drop in some dimensional constraints in here, and basically, wall thickness equals whatever. And then do wall thickness all the way around to control that. Right now it's coincident constraint to the origin point and parallel on all that, but. So let's look at this. I've got a big block. And I want to push that down. So I'm going to finish this sketch and then I'm going to extrude again. Notice it gets that face, but I want to go the other direction. And if I go to 24 inches, that's going to basically make a big hole. Yeah. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Is it always [INAUDIBLE]?

JOSH CLAWSON: It depends on what your units are set up as.

AUDIENCE: So you could change to meters?

JOSH CLAWSON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can change the meters or whatever. So I'm just going to make this. So here I would do US height minus wall thickness, or actually put a base thickness in there as well. I don't have them all set up. And, I mean, we could spend two hours just going through building this little piece. So I'm just going to 21, just to show it.

So there I've got what could be an inlet box. It's not quite right, but for example's sake, I think we get it. So the big kicker on this, though, inside the Inventor platform, we have an Environments tab on the ribbon up here. This is where we get into our infrastructure Part Shape Utilities. This button-- and to get this button inside of Inventor-- who owns Inventor in here, or who has access to Inventor? About 10 of you. And you have to install Inventor, and then you have to install either InfraWorks or Civil 3D to get that plug-in to go. Otherwise, it doesn't-- it won't be in there. And you'd-- will have to uninstall and then reinstall if you don't do it the right order.

AUDIENCE: Does this not let Inventor add anything?

JOSH CLAWSON: No. There might be an MSI file out there that you can get. I know when it first came out, it wasn't. You had to do-- you had to do the installation in the proper order.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: OK.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JOSH CLAWSON: OK.

AUDIENCE: If one exists.

JOSH CLAWSON: If one exists. Right. So by clicking on that Infrastructure Part Shaped Utility, we get some options in here. I can assign a cover and a grade to this if I had them created. I can drop in my pipe connectors, where I want my pipe connectors to go. So if I want to connect pipes on the side, we've got to pick both planes because it's going to punch through. Essentially, I pick the inside-- or outside wall, then the inside wall. And I get that green thing showing that that's where a pipe can connect to this structure. Those are some options. Also assembly connectors-- so this is going to be where I'm going to connect to, like, a cover that goes on this.

So then it's putting these connection points in and then also a reference point where you want this to be it's insertion point. I could change that, so.

AUDIENCE: Is there a limit?

JOSH CLAWSON: Is there a limit?

AUDIENCE: Say you wanted to do an electical bulb, and you wanted to say, [INAUDIBLE].

JOSH CLAWSON: I don't think there is a limit. It depends on the size of the pipes once you get into a pipe network and you're connecting stuff to it. If you're doing ones, twos, and threes instead of 18 inch or 25 inch, I think you would be able to do that. Yeah.

So then we can export a template. And this is going to be an IPT file coming out. It gives a little preview of it. And I will just put this on my desktop and name it test box and then export. So then that exports out that IPT file that you can now consume with the Part Editor Utility, which is this guy.

So if I go to Parts, Structures-- OK, you've got that one selected for those icons to show up, but I would say New. Go through and name what I want it to be, and navigate over and say New Shape Template, and browse out to my desktop. And here's my test box. And I can bring that in, and it gives a little preview of it. This isn't going to work. It's going to break because there's no parameter configuration inside of there. But that's how you get them into this environment.

Now, go through and fill out all this jazz. And I have no parameters in here, so I don't have any values. So it's going to break. See? Pretty sweet. But, that's the gist of it, just kind of comparing the two, Part Builder versus Shape Modeler and Part Editor .

I'm going to jump back in here. I've got just a couple of more slides.

So differences between the two. Part Builder requires a DWG to hold the geometry. It cannot author directly to InfraWorks. That's one thing.

You could model up a pipe network inside Civil 3D and then do an IMX out and get it into InfraWorks, and it's going to look the same. But it's going to be pulling from that generic pipe catalog that was created in Inventor and substituting parts. So if you've got some real crazy configured stuff you build in Part Builder, it's not going to look like that InfraWorks if you push it out.

And you can create more complex structures. It allows you to customize and author pipes, and then everything happens in the Civil 3D environment. You're dealing with an AutoCAD interface, not an Inventor interface.

So Infrastructure Parts Editor utilizes Inventor IPT shapes, authors directly to InfraWorks. It's a little easier to interface. I don't know if you guys agree with that or not. It's less scary, I think. Multiple pipe connections on structures, which is a big plus. And then you can also do the culverts, head walls, wing walls, everything for InfraWorks, which I'm hoping they push that into Civil 3D here shortly.