Maria Lamas
The 2024 updates to Civil 3D, InfraWorks and ReCap Pro are here! They help make the design and digital modeling of infrastructure projects much quicker and more efficient, while incorporating sustainable design elements for more streamlined planning processes.
Designing in a real-world context is now less complex: workflows across all three infrastructure tools have been optimized and make sharing data and designs across applications, and with colleagues, much easier.
Read on for an overview of some of the most exciting updates:
- Civil 3D
- InfraWorks
- ReCap Pro
- Infrastructure Design Partners Spotlight
- Civil Infrastructure Product Roadmap
Civil 3D 2024
The latest release of Civil 3D offers design efficiencies, optimized workflows, and performance enhancements that help cut overall design time and streamline project delivery.
What’s new:
We are excited to introduce the new subassembly deployment and management functionality in Civil 3D 2024. Civil engineers can deploy both subassemblies and assemblies more efficiently. In Civil 3D 2024, a custom subassembly can be posted to a shared project location. If a new version of the subassembly is posted to this location, corridors that consume the subassembly can be easily updated to use the new version. This new process makes it much easier to ensure all corridors in a project are using the most current content.
Project Explorer is now included in the Civil 3D 2024 installer, providing all Civil 3D subscribers access to this powerful tool at no additional cost. Prior to this it was an extension that came with a cost. In the new version, we enhanced the navigation capabilities between Project Explorer and Civil 3D and provided powerful new tools to make management and reporting of custom property data more efficient.
What’s improved:
There are new enhancements to the Connector for ArcGIS. As a reminder, The Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS maintains a live connection between Civil 3D, InfraWorks, AutoCAD Map3D and ArcGIS. The latest enhancements to the Connector for ArcGIS for Civil 3D enable customers to have greater control over the import and export of ArcGIS data into Civil 3D drawings, so you can design with geographic context and sustainability in mind. Now you can import objects from ArcGIS as AutoCAD points, polylines, or polygons. New configuration settings for importing objects from ArcGIS give you more control of project data including support for different types of geometry. Also, you have better support for the import of arc objects into Civil 3D as arcs, so you can reduce your overall design time and project complexity. Taking the surrounding environment into consideration from the outset like this means the planning process is easier and faster.
Enhancements to creating corridor transitions, and to pressure network layout and editing, improve the design to documentation process when modeling complex features, again saving you time while also improving design quality.
See the Product Help for full release notes of Civil 3D 2024.
InfraWorks 2024
The updates being released soon to InfraWorks bring improvements that help infrastructure design teams manage design and project complexity more seamlessly and effectively.
What’s new:
The Elevation Measurement Tool brings a new Point Elevation option to the Measure menu that enables you to hover over vertices on the clipping plane and see visual cues.
These indicate which vertex elevation is being displayed in the dynamic dimension marker, along with a leader line. It simplifies the extraction of elevation information within the design process, reducing overall design time.
What’s improved:
Streamlined workflows mean you can:
- Import Revit families as parametric content that now includes 2D extruded components, as well as 3D girders.
- Easily bring Revit family components into InfraWorks, update them, and publish them back to Revit as a family for a streamlined workflow. This extends the current Revit family-based components so you can improve design quality.
- Refine Revit category mapping for Inventor components directly in InfraWorks.
See the full Product Help for full release notes of InfraWorks 2024.
ReCap Pro 2024
The ReCap Pro 2024 updates that are coming include a new linear feature extraction workflow and upgrades to existing features, so that engineers and civil designers can design in real-world context more effectively.
What’s new:
The ReCap Viewer Linear Feature Extraction workflow lets you extract geometries from large point cloud data via the ReCap Cloud Viewer. This means you can import only the geometries you’re interested in, cutting the time needed to process the extraction, manage data and share files with other team members.
What’s improved:
Upgrades to Classification Management mean you can now import all scan types from all different types of raw scans. Plus, you can now automatically classify structured and unstructured scans into Ground and Non-Ground points.
See the Product Help for full release notes of ReCap Pro 2024.
Watch the recording of What’s New in Civil 3D, InfraWorks, and ReCap Pro webinar to see workflows in action.
Structural Bridge Design
The release of Structural Bridge Design 2024 brings performance enhancements and new features.
What’s new:
Structural Bridge Design is now updated to the New Zealand Transportation Agency (NZTA) Bridge Manual 3rd Edition. A couple of highlights:
- This integration allows for a structure to have a New Zealand carriageway with New Zealand traffic loading, and the design of the sections and beams completed using the Australian Standards design code specification.
- Evaluation of existing bridges has been added according to recent NZTA Bridge Manual edition which allows customers to leverage the load automation to calculate the optimum highway loading patterns for assessing an existing bridge.
See the release notes for more details on enhancements.
Infrastructure Design Partners Spotlight
Twinmotion for Revit: Real-time Visualization for Infrastructure Projects
Whether you subscribe to the AEC Collection or standalone Revit, use Flex pricing, or have access through an education license, you can now leverage real-time visualization for infrastructure design with Twinmotion for Revit. This allows you to:
- Improve visual design quality by building out the environment with photorealistic materials, lights and objects that create a realistic experience.
- Create your own story with control over time of day, seasons, and weather, then share with project stakeholders to give them a full understanding of the design.
- Get greater insight into complex infrastructure designs to reduce the risk potential.
Find out more about Twinmotion for Revit and see it in action in this video:
The latest release introduces a new interface for users. To learn how to access Twinmotion for Revit, read this companion post from Epic Games.
BIM and GIS: Design with Sustainability in Context
The importance of designing resilient infrastructure with long-term sustainability is critical to customers around the world, so we continue to advance our integration with Esri’s ArcGIS technology.
In addition to the updates for Connector for ArcGIS in Civil 3D (as outlined above), BIM and GIS cloud collaboration also enables real-time decision making for stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle. A recently released eBook shows how different AEC firms are streamlining the design, build and delivery process for infrastructure projects. Download the e-book today.
Civil Infrastructure Public Roadmap
Autodesk is committed to providing transparency into our development pipeline. Today you can vote on ideas, provide feedback, input, and upvote your favorite features. Give us your feedback at our Autodesk Civil Infrastructure Public Roadmap.
To learn more about the commitment to Civil 3D, visit the New Possible and see how your feedback drives Civil 3D forward.
Thanks for diving into our What’s New updates! Make the most of our Infrastructure design products and save when you buy as part of the AEC Collection.
*This post has been updated on April 27, 2023.