Trevor English
Youssef Al Fahham
Everything in the built environment progresses through the planning phase and design phase, before eventually being constructed and operated. In the planning phase, sites are scoped, drainage studies are completed, and hydraulic analyses are run to understand where and when capital improvements are needed. Powerful hydrologic modeling tools like InfoWorks ICM are vital to engineers and city planners when they undertake this planning process.
In the design phase, designers might build up their plans in Civil 3D, from preliminary design to detailed design. But until the design is fully completed, the flood risk on the proposed new infrastructure or the hydrologic impacts of this new infrastructure on surrounding catchments is often assumed or overly simplified – but no longer.
Civil 3D designers can now easily share their designs with hydraulic modelers. You can export a sanitary and storm sewer pipe network into InfoWorks ICM, run simulations on the network model, and make adjustments where needed. These changes in InfoWorks ICM can then be transferred back to the model in Civil 3D, streamlining the planning and design process.
At the core of this integration are improvements to workflow efficiency, especially as it relates to assessing the flood risk of new infrastructure and analyzing the impacts of this infrastructure on the surrounding catchments. Sewer upgrades, flood impact studies, and capital planning processes can now be completed in conjunction with Civil 3D through direct connection to the industry-leading hydraulic modeling application, InfoWorks ICM.
How the integration works
Civil 3D users can export their pipe networks by navigating to the Add-ins tab and selecting the Export option. You’ll then be presented with a screen to make sure all of the parts families inside of Civil 3D are correctly mapped to InfoWorks ICM. After clicking Export, a CSV file will save to your machine, which houses all of the data you’ll need for the import into InfoWorks ICM.
With an InfoWorks ICM network open, you simply choose Import > Import from CSV, where you can select the file you previously outputted from Civil 3D. After clicking import, you’ll see your pipe network load inside of InfoWorks ICM, where you can audit it for any issues.
You are now able to run hydraulic simulations on the pipe network inside of InfoWorks ICM and adjust any variables that might need adjusting, right within your hydraulic modeling solution. Once you have adjusted all necessary parameters and with the model performing as desired, you can simply export the updated network from InfoWorks ICM and import back into Civil 3D.
Another connection in the ecosystem
At Autodesk, we like to talk a lot about building water solutions for the industry, from cloud to sea. Much of our development work is focused on this objective, addressing any gaps in processes, improving efficiency in workflows, and building an ecosystem of products that enables you to take the easiest path through your planning, design, construction, and operation phases.
Are you a Civil 3D and InfoWorks ICM user? You can grab the InfoWorks ICM Import and Export Plug-in for Civil 3D at manage.autodesk.com.
With the newly released InfoWorks ICM and Civil 3D integration, this capability now joins InfoDrainage, Autodesk’s site analysis and design software, in connecting to the leading civil design solution, Civil 3D.
The Civil 3D integration inside of InfoWorks ICM was first rolled out as part of a public beta. If you’d like to be a part of future enhancements and innovations our product team makes, be sure to join our feedback community.
3 ways to explore Civil 3D integrations
- Will you be joining us at AU2023? We’ll be talking about this specific add-in on Wednesday 5 November in the session Hands-on! Part Deux: Project Impacts with InfoWorks ICM and Civil 3D.
- Watch Ryan Brown’s recent Water Drop workflow video, Exchanging Pipe Networks Between Civil 3D and InfoWorks ICM.
- Learn more about the efficiency gains Civil 3D and InfoWorks ICM can bring to your workflows in this Autodesk University class recording from last year: InfoWorks ICM and Civil 3D: A Flood Modelers guide to Project Impacts.