Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Work with the program rather than against it

One of the recurring themes in my training classes and implementations is how the software works. For obvious reasons I won't be reverse engineering Civil 3D to better explain how it works. However, the one thing I will say is that if you figure out how the software (and in turn the programmer) wants you to work you will have a much easier time transitioning from LDD to Civil 3D.

If you are designing something and are constantly crashing or getting bogus information try it a different way or in a different order. Remember there is more than 1 way to do any certain task within Civil 3D. There other important aspect to remember is the correct order of operations. We all remember OoO from Elementary school right? The arithmetic operations are: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Within Civil 3D there are very similar orders, however they are not as set in stone. There will eventually be posted here a workable order of operations that will keep things stable and ready to rock.

Until then, keep on keeping on.

Civil AE Position thoughts

Well, I have been a Civil AE for CADapult, LTD here in Newark, DE for the passed 6 weeks. While the workload is different than what a typical Cad monkey is used to, there is a LOT of work to be done. Scheduling training, doing workflow assessments, dealing with peoples problems over the phone etc ... these all pose challenges that I never really thought about before.

I know that my previous trainer/friend Dana had all of the responsibilities I just never really thought about them. Having to juggle 20 clients at any given time can be stressful. However, being able to set your own hours, make your own workload and get paid to learn as much as possible really has it's benefits. Life is good so far here and as I get more settled in to my role here as Lead Civil Applications Engineer I will be posting more helpful tips and tricks.

That is all for now.