Subassembly Composer Technology Preview for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Now Available

Senior Principal Developer, Tom Fukushima, clued me in on our latest technology preview.

AutoCAD Civil 3D provides a powerful model-based representation of corridors. An issue with building these corridors is getting exactly the right subassembly. Your inventory of subassemblies may have issues such as a missing code; a dimension is slightly different from the local regulations; or there just may not be a suitable subassembly to start with. Bummer.

As such you do not look forward to writing a subassembly using VB.NET because it takes time to write it, test it, and sometimes there's that little error in the .atc file that causes the most problems.

Autodesk Subassembly Composer Technology Preview for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 can be used to get you the subassembly that meets your needs.

Download Autodesk Subassembly Composer Technology Preview for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 via Autodesk Labs

For example, let’s say you need a curb subassembly that is angled. Simply use the drag-and-drop interface to create and position your five points and links. Then add codes, a subassembly name and then save it. Import the created .pkt file into Civil 3D, and you’re ready to create your corridor. What could have taken hours or days now takes minutes. Not a bummer.

The Labs site has some YouTube videos to help you get started. For this without YouTube access, you can download the videos from my Buzzsaw site using Internet Explorer or Firefox. (Sorry but Autodesk Buzzsaw does not support Chrome at this time.)

Video	YouTube	non-YouTube
	Introduction	Subassembly Composer Introduction.mp4
	Navigating in Subassembly Composer	Navigating in Subassembly Composer.mp4
	Using Conditionals in Subassembly Composer	Using Conditionals in Subassembly Composer.mp4
	Edit a Retaining Wall	Edit a Retaining Wall.mp4
	Working with the Flowchart	SubAssemblyComposer/Working with the Flowchart.mp4
	Creating a Simple Curb	Creating a Simple Curb.mp4

Thanks Tom. Paving the road to easily creating a civilized world is alive in the lab.