What’s New in Civil Infrastructure Design: Civil 3D, ReCap Pro, and InfraWorks

The latest releases of Civil 3D, Recap and InfraWorks make design projects even easier for civil engineers.

We’ve improved features released earlier this year and added some new ones to make workflows more efficient. Information sharing and collaboration between project team members has never been better. These updates can save time, add efficiencies, and improve performance.

Here’s how:

Civil 3D updates

Recent updates to Civil 3D enhance the latest features and improve BIM & GIS integration functionality to make civil design work more efficient.

Enhanced flexibility for subassembly deployment and management

Building on the subassembly deployment and management feature released earlier this spring, Civil 3D includes new functions for updating and maintaining subassemblies.

Civil engineers can now insert a custom subassembly PKT file directly into the drawing and update the assembly parameters. Once imported, they can view and update the custom subassembly in the prospector tab and add it to other assemblies. This new functionality makes it faster and easier than ever to view, manage, and update subassemblies.

Improved data exchange with BIM & GIS integration

Recent updates to the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS empower users by adding more functionality and control over how GIS data is used.

With Civil 3D 2024.1 and 2024.2, polylines and polygons from ArcGIS can be moved, assigned attributes as well as property set data, and saved back to ArcGIS.Civil engineers can also create new polylines in Civil 3D and save them in ArcGIS. They can quickly and easily apply GIS information like property set data and attributes to the Civil 3D drawing. This saves designers and engineers from having to create GIS information in Civil 3D, making  design projects more efficient.

The enhanced data exchange from Civil 3D to ArcGIS enables GIS and BIM teams to work faster and more effectively by minimizing errors and reducing rework. They can import information from the model to ArcGIS for GIS  users. Everyone can access the latest information in ArcGIS online.

Expanded capabilities for corridor transitions

New features in Civil 3D streamline the design of corridor models. The latest update enables civil engineers to copy and paste transition set information throughout the corridor.

They can select and copy multiple transition sets into the corridor transition window and quickly add them to the model. These new capabilities make applying transition set information in a corridor model faster and more efficient.

Also in the release for Civil 3D 2024.1 and Civil 3D 2024.2:

• Enhancements to pressure network layout and editing workflows
• New capability to connect gravity pipes to structures in other networks
• Newly added Autodesk Assistant

See more details in the release notes here.

Recap Pro updates

The latest updates to Recap Pro help to streamline point classification and improve performance.

Generate desired ground points for any project

ReCap Pro 2024.1 brings intelligent decimation for improved performance and more efficient workflows. Intelligent decimation applies an advanced algorithm to reduce points within an area based on a user-specified percentage. This reduces the overall size of the scan while retaining its integrity. Intelligent decimation makes it easier to work within the point cloud once imported into Civil 3D.

With the latest updates, civil engineers can also extract key points from different source classification types and move them to a target classification. They can export extracted points to Civil 3D and use them for any project, saving time and making workflows more efficient.

Create detailed classifications for visualizations

Building on the new automatic ground classification feature, Recap Pro 2024.1 empowers civil engineers to manually classify points after using the automated feature for a more detailed visualization of the project.

Users can easily select an area of points and change their classification. For example, ground could be further classified as pavement, shoulder, or grass and then exported for use as a surface in Civil 3D. This improves performance and gives designers and engineers a more detailed starting point for design.

Accelerate scan-to-design projects

The latest updates to ReCap allow users to extract geometries of specific point features. Importing large amounts of point cloud data can be cumbersome—now users can quickly select, extract, and import the geometries they need.

Civil engineers can set points for features like signage, trees, and light poles to make them easier to work with in Civil 3D. This new functionality saves time and increases efficiency of scan-to-design projects.

Users can create templates with tags and apply them to feature lines and points. This streamlines the feature extraction workflow by automatically and accurately tagging lines and points for use in Civil 3D.

Reduce design time in your civil structure projects with new updates to InfraWorks 2024.1

Here is a sneak peak of what’s to release in InfraWorks 2024.1 including new capabilities of bored tunnels, new enhancement in the “check for updates” function, and enhanced grading capability offering more control around bridge abutments.

See the latest updates in action during our on-demand webinar, What’s New for Civil Infrastructure. Watch on-demand today.