AIM at Perfection: Create Conceptual Designs Faster...

AIM at Perfection: Create Conceptual Designs Faster

with Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012 Scott Kent P.E. – Autodesk, Inc

CI4018 AIM at Perfection is a beginner level class designed to educate Infrastructure Project Teams, Land

Planning Professionals, and Civil Engineers on the basics of Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012 (AIM). This class will discuss many of the types of GIS data widely available, and how they can be used in AIM to create realistic conceptual designs for stakeholders to explore tomorrow's infrastructure today. The class will also show how to create avi files that will fly through the areas of interest to help visualize the designs. For GIS or Infrastructure Design professionals, AIM will quickly become your tool of choice for infrastructure conceptual design.

Learning Objectives At the end of this class, you will:

Understand what Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) is and who can benefit from it

Understand the types of GIS data available, and how AIM uses them to accurately visualize conceptual designs

Be able to use AIM to create conceptual designs for your clients/project stakeholders

Be able to show multiple design concepts within a single City Model

Understand how to migrate data from your Civil 3D model to AIM

Be able to create a video of your City Model that can show exactly what you wish to highlight

About the Speaker

Mr. Kent is an Autodesk employee and is a licensed Professional Engineer in New Hampshire and Florida. With over 15 years of industry experience, he has designed subdivisions, roadways, highways, drainage systems, pressure sewer, and site plans for both the private and municipal sectors. At Autodesk, Scott has been involved with AutoCAD® Civil 3D® since it was first conceived, and over the years he has worked on Pipes, Grading, Profiles, Profile Views, H&H, and QTO. [email protected]

AIM at Perfection: Create Conceptual Designs Faster with Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012

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Table of Contents Learning Objectives .................................................................................................................... 1

About the Speaker ...................................................................................................................... 1

What is Autodesk® Infrastructure Modeler, and Who is it For? .................................................. 3

What is GIS? ............................................................................................................................... 3

What Types of GIS Data is Available, and How does AIM use Them?.................................. 4

The User Interface....................................................................................................................... 5

Data Source Explorer .............................................................................................................. 6

Properties Palette .................................................................................................................... 7

Model Explorer......................................................................................................................... 8

Proposals Palette .................................................................................................................... 9

Themes Palette...................................................................................................................... 10

Style Palette ........................................................................................................................... 11

Style Rules Palette ................................................................................................................ 12

Visual Effects Palette............................................................................................................. 13

Tool Strip................................................................................................................................ 14

City Model Creation ................................................................................................................... 14

Create An Infrastructure Model ............................................................................................. 14

Evaluate Multiple Conceptual Designs ................................................................................. 17

Communicate Visually Rich Proposals to Stakeholders ....................................................... 21

Data Migration between AutoCAD Civil 3D and Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler .................. 21

Using the AOI Generator from Land‟s End ............................................................................... 23

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 26


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What is Autodesk® Infrastructure Modeler, and Who is it For? Autodesk® Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) conceptual design software helps project engineers and

planning professionals to easily create, evaluate, and communicate convincing infrastructure

project proposals for faster stakeholder buy-in and more confident decision making.

Project engineers working for E&C firms who need to rapidly create and explore

infrastructure project proposals to win work and then communicate intent to the

design team and project stakeholders

Planners in E&C firms, cities, campuses, or utilities who need to present

scenarios and alternatives for proposed infrastructure projects to stakeholders in

order to gain support and approval.

In a nutshell, AIM allows us to show „what could be‟.

Now that we know the what and who of AIM, let us take a look at the how. To get going with

AIM, it helps to understand one basic tenet: AIM is dependent on the data we put into it. In AIM,

we build city models. Those city models are created, in part with GIS data that we import.

Before we discuss the different types of GIS data that are available, and what we can do with

them, let‟s take a step back and see exactly what is meant by „GIS data‟.

What is GIS? “GIS is an integrated system of computer hardware, software, and trained personnel linking

topographic, demographic, utility, facility, image and other resource data that is geographically

referenced.” -NASA

From this excellent and concise definition, we can see that the user (you) and AIM are integral

parts of the GIS concept. Now we will turn our attention to discover the different types of GIS

data are out there, and what AIM can do with them.


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What Types of GIS Data is Available, and How does AIM use Them?

Data Type What Produces it? What Can it Show?

dwg AutoCAD Building Boundaries, Water Bodies,

Fencing/Walls, Road Centerlines,

Parcels

imx AutoCAD Civil 3D Surfaces, Corridors

LandXML Currently over 70 software packages

are registered with www.landxml.org

Corridors, Parcels, Surfaces, Pipes,

Structures

sdf Multiple Products Roads, Water Bodies, Parcels, Land

Use

shp Multiple Products Buildings, Land Use, Parcels, Roads,

Sewer Networks, Trees, Water Bodies,

Terrain Contours

3D Model

Files

3ds Autodesk 3DS Max Cars, Signage, Trees, Urban Features

fbx Autodesk Products:

3DS Max, Maya, Motion Builder,

Mudbox, Softimage

Cars, Signage, Trees, Urban Features

Raster

Files

dem Multiple Products Terrain Contour

grd Multiple Products Terrain Contour

hgt Multiple Products Terrain Texture

img Multiple Products Terrain Texture

jpeg Multiple Products Terrain Texture


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Data Type What Produces it? What Can it Show?

png Multiple Products Terrain Texture

sid Multiple Products Terrain Texture

tif Multiple Products Terrain Contours, Terrain Texture

Let‟s look at the more common data types:

Data Type What Can It Show?

shp files Buildings, Roads, Vegetation,

Water Bodies

Raster

Images:

jpeg, png sid, tif

Terrain Contour, Terrain Texture,

Aerial Images

dwg files Building Boundaries, Water

Bodies, Fencing/Walls, Road

Centerlines, Parcels

sdf files Roads, Water Bodies, Parcels,

Land Use

The User Interface Before we start building a City Model, it would be helpful to take a look at the user interface (UI)

to understand how the software is designed and what information about the City Model is

available via the UI.


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Data Source Explorer

The Data Source Explorer is a Palette that organizes all the data that we have imported into our

City Model. From here, the sources can be configured, refreshed, added, and deleted. The

way the data sources are grouped can be changed, and we can also change exactly which data

sources are shown.

Data Source Explorer

Figure 1


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Properties Palette

The Properties Palette is a place where we can see the properties of the selected feature. With

the Palette displayed, when we select a feature in the model, the Palette is populated with the

properties of that feature. Additionally, editable properties can be changed here.

Properties Palette Figure 2


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Model Explorer

The Model Explorer is a Palette that allows us to control the visibility and interaction options of

our City Model by feature type. We can lock and unlock „layers‟, highlight similar features, and

filter features. Another operation that can be done here is to control the level of detail.

Model Explorer Figure 3


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Proposals Palette

The Proposals Palette is where all your „Proposals‟ are shown. Proposals provide a way to

create multiple design alternatives within a single City Model. For instance, you may have

„Proposal A‟ that calls for an urgent care center located on the south side of the property with a

parking garage just to the north of it, being accessed via a road running east to west.

Furthermore, you may have „Proposal B‟ that instead has a medical office building on the

property‟s north side, and to the south is a park with a pond, and a road running north and

south. With the Proposals Palette, you can quickly and easily switch between these 2 with no

need to close the City Model or create a second model.

Proposals Palette Figure 4


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Themes Palette

The Themes Palette is where we can define and control „Themes‟. Themes allow us to show,

via highlighting, similar features that meet criteria we set. One example is to show all buildings

over 100 feet in height.

Themes Palette Figure 5


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Style Palette

The Style Palette is a place to organize and present all the Styles defined in our City Model.

Styles tell the different features how they should look. If the feature is a building, the style will

represent the building as brick, or as metal and glass, for example. For a road, the style will

determine whether that road will be a boulevard with a grass median, or a cobblestone single

land road with a grass shoulder, for example. Via the Style Palette, we can also create our own

custom styles.

Style Palette Figure 6


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Style Rules Palette

Similar to the Style Palette, we have a Style Rules Palette. Style Rules tell features which style

they should be using, based on criteria we set. An example is “all buildings under 20 feet in

height shall use the „Mill‟ building style”.

Style Rules Palette Figure 7


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Visual Effects Palette

The Visual Effects Palette lets us make changes to the way the City Model is shown visually.

Some examples are rendering options like ambient occlusion and antialiasing, and also color

effects like brightness and contrast.

Visual Effects Palette Figure 8


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Tool Strip

The Tool Strip allows us to select features, create/edit features, „look at‟ features, and display

the ShowMotion panel.

Tool Strip Figure 9

City Model Creation With an understanding of the basic user interface of AIM, we can now look at a common

workflow for creating rich models that will help you convey your ideas to the project

stakeholders. The process can be simplified into three steps:

Create An Infrastructure Model

Creating the infrastructure model requires us to know a few things beforehand: the area of

interest (AOI) and the coordinate system. The AOI is pretty easy – that‟s where our proposed or

conceptual project is located. The coordinate system can be found rather easily as well, and is

very frequently specified along with the GIS data we will be using.

The infrastructure model creation is accomplished via File -> New:

Create an Infrastructure

Model

Evaluate Multiple

Conceptual Designs

Communicate Visually Rich Proposals to Stakeholders


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New Model Creation Dialog Figure 10

Within this dialog, we specify a name, the schema template file, and the coordinate system.

Optionally, we can specify a description, and also the city extent definition – which can be

entered as coordinates, or loaded from a file.

At Land‟s End AOI Generator

A good method for creating a dataset for practicing in can be found here:

http://atlandsend.typepad.com/files/at_lands_end_aoi_generator-4.html

The tool makes use of Google Maps, and allows you to zoom into your general area and

then pick a specific AOI. The tool will also generate terrain and world files for using

during your City Model creation. For more details, see page 24.

With the basic city model created, we now turn our attention to the import of data that will

populate our city model with „existing conditions‟. From the „Data Sources‟ Palette, we select

the „Import‟ list button which expands:



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File Import Menu Button Figure 11

After choosing the file we want to import, we next go to the file in the „Data Sources‟ Palette and

configure it:

Data Source Configuration Dialog Figure 12

Note in the above screen shot, the data type is Ground Imagery, and it is a raster source. It is

an aerial image of the property. The same procedure is followed to import such things as terrain

surfaces, water bodies, roads, buildings, coverage areas, etc.


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Import Terrain Information

The next logical step is to import a terrain surface for our AOI. There are many file types that

will do, some of which are sid, tif, and dem. These file types are „smart‟ – they are geo-

referenced, which means they know where they are in the world. The terrain surface will show

relief – so when viewed in perspective, it will show the highs and lows of the surface.

Populate the City Model with Known Entities

Now that we have our terrain surface it is time to bring it to life with features that depict the

„existing conditions‟. This can be done with various file types like shp, sdf, dwg, and fbx.

Features that can be shown with these types of files include bridges, buildings, land use,

parcels, railways, roads, and water bodies. Often, this type of information is available from City

planning departments, or GIS departments. There are also thousands of sources on the Web.

Evaluate Multiple Conceptual Designs

Now is the time to start getting creative and showing what „could be‟. With our existing

conditions accurately represented we now have our design points and can start brainstorming

and showing some possibilities. This can be done by either importing data or by drawing

manually. An example of importing would be if we have some linear representations drawn in

AutoCAD that show things like building footprints, water bodies, roadway centerlines, etc. That

.dwg file could be imported into AIM and configured to show exactly what we want it to show.

Manual creation is the second option, and it offers thousands of possibilities. In AIM, the

„entities‟ we can show are categorized into 8 groups:

Coverage Areas

o Parking Lots, Parcels, Construction Zones, Landscaping Areas, Bike Paths, etc.

Railways

Roads

Water Areas

o Lakes, Streams, Oceans, Rivers, etc.

City Furniture

o Traffic & Barriers, Vegetation, Vehicles, Plane and Ships, Construction

Equipment, People, etc.

Structures

o Barriers and Buildings

Utilities

o Pipelines

Vegetation

o Trees


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Manual Building Creation

When we don‟t have data files to import to show features (which is common when creating

proposed features), we draw them manually. We will start with a building, and finish with a

road.

1. From the Tool Strip, select the „Create/Edit Features‟ button, which will invoke the Draw

Strip:

2. From the Draw Strip, our choices are (moving left to right) Edit Existing Features, Roads,

Railways, Tree Groups, Water Areas, Buildings, Coverage Areas, and City Furniture.

For this simple example, we will be creating a building, so we select the „Create

Buildings‟ button.

3. To create our building, we will be picking corners of a building shown on our aerial

image. On the last point, we want to pick, complete the operation by doing a double-

click:


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Here is our building:

4. At this point, if the building isn‟t exactly as we want it shown, we can toggle ON the

Properties Palette and change the style, roof height, roof slope, roof material, etc.

Manual Road Creation

1. From the Tool Strip, select the „Create/Edit Features‟ button, which will invoke the Draw

Strip:

2. From the Draw Strip, we select the „Create Roads‟ button.

3. To create our road, we will be picking the centerline vertex locations. On the last point,

we want to pick, complete the operation by doing a double-click:


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Here is our Road:


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Communicate Visually Rich Proposals to Stakeholders

With our city model complete with existing conditions and some design concepts, we may want

to share our ideas with others. The audience could range from the other people on the design

team, to the entire group of project stakeholders, to City Council members and the voting public.

In any case, we want to show our ideas in the best light. For that, we have ShowMotion.

ShowMotion gives us the ability to define sequences of shots which are stepped through. We

can control the shot details, such as transition speed, and waiting time, as well as a host of

other options that combine to create a visually compelling story of our conceptual design ideas.

ShowMotion Figure 13

The ShowMotion sequences can then be exported to different video formats for sharing.

Data Migration between AutoCAD Civil 3D and Autodesk Infrastructure

Modeler With the installation of AIM comes a „plug-in‟ for installing on AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012. The plug

in lets us export certain Civil 3D data in the .imx file format. This file can then be imported into

the city model in AIM to show Surfaces, Corridors, and Pipe Networks.

When we have a drawing in Civil 3D whose coordinate system matches our AIM City Model, we

can draw things in Civil 3D, like a roadway corridor in the following image:


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A Roadway Corridor in Civil 3D Figure 14

By running the command „IMX_EXPORT‟ within Civil 3D, we can export an .imx file that we can

them import into AIM:

The Corridor Imported into AIM Figure 15


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Using the AOI Generator from Land’s End One way to get going quickly and easily using AIM, you can create a terrain file and get a

reasonable aerial image using the AOI Generator from the blog At Land‟s End. To use it, simply

zoom into your AOI:

At Land’s End AOI Generator Figure 16

From here, select a rectangle for the AOI and click the 2 buttons as shown below:



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Creation of Terrain & Worldfile Files in the AOI Generator Figure 17

These 2 text fields can be copied/pasted into your favorite text editor and saved with the proper

file extension. The only thing left is to create a screen capture and save it. Then it is a matter of

creating the City Model and using your freshly created data. All the details are on the website,

and the process is captured below:


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Specifying City Extent with a Terrain File Figure 18


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After following the steps here and on the At Land‟s End site, you will have a great dataset so

you can start creating concepts.

Conclusion Whether you are a small engineering shop trying to land your next client, or leading a massive,

multi-disciplined municipal design project, chances are good that you need a way to utilize your

existing project and GIS data to combine with your bright ideas for helping shape a better world.

If you are either one, or somewhere in between, Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler is the tool you

should standardize on to quickly and easily create conceptual designs in a way that will benefit

all project stakeholders.

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