Civil engineering career thread

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Lenardo

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Finally heard from the testing people, said 8-10 weeks to find out the results so 8 weeks from when i took the test will be dec 22.

It is almost impossible to cheat on the test. it was an open book test-how can you cheat on an open book-i could bring anything in as long as it was bound.

i literally had several pages of notes from my co worker from when HE took the test, and in those notes were answers for -several- of the questions i had for the test(not in the form of question xxx answer is this, it was make sure you know that the mass zoning code was passed in 1954, know that the planning board regulation adoption the town/city has to notify these entities. etc.

the federal - CLOSED book test - 6hr 100 questions(that took me 3hr) they literally checked my pants pockets, glasses etc to make sure i was not bringing in ANYTHING - besides my calculator and the key to the locker where i locked up my stuff-before they would allow me into the testing area- that test - i found the results in 4 business days(test was given in the Pearson testing facility.
 
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Lenardo

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Still nothing from the state.
week 9 and counting

just had this one that is funny but stupid job today

mortage company is requiring a elevation certificate to make sure the building is not in a flood hazard zone...so we look at our job and adjust the datum first to city of boston base, then to navd88 datum.. (-6.46') ie elevation 0.00 navd88 is elevation 6.46 city of boston. site plan we did existing conditions on, we had not adjusted to any datum- just a random 100 base...so i grab the research from BWSC (which gives elevations -boston base- for mh/inverts etc...the site is...not even CLOSE to being in a flood hazard zone(invert on an adjacent mh was 50.33 and the rim was 63.60). so i goto fema's website, look up the firm panel...and the entire panel is...zone x (not in a flood hazard zone) using their interactive website i measured- roughly- to the nearest flood hazard zone in any direction....9 thousand feet ...and the zone is an AE17 zone.

waste of my 30 minutes doing the elevation certificate frankly.
 
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Lenardo

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failed the test,, ,missed by " " this much (missed by 2 questions.. one of which i know the answer for now)
take the test again april 13th, then will have the annoying 10 week wait.

Ok my firm has been using land development desktop companion (came with civil 3d 2006) since 06, we are thinking about upgrading, yet, i LIKE how i have my cad setup. i know all the commands and where all the shit is i want to use- hell we are still finding new shit the software can do(ie we didn't know it could do that/just learned how to do it)...

should we just go civil 3d or look at carlson or microsurvey as an alternative.

i'm downloading the trial of civil3d currently-just to see if i can understand all the new fangled shit the past 11 years worth of changes has tossed in there.
 
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Lenardo

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Installing civil 3d fucked my activation to land desktop. Now I have to reactivate it by calling autodesk.

Also wtf is with all the default layers.

My work drawings typically have No more than 30 layers-unless I got something from an architect, and civil 3d has 197 layers BY DEFAULT!!!

I still have not figured out how to do lines by bearing/ distance I cannot find the line toolbsr/tab/whatever.
 
vGrade

vGrade

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Wow I just stopped by this thread to see wtf people could possibly be talking about. Thats some boring ass shit right there.
 
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Lenardo

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Yup.

Had a fun project. Ended up completely different than I thought it would go.

2 parcels of land in boston 3000sf.each From back of sidewalk to adjacent building is 63'

Deed just says see assessors. So I had client do a title search... ends up Deed ~40 years ago says lot is 42x73. And tracking farthrr back references a plan from 1865 where they bought lot 1 and part of lot 3 to total 73'. Plan
Says lot 1 is 42x65...but from back sidewalk is 63' . Ended up going back to the deed from 1865 which says that 10' of the 65 is for a perm easement for a sidewalk.......so my client ended up owning the sidewalk strip along cedar st at 5 cedar and 1 juniper. I thought they'd end up at 63'
 
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Lenardo

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figured out where the fucking line by bearing command was...who the fuck thought making a symbol is easier than a drop down menu...jesus i want to take the person in charge of the gui for cad and bitch slap them...

also hate how the new cad does "projects" (ie it doesn't-or in the hr or so i have spent looking, i have not found it) it just had drawings, for my work, each job is a project, thus for joe smith at 415 east first street South boston ma- his project is #3560 in land dev desktop, i click new, comes up with a project window, wanting the name of the project and the name of the drawing i click new project, name it (in the example above, it would be 3560-Smith-413 E 1st-South Boston and the drawing name would be 415 E 1st. simple, efficient. and easy to find my files from any computer in the office.
 
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Lenardo

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heh never have used sheet sets... generally we have 1-5 plans per project once we had 27 but that was a giant subdivision...and i did it all in one project and each plan had a drawing (i had not learned paper space at that time- this was ~15 years ago or so) i had a master drawing that all changes were made in and all the other plans had that as an dynamic xref...

played with civil 3d... i hate it already... i am USED to my software running "LIKE THIS" and civil 3d doesn't run "like this" at ALL...still have not figured out how to label a simple line by bearing and distance where i click label line by bearing distance, i click the line and bam it's labeled correctly..

Apparently there are a lot of....Settings i need to tweak in order to get it running with similar settings as Land dev desktop..

like line by bearing,,,was not inputting the bearing in the correct format (by default) the bearings input the way we normally input them were input as Decimal angles not DMS (45.3000 for me is 45d30min(45 and a half degrees) and cad was reading as 45.3000 degrees)
 
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Picasso3

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There are a lot of settings. Maybe your needs aren't such that you need to upgrade but if you are working with designers doing full site development it pays off. I could manage 30 page site development construction plans with storm (and retention) , sanitary, road, and retaining wall designs, all dynamic and tied into grading with details callouts etc referencing sheet set manager field data.

I've seen entire cad teams shit the bed when Jimmy the LA wants to add in a sheet and fuck their callouts up at 90% plans, and rightfully so, the integrity of the plans goes further to shit with each alteration past a certain complexity if you're not using dynamic drawings.
 
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Lenardo

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Occasionally, mostly just us getting the structurals for us to layout the column's bolts/pockets

we occasionally do....do structural/framing plans. 20 or so a year nothing major though.

we do ~125-200 projects a year in the city of boston for water/sewer/drainage/fire design for clients redoing older houses/rebuilding on lot, or putting a house on an empty lot.

that is our money maker @about 3200 per.

then we do layout for the above clients that are building additions or tearing down/building new building etc.
 
Jackie Treehorn

Jackie Treehorn

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My company's surveying wing uses Microstation. It's complete shit. Thankfully now that I'm in land rights and don't do drafting anymore (aside from occasionally drafting a deed or exhibits) I don't have to deal with it.

I could never get line labeling working on it for a god damn. I just got into the habit of typing text, then setting it to the line's angle. Ridiculous. Inputting bearings and distances was also retarded and slow.

Re: Civil 3D...everyone I know who uses it hates it at first but says they like after they get used to it.

For what it's worth I can draft super fast on Land Desktop 2009 and it's all I ever needed. Still keep it on a laptop and desktop for personal use.
 
James

James

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Anyone use any kind of takeoff software? There's about a gajillion of them when I google it, but I don't know if any are worth half a shit.
 
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Lenardo

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no idea sorry.

jackie, we use autodesks land development desktop 2006 companion to civil 3dpro for our cad. fucking windows 10 updates been fubaring up our activations occasionally though
 
Jackie Treehorn

Jackie Treehorn

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Lenardo said:
no idea sorry.

jackie, we use autodesks land development desktop 2006 companion to civil 3dpro for our cad. fucking windows 10 updates been fubaring up our activations occasionally though
Click to expand...

Yes, I have some family who use 2009 on Windows 10 and they said it keeps fucking up too with activation.
 
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