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Tutorials CivilCraft

CivilCraft help

Civil & site design. Start at the top if you are new; jump to a walkthrough if you know what you need.

Written for CivilCraft 0.3. The same help is inside the app: press F1. Open CivilCraft

Getting started

  • What's new in 0.3

    CivilCraft 0.3 adds a 3D site view with GLB and OBJ export, coordinate systems, GIS files in and out, terrain from elevation grids and LiDAR, map layers under the plan, and movable panels.

  • Getting started with CivilCraft

    What CivilCraft does, how to open it, and a first ten minutes with the sample site from points to contours, a road and a saved project.

  • The screen, part by part

    A tour of every bar and panel in CivilCraft by its on-screen name, from the toolbar to the status bar.

  • Files you can open, save and export

    Point files, LandXML and CivilCraft projects in; projects, LandXML, DXF and PDF out; what each keeps, where the files go, and what changes offline.

Walkthroughs

  • Import survey points

    Open a CSV or text point file, check the column order in the Import points dialog, fix rows that cannot be read, and sort the points into groups.

  • Elevation grids and LiDAR

    Build the existing ground from a DEM (GeoTIFF or ASCII grid) or LiDAR points (LAS, LAZ) — pick the area, thin the data, choose classes and check the elevation units — and hand a surface back as a GeoTIFF elevation grid.

  • Select, copy and paste survey points

    Select survey points by click, Shift and a box, or all at once; copy, cut, paste, paste in place, duplicate and delete them with new point numbers that never clash; paste point rows to and from a spreadsheet.

  • Build and refine the surface

    How CivilCraft triangulates the existing ground, and how to shape it with breakline groups, drawn breaklines, an outer boundary and the longest outside edge.

  • Read contours, elevations and slopes

    Set the contour interval and major contours, show elevation bands, slope arrows and triangles, and read ground elevations under the pointer.

  • Lay out a horizontal alignment

    Draw an alignment by its PIs, set curve radii and the start station, move PIs, and read the curve data and station and offset.

  • Design a vertical profile

    Open the profile view, start a design profile from the ground, add and drag PVIs, set vertical curve lengths, and read grades, K values and high and low points.

  • Sweep a road corridor

    Turn on a corridor for an alignment, set lane, shoulder and side slope values, and read the sections, daylight lines and earthwork it produces.

  • Grade a building pad

    Draw a flat pad, set its elevation and cut and fill slopes, and let CivilCraft daylight it to the existing ground and add it to the proposed surface.

  • Earthwork volumes

    Read cut, fill and net volumes between the existing ground and the proposed surface, per pad and corridor and in total, and understand the grid method behind them.

  • Lay out a gravity pipe network

    Draw storm or sanitary pipe runs structure by structure, set your slope, cover and drop rules, let CivilCraft set inverts, and fix the problems it lists.

  • Exchange LandXML

    Open LandXML from other civil software as a new project, export points, surfaces, alignments, profiles and the pipe network as LandXML 1.2, and know what does not make the trip.

  • Export the plan to DXF

    Write the plan linework as an R12 DXF on named layers, with contours at their elevations and breaklines in 3D, for any CAD program.

  • Plot the plan to PDF

    Plot everything or the current view to a vector PDF on a standard sheet at an engineering or metric scale, in layer colors or black.

  • View the site in 3D

    Open the 3D view, orbit, pan and zoom, set the vertical exaggeration and colouring, choose what shows, and click pipes, structures and points to select them.

  • Export the site in 3D

    Save what the 3D view shows as a GLB or OBJ file for other 3D programs, in meters with Y up, around a local origin that the file records.

  • Set the project's coordinate system

    Say which coordinate system the survey is in, so CivilCraft shows latitude and longitude, places GIS files and map layers, and writes .prj files. Pick by code, by name, by the coordinates themselves or from a .prj file.

  • Ground and local coordinates

    Work in ground (surface) coordinates scaled from the grid by a combined scale factor you type or compute at a point, or in an assumed site grid tied to the system by two control points.

  • Show map layers under the plan

    Put a georeferenced picture, map tiles, a WMS or WMTS server or a map service under the plan as site context, with the internet setting, opacity, order and attribution.

  • Import GIS data

    Bring shapefiles, GeoJSON and GeoPackages into a project as GIS layers, place them through the right coordinate system, look at their attributes, and use them for the surface.

  • Export as-built data for GIS

    Hand survey points, contours, alignments, pads, pipes and structures to a city or county GIS department as shapefiles, GeoPackage or GeoJSON, in grid coordinates of the project's coordinate system.

Coming from other software

Reference

  • Keys and mouse

    Every keyboard shortcut and mouse, trackpad and touch action in CivilCraft, grouped, with the browser and platform differences.

  • Toolbar reference

    Every toolbar button in CivilCraft, what it does, its key, and when it is grayed out or refuses.

  • CivilCraft settings

    Choose the column order for copied and pasted point rows and for guessing a file's columns, how pasted points are numbered, what point labels show, the corner indicator, the 3D vertical exaggeration, how latitude and longitude show, and whether map layers come from the internet.

  • Point file formats

    The column orders CivilCraft reads, how it finds the separator and the header row, which header names it recognizes, and how rows are checked.

  • Units, stations and number formats

    Feet and metre projects, how stations, grades, side slopes, bearings, areas, volumes and pipe sizes are written and typed, and what changing units does.

  • LandXML: what is read and written

    The LandXML 1.2 elements and attributes CivilCraft reads and writes, element by element, and everything it skips.

  • Plan layers

    The fixed layer names, colors and line weights CivilCraft uses on screen, in DXF and in PDF, and which display setting controls each.

  • Starting values and placeholders

    Every value CivilCraft starts with, for new projects, display, alignments, pads, corridors, pipe networks, volumes and plots, and which ones are placeholders to replace.

Troubleshooting and limits

  • Troubleshooting

    Symptoms, causes and fixes for the problems people meet in CivilCraft, with the exact messages the app shows.

  • Not built yet

    What this build of CivilCraft does not do yet, and what to do instead today.

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