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| The Startup tab provides a quick way to get your design going |
- Learn
- The Learn option will take you to a dashboard containing videos that will familiarize you with new features and “Getting Started” basics. There will also be links to Learning Tips and Online Resources. To go back to the startup dashboard, click the Create option on the right.
- Get Started
- The Get Started section allows you to start a new drawing from a template that can be selected from the drop-down list or gives you the opportunity to open an existing file from a location, open a sheet set, find more industry-standard templates on the online repository, or open sample drawings that are provided through the software’s installation.
- Recent Documents
- Recent Documents is pretty straightforward; it allows you to select and open a drawing from a list of most recently worked-on documents.
- Connect
- The Connect section deals with the Autodesk online experience for AutoCAD-based products. While using the software, you can sign in with your Autodesk account to take advantage of the cloud-enabled features within AutoCAD products. This section also provides a means to deliver software feedback to the development team.
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| The tabbed file option allows easy switching between multiple open files and the Model and Layout tabs for the opened files |
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| The workspace selection lets you organize the tools of the interface to suit your needs |
Civil 3D uses a ribbon-based interface consisting of tabs and panels that organize the civil design tools based on their use in workflows. If you’re used to the menu-based interface of older versions of AutoCAD verticals, you can switch to it by changing the AutoCAD MENUBAR variable from the default 0 to 1. However, the use of that menu is discouraged since ribbon management of the tools is now standard in the Civil 3D environment and the menu layout may not include all the latest tools. Therefore, in this discuss, we will talk about the ribbon-based interface.
On the ribbon, each of the tabs and panels is associated with one or more of the major tasks in the design process. When working on the Civil 3D 2016 ribbon, the top level in the organizational chart is represented by the tabs. The default tab, which you will see upon opening any drawing and where you will spend the majority of your time, is the Home tab.
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| The Home tab of the ribbon and the default configuration of the ribbon for drawings with no coordinate systems assigned (top) and with them assigned (bottom) |
- Home Tab
- Contains the tools you use most often in Civil 3D, including the Civil 3D object-creation tools
- Insert Tab
- Provides the tools for both import and insertion of data into the current drawing. Here you will find the tools to link to outside databases, manage external references, and even manage point clouds, among others.
- Annotate Tab
- Provides the tools to annotate both AutoCAD and Civil 3D objects within the drawing. Also in this area, the drawing-specific settings for the core AutoCAD annotative tools can be managed along with the annotative scales.
- Modify Tab
- Provides the modification and editing tools for both AutoCAD and Civil 3D objects; in addition, provides access to opening the contextual ribbon tabs for Civil 3D objects.
- Analyze Tab
- Provides the tools for performing various analyses and inquiries on the existing object data. Here you will find the tools to perform, for example, hydraulic area analysis, road design analysis, surface volumes, and estimation of quantities by means of quantity takeoffs. Also in this area is the startup for various side packages that come with Civil 3D such as the Hydraflow tools.
- View Tab
- Provides the tools that allow you to change the way things are displayed on the screen. Here you can define multiple viewports and customize the way objects are displayed, for example.
- Manage Tab
- Provides the tools for referencing data across multiple drawings via data shortcuts. Also included in this area you will find the tools to define macros, customize the user interface file, load custom runtime files, and enforce CAD standards as well as the means to import Civil 3D styles and even purge unneeded styles from the current drawing. New in 2016 will be the data shortcut manager found in this tab.
- Output Tab
- Provides for the production of plan sets, management of plotting, and export of data from Civil 3D to other Autodesk-based and third-party software platforms.
- Survey Tab
- Provides the tools to manage Civil 3D survey databases.
- Autodesk 360 Tab
- Provides access to the cloud services managed by the Autodesk 360 platform.
- Help Tab
- Provides access to help tools using multiple resources.
- Express Tools Tab
- Provides access to lots of useful AutoCAD sets of tools that have been part of the AutoCAD platform for many years.
- BIM 360 Tab
- Provides access project collaboration tools in the BIM 360 Glue cloud.
- Performance Tab
- Provides tools for sending performance-based reports to the AutoCAD engineering team that include detailed information about what is occurring when problems are encountered.
- Geolocation Tab
- Provides access to the geolocation tools that were introduced in the 2014 release of the software. This is a contextual tab that is added to the list of tabs whenever a coordinate system is assigned to the drawing file.
While these are the default tabs found in Civil 3D, their number and description can vary based on the installed add-ons and/or the user interface customization.
Please note that you can enlarge the screen area by setting the ribbon to one of its minimization states. You can access these states from the drop-down options menu located at the top-right end of the ribbon tabs, as indicated by the following figure.
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| Overview of a Civil 3D environment. Toolspace is docked to the left, and the Tool Palettes panel floats over the drawing window. The ribbon is at the top of the workspace with the Quick Access toolbar above it |
On a side note, the Quick Access toolbar highlighted in figure above gives you access to often-used tools. By default, it includes the QNew command, which creates new drawings from the default template set in Options; it also includes the Open, QSave, Print, Undo, and Redo commands. On the Quick Access toolbar, you’ll also find the workspaces drop-down menu. You can add commands to this menu by clicking the drop-down to the right of the toolbar and selecting the desired command. You can also right-click an icon on the ribbon and choose Add To Quick Access Toolbar.
The ribbon is organized by tabs. Each tab is organized by panels delineated by vertical lines to the right and the left and the panel name in the bottom area. The Palettes panel on the Hometab is where you can toggle on or off different palettes. A palette is active or visible when its corresponding icon is highlighted in blue. Some of these icons enable the display of Toolspace palette tabs, while others enable the display of specific palettes.
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| Palettes panel of the Home tab. The icons are blue when the palettes are active |
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| Some panels have additional tools that can be displayed by expanding the panel |