By Graham Riddleston
Prompted by a recent blog on using the Navisworks Switchback tool with Revit by my Cadline colleague, Liam O’Connor (here), I thought it was worth mentioning that Switchback is also available to Civil 3D users.
Here are a couple of commands used to link Civil 3D and Navisworks.
NWCOUT
This command is run from within Civil 3D and will export the current dwg as an .nwc file ready for opening directly in Navisworks. (For explanation of Navisworks files types see my blog here)
NWLOAD
This command simply opens communications between Civil 3D and Navisworks.
A typical workflow for NWLOAD could be:
- Create a design in Civil 3D which might include pipe networks
- Run the NWLOAD command
- Open the drawing in Navisworks
- Perform a clash analysis of the pipe network in Navisworks
- Use the Clash Detective to zoom to particular clash
- Run the Navisworks Switchback command
- Return to Civil 3D and select Refresh
- The Civil 3D dwg will update and display the same view of the clash as shown in Navisworks.
- The clash than then be resolved using Civil 3D tools.
I will be following up this blog with an instructional video in the very near future.
