What’s New in Grading Optimization 2022

Civil 3D 2022 was released in early June, 2021. There is always a small group of users who adopt new releases right away, while a large number wait to see how the upgrade fares among the early adopters. Then there is a small number who wait a long while before adopting a new release. It’s the same for the civil discipline as every other sector in the construction industry.

Firstly, why change from one version to another? In his June webinar, Kenneth Driscol, Sr. explained that using the Civil 3D 2022 tool Grading Optimization can make your life easier: “In your typical grading design workflow, like Civil 3D, creating and editing surfaces and feature lines has been a really tedious and time-consuming process,” he said. “Not that you can’t do it, but it’s tedious.” To evaluate a single solution, he added, it can take “more than a day” to create the grading model, edit and finalize the grading plan. Feature lines can also be “hard to keep track of” when making revisions. The upgrades in Grading Optimization help streamline that workflow, compressing it considerably.

Secondly, why use an Autodesk product like Grading Optimization in Civil 3D? Driscol offered a few reasons:

• It enables designers to work on grading scenarios based on realistic design elements.
• It allows for the monitoring of constraint violations in real time.
• It defines grading alternatives.

Driscol described the benefits and values that result from using Grading Optimization as “enhancing operational efficiencies and saving costs.”

Grading Optimization, alongside being time-efficient and convenient, allows special considerations for site grading. Driscol demonstrated this in a live demo that covered terrain, feasibility, volumes, surface properties, and several different map views of an example project.

“Drain lines, detention ponds, grading limits, violations … we can re-optimize any point of any solution,” Driscol said. “We can have insight and visibility into this grading optimization process. With new constraints, you can still utilize the old design and the new design downstream … even if you need to refine those parameters,” he added. “The capabilities of Grading Optimization outweigh anything else that’s out right now.”

Following are a few notable features in Grading Optimization for Civil 3D 2022:

• Works on sites, highway interchanges and around structures with drainage and grading elements.
• Algorithms work toward surface smoothness based on user-defined parameters and constraints.
• Real-time problem solving can be interrupted at any point to adjust parameters.

If you’re ready to upgrade to Grading Optimization in Civil 3D 2022, keep these requirements in mind:

• The new version supports only Windows 10 64-bit.
• For best results, if your .Net version is not updated to .Net4.8 before installing on Windows 10, you’ll need to Reboot OS to update the .Net version after installing.
• Most 2022 version content is only available via separate downloads from Autodesk Account or Autodesk Knowledge Network.
• Check out the Autodesk release notes for more information before installing.

With new options and resources, you’ll find rock-solid reasons to upgrade to Civil 3D 2022 and make full use of Grading Optimization. To see how it all comes together, Autodesk Knowledge Network describes a typical workflow.

If you’d like to learn more about Grading Optimization in Civil 3D 2022, contact Applied Software today and talk to an industry-experienced expert about your company’s individualized needs.