How to backup your Civil3D User profile, Uninstall and reinstall Civil3D, and reimport the profile...

A custom Jing video has been created for you and is available here (http://screencast.com/t/MhT9cYcv). The steps are outlined below.

Right click in the drawing window and select OPTIONS

In the Options dialog box, click in the PROFILES tab. Select your user profile from the list on the left and click EXPORT.

Input a name for the backup (.ARG) file, select the location (desktop) and click SAVE.

Your profile has been saved as a .ARG file on your desktop. You can now close Civil 3D.

TO UNINSTALL AUTOCAD CIVIL 3D 2009 AND REMOVE ANY REMNANTS OF THIS PRODUCT FROM YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM, FOLLOW THESE STEPS:

Important! Make sure you back up your customized AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 files before you implement the following procedures.

To uninstall AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009
On the Start menu (Windows), click Settings > Control Panel.
In Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
In the Add or Remove Programs dialog box, select AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 and click Change/Remove. (For Windows 2000, click Change/Remove; for Windows XP Professional, click Remove).
Click Yes when prompted to confirm that you want to completely remove the application and all of its components.
If you are prompted to remove shared files, click No to All, and then click Yes when prompted for confirmation to proceed.
After the uninstall procedure has completed, click OK.
Restart the computer.

To remove any remaining C3D 2009 files
In Windows Explorer, browse to and delete the following C3D 2009 installation folder:
C:\Program Files\ C3D 2009

Note: If your operating system is configured to store the Program Files folder on a drive other than C, the path is on that drive.

Delete the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\C3D 2009 folder.

Delete the following folders:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ C3D 2009
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Autodesk\C3D 2009
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\C3D 2009

REINSTALLING AUTOCAD CIVIL 3D 2009
Before you reinstall Civil 3D 2009, delete the contents of your Windows Temp folder. If you are working with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, your Windows Temp folder will typically be found at C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp.

You should also close and temporarily disable any anti-virus software that may be running on the system. You can use the End Task feature to close the anti-virus software. Disabling the software from the system tray may not be sufficient. Anti-virus software may be used to block certain activities (for example, access to the registry, adding, removing, or updating DLL files, and so on) that are seen as suspicious, even though these activities are common when installing or removing programs. Several anti-virus programs can be disabled by right-clicking their taskbar icon and clicking Disable on the context menu. For more information about disabling your anti-virus software, refer to the software vendor.

To verify that an anti-virus program is not running in the background as a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident Program)

In Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP:
Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE.
Click Task Manager.
In Task Manager, click the Processes tab.
Select the process for the anti-virus program, and then click End Process.

Now, you can reinstall AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 on the computer

Insert the Civil 3D installation disk and follow the instructions on screen.

INSTALLING SERVICE PACK 2.1
Click on the link below:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=12624549&linkID=9240698
Save the civil2009sp2.1.exe file to your desktop.
Double click on the .exe file and select RUN. You should receive a message saying the service pack has been successfully installed when it is complete.

IMPORTING YOUR USER PROFILE:
http://screencast.com/t/Nb1k7SSf9V
Another custom Jing video has been created for you at the link above. The steps are also outlined below.
In Civil 3D, right click and select OPTIONS. In the PROFILE tab, click IMPORT.
Select the .ARG file that you created earlier and saved to your desktop. Click OPEN.
Provide a name for the profile that will appear on the list in Civil 3D. Click APPLY&CLOSE. Your profile should now appear on the list and you can select the option to SET CURRENT.

- Matt Miyamoto, Ideate Inc

So, you want to add a circular tank to your surface?

Recently, we had a customer who wanted to add a circular (or I guess I should say cylindrical) tank to the site. Unfortunately, when the tank was added to the surface, the contour line was not very smooth.

As you can see, the red contour line is connected to a vertex of the base of the tank approximately every 30ft or so and, in places, as far as 1 foot away. This is unacceptable. We need to get this contour looking a little more like a circle.

The contour was originally added using the default values (see below):

Let's remove that contour from the definition of the surface:

And add it again:

We need to adjust the supplementing factor. I think most of us have seen and maybe even adjusted the Weeding and Supplementing Distance factors. The problem here, is that the distance values only apply to straight lines, not arcs or curves. For this circular tank, we need to adjust the mid-ordinate distance. See below:

To further explain what the mid-ordinate distance is, I have included this screenshot straight from the Help menu. Once we make that small change, here is what we end up with (I left the dimensions for reference):

MUCH BETTER!! Whoo Hoo!

I just received an email from Rod Sherry of Cullen-Sherry & Associates. He sent me a fantastic jpg he created from Civil 3D of their tank site.

Nicely done, Rod!