Civil 3D and Chief Premier X8 Not Compatible?

[Anna_Gorres]

I am new to Chief Architect (formerly used Revit), we use Premier X8. We recently had a survey done, and I was unable to import the surveyor's file into CA within a workable manner. I posted to this forum and received some help. What I was told is that Civil 3D, the software the surveyors used, is not compatible with Chief. The issue was:

 

• Civil 3D information was grouped in blocks, and CA was unable to read the blocks. 
• A video said to ask the surveyor to explode the blocks. Our surveyor said all of the information was in the blocks, so exploding would delete the information. They sent over a text file, which I have not had time to research how to import properly.

What I'm wondering:

 

• If Civil 3D is the most common survey software, why is this not more compatible with CA?
• What civil software is CA compatible with?
• Do I need to specifically request something from our surveyor at the start of a project, for future reference?
• Are they any good training videos for importing a text survey file to get accurate elevation information into CA? (I haven't started looking yet)

Any help/guidance is much appreciated! 

 

Anna 

[lbuttery]

Anna:

 

look under MENU - FILE - IMPORT and MENU - FILE - EXPORT

to see what formats Chief can work with

 

Lew

[BenPalmer]

Anna, they do need to explode it even if they claim they don't.  Have them try it as a trial to see if it works, then you will know going forward.

 

I deal with those files all the time and they come in great when saved as exploded.  Sometimes they forget and send it blocked, and then I remind them I need it exploded and they make the adjustments and resend, and it works great.  They tell me there are other clients they do the same thing with that use other software.

 

Hope that helps.

[rlackore]

CA can import elevation data from an ASCII text file in several formats:

 

 

Civil 3D can export data points to ASCII in many pre-defined or custom formats, so if you tell them how you want it formatted, they should be able to accommodate you.

[johnny]

I tried many times to get a workable import of survey data into Chief and I can tell you my experience leads me to believe you are far better off importing the file and then using it as a 2D template to then draw over. Chief's strong-suit is NOT its terrain modeling ability.