Get Ready to Take-Off With AutoCAD Civil 3D

Thomas M. Inzinga - Autodesk

CV122-5

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 includes comprehensive tools to compute point, linear, area, and volume take-off

quantities. In this class, learn how to create pay item lists and categories, assign pay items to AutoCAD

and Civil 3D model data, and perform quantity take-off to generate customizable QTO reports.

About the Speaker: Thomas is a software architect for the Autodesk AEC Division. With 25 years of

experience, he is an expert in the design, development, and implementation of civil-engineering

applications. For the past 11 years, Tom has helped architect Civil 3D into the leading AutoCAD-based

civil engineering application. He has degrees in mapping, and civil engineering and surveying. A recent

project at Autodesk has been the implementation of the quantity take-off feature within AutoCAD Civil

3D.

Get Ready to Take-Off with AutoCAD Civil 3D

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Introduction

This class provides information on using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010s quantity take-off feature. The feature

is useful to firms that need to quantify counts, lengths, and areas of designs or as-built models for

estimating purposes. The feature offers a flexible method of importing pay item lists, assigning pay items

to entities, and generating reports of take-off quantities.

In this class we will about working with pay items, and generating take-off reports. The class will dive

deeper into the procedures and techniques you should follow to successfully implement the Civil 3D 2010

quantity take-off feature in your office or firm.

Where to find the Software Described in this Class

The quantity take-off feature described in this class is available in Autodesks AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010

(and later) versions.

Terminology

The following terms will be used extensively throughout this paper.

Pay Item: A single identifiable item or unit of work that is part of an infrastructure design to which

a cost could be assigned.

Cost Item: Another term for Pay Item.

Master Pay Item List: A collection of pay items that form a standard basis for quantity take-off

and estimation within a particular locale.

QTO: Quantity Take-Off.

Take-Off: An alias for Quantity Take-Off.

XML: Extensible Markup Language, or a description of data tagged with beginning and ending

markers identify the various components of the data.

XSL: Extensible Stylesheet Language, or a set of instructions that transforms an XML dataset

from its original, source format to a new, target format. The target format can be a variety of

formats including a different XML format, HTML, plain text, or any number of other formats.

CSV: Comma separated values. A set of values delimited most commonly by commas, but the

delimiter may vary depending on the locale.

AASHTO: American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.

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The Quantity Take-Off Manager User Interface

The quantity take-off commands are available on the QTO panel of the Analyze tab of the Civil 3D ribbon,

as shown here:

The majority of the QTO functionality is accessed using the QTOMANAGER command, which activates

the QTO Manager panorama view as shown below:

The main components of this user-interface are as follows:

1. File commands: Commands to import pay item lists, categorization files, and formula files are

found here, along with commands to export pay item lists in various formats.

2. Categorization commands: These two commands allow you display of pay items in categories

or as a flat list of pay items.

3. Filter pay items: Display a subset of pay items by keying in a portion of a pay item id or

description.

4. Pay item commands: Assign pay item ids to entities and areas, delete pay item ids from entities,

and edit pay item ids on entities using these four commands.

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5. Take-Off: This runs the take-off command which computes quantities of items with pay items

assigned.

6. Highlighting commands: Use these commands to highlight entities with pay items in various

ways, including: highlight objects with pay items, highlight objects without pay items, highlight

objects with selected pay items, and clear highlighted objects.

7. QTO Settings: There are several specific settings which affect the operation of the QTO feature

within Civil 3D. See the section Settings that Affect Quantity Take-Off which follows later in this

paper for details.

8. Favorites: Many master pay item lists contain a large quantity of pay items. You can selectively

add a subset of pay items to the Favorites portion of the QTO user-interface for quick access to

those pay items.

9. Categories: With categorization turned on and a categorization file loaded, the QTO user-

interface groups similar pay items into logical buckets.

10. Pay item id: Pay item ids are shown in the left column.

11. Pay item description: Pay item descriptions are shown in the middle column. This text also

appears as an entity tooltip when the pay item has been assigned to an entity.

12. Pay item units: The pay item units are shown in column three. See the next section for a valid

list of pay item units.

13. Pay item formula: An optional, custom pay item formula is shown in the fourth column. See the

section Using Formulas for more information on formulas.

Loading Master Pay Item Lists

In order to compute take-off quantities, entities within the drawing must have pay item values assigned to

them. Prior to assigning pay items, you must associate a list of pay items with the drawing.

Master pay item lists are files containing at least three important pieces of information that Civil 3D QTO

requires:

1. Pay item id: An alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies a particular pay item.

2. Pay item description: A textual description of the pay item.

3. Pay item units: The table below indicates the acceptable units for Civil 3D QTO:

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Unit Abbreviation

Unit Description

Applies To

Unit Abbreviation

Unit Description

Applies To

EA Each Count ST Each Count

EACH Each Count GK Gross Kilometer Length

GM Gross Mile Length KM Kilometer Length

LF Foot Length M Meter Length

M1 Meter Length MI Mile Length

LM Linear Mile Length NK Net Kilometer Length

NM Net Mile Length YD Yard Length

VF Vertical Foot Length ID Inch Diameter Length

STA Station

(imperial)

Length YDMI Yard Mile Length

LNFT Linear Foot Length AC Acre Area

ACRE Acre Area HA Hectare Area

M2 Square Meter Area SF Square Foot Area

SQFT Square Foot Area SY Square Yard Area

LOT Lot Count STYD Station Yard Area

SQYD Square Yard Area CF Cubic Foot Volume

CUFT Cubic Foot Volume CY Cubic Yard Volume

CYMI Cubic Yard

Mile

Volume M3 Cubic Meter Volume

MB Board

Measure/

Thousand Feet

Length MKFT Board Foot Length

MBM Board

Measure/

Thousand Feet

Length CUYD Cubic Yard Volume

BU Bushel Count GA Gallon Count

GAL Gallon Count KL Kiloliter Count

LI Liter Count MG Thousand

Gallons

Count

MGAL Thousand

Gallons

Count BBL Barrels Count

KG Kilogram Count OZ Ounce Count

LB Pound Count MT Metric Ton Count

TN Ton Count TON Ton Count

CWT Hundred

Weight

Count TM Ton Mile Count

HR Hour Count HRS Hour Count

DA Day Count DAY Day Count

WD Working Day Count WK Week Count

MO Month Count MON Month Count

AD Arrow Day Count BD Board Day Count

DD Drum Day Count SD Sign Day Count

TD Ton Day Count LU Luminaire Count

TH Therms Count AS Assembly Count

CO Cleanout Count PA Per Analysis Count

PB Per Building Count PI Per

Intersection

Count

PL Plant Count PM Per Mile Count

PS Per Set Count PW Per Well Count

FA Fuel Cost

Adjustments

Count MH Man-hour Count

PH Person Hour Count PD Person Day Count

PH Person Hour Count DOL Dollars Count

DD Dollars per

Day

Count ED Each Day Count

LO Location Count LS Lump Sum Count

LUMP SUM Lump Sum Count SACK Sack Count

LPSM Lump Sum Count

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There are no standard master pay item lists.

Typically, each state, province, municipality, or

locale will have designated their own pay item

lists and format. For example, the pay item list

used by Florida Department of Transportation

differs in both content and format from the one

used by Wisconsin Department of

Transportation.

Civil 3D provides a flexible mechanism to

handle several different pay item file formats,

include CSV, Florida DOT, and AASHTO

TransXML.

CSV: The Comma delimited format pay item file

consists of any number of comma delimited fields,

with the following two restrictions:

Columns 1, 2, and 3 must be the pay item

id, pay item description, and pay item units

in that order. Additional fi