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DifficultyadvancedAdded2027.0Statusdraft

Data Shortcuts (advanced training)

Data shortcuts are very powerful for data sharing within a design team, it also helps to decrease the size of the drawings. For example, all the designers can use one natural ground level surface (NGL). If the NGL surface is updated, all the users are informed, and they can synchronize their drawings with the source drawing (the source drawing contains the NGL surface that was created). Civil 3D can create data shortcuts for the following objects: surfaces, horizontal alignments, vertical alignments, pipe networks, pressure networks and view frame groups. Data shortcuts are basically links to the source drawing.

Data shortcuts can be managed in the Prospector (mostly listed at the bottom of the Prospector):

  1. To create data shortcuts a Working Folder must be created first. Right-click on Data Shortcuts [] in the Prospector and select Set Working Folder from the menu.

  2. Browse for a working folder. The main project folder is often used as a working folder, but companies can have different preferences.

  3. Once the Working Folder is set, create a new Data Shortcuts Folder. Right-click on Data Shortcuts in the Prospector and select New Data Shortcuts Folder from the menu.

  4. Specify the Name of the data shortcuts folder (a data shortcuts folder is automatically created in the working folder you specified in the previous step).

The working folder can contain multiple Data Shortcut Folders. This is practical for large projects where each department (road, water, bridge departments etc.) use its own Data Shortcut Folder. For example, all the surfaces created by the roads department (road top surfaces, datum surfaces etc.) can be in one folder to make it easier for the users to navigate through them. User can also browse to different Data Shortcut Folders created by other departments, one drawing can contain data shortcuts from different Data Shortcut Folders.

If you go to the Working Folder in Windows Explorer, you will find a new Data Shortcut Folder containing the folder _Shortcuts with different subfolders. These subfolders contain .xml files which contains information about source drawings and source objects. Never change the name of this folder or subfolders because the link between source drawing and drawings where the references were created will be corrupted.

  1. As soon as the Data Shortcut Folder is set the path appears in the Prospector:

  2. If you create more Data Shortcut Folders in one Working Folder you can switch between them. Right-click on Data Shortcuts in the Prospector and select Set Data Shortcuts Folder from the menu.

  3. Select the Data Shortcut Folder:

  4. Once a Data Shortcuts Folder is created you can create data shortcuts. Right-click on Data Shortcuts in the Prospector and select Create Data Shortcut from the menu.

  5. Select the objects which you want to create data shortcuts for:

The created data shortcuts are shown in Prospector under the Data Shortcuts menu.

  1. The objects which have data shortcuts can be referenced into another drawing. Open another drawing, go to Data Shortcuts in the Prospector, right-click on the object you want to reference and use the Create Reference option from the menu.

  2. The referenced objects are inserted into the drawing and can be seen in the Prospector. The small c3d-advanced-data-shortcuts screenshot icon displayed next to the object's name informs you that this object is referenced as a data shortcut. You can adjust the object style, add labels and perform some other operations but you cannot change the object's geometry. Any geometrical changes can only be done in the source drawing.

Note 1: If you create a reference for the vertical alignment, it will automatically create a reference for the horizontal alignment because it is dependent on the vertical alignment.

  1. The data shortcut path, name and source drawing can be modified in the Data Shortcuts Editor which can be opened by going to Start – Programs – Autodesk – AutoCAD Civil 3D YYYY – Data Shortcuts Editor.

  2. Use the Find and Replace commands in the Data Shortcut Editor to quickly change text strings for the data shortcut names, paths or source drawings. This is useful when the project is moved to another location or hard drive. Before editing data shortcuts in the Data Shortcuts Editor, ensure that no one else is currently creating or editing the same set of data shortcuts within Autodesk Civil 3D. Otherwise, one user will be able to overwrite changes made by another other.

Original path:

Changed path:

The Data Shortcuts Editor can also be used to change how data shortcuts are associated with source objects. This setting is available in the Use to match column. The association can be done either by Name or Handle, or both. The object's Handle is its unique identifier used by the system. Users cannot change the Handle, making it the most reliable matching attribute if an object's name has changed.

A typical situation where you would use the option to match by name is when you delete an already referenced object and then re-create it with the same name. The new object has a different Handle, but if you use the match-by-name option, the old data shortcuts will automatically reference the new object.

IMPORTANT:

If you need to connect to another project's Data Shortcut Folder, you need to set the Working Folder where the Data Shortcut Folder is located. If you select the Data Shortcut Folder as a Working Folder you won't see data shortcuts in the Prospector. The working folder is generally one level above the Data Shortcut Folder.

If you work on a network and map your network hard drive, the assigned hard drive letter must be the same for all users to ensure the data shortcuts will be linked. The reason for this is that the hard drive letter is saved in the .xml file which contains the links between the drawing with the referenced objects and the source drawing.

The data shortcuts tool can also be used to create project folder structure. During the creation of a Data Shortcuts Folder, you can choose the Project template which you want to use. A project template is a folder structure with proper names. You can find an example on your computer under C:\Civil 3D Project Templates\_Sample Project.

  1. Tick Use project template and browse to the template you want to use:

Created folder structure: