Publish Collections Manager

Last updated: 2024-07-01

Overview

The Publish Collections Manager tool can be used to plot a collection of *.dsd (drawing set description) files at once.

Usage

WisDOT Sheets tab > Plot panel > Publish Collections Manager

The tool can also be accessed from the command line: DOTPUBLISHCOLLECTIONSMANAGER.

The tool can also be run outside of Civil 3D. Instructions for this are under Plotting from batch file and scheduling below.

Tip:

Before running the Publish Collections Manager, understand these best practices:

  • *.dsd files can be created from the Batch Publish dialog. See Create drawing set description (*.dsd) file from Civil 3D sheet set (*.dst) for instructions.
  • You should confirm that a *.dsd will successfully create a plot prior to adding it to a publish collection.
  • This process will NOT update and save DWGs with layouts contained in the publish collection. Any updates to layouts or file references (XREFs or data shortcuts) need to be processed and saved before using this tool. This can be done manually or automated with Project - Sync Project Files
  • Any number of *.dsd files can be added to a publish collection. You should have a fairly good idea of how long plotting will take before adding them. The collection of dsd files will be noticeably faster than plotting from DWG True View and approximately 4x faster than plotting from Civil 3D.

  • Publish Collections Manager is capable of publishing multiple DSD files simultaneously to speed up the publishing process. To take advantage of this capability, break the publish collection into multiple logical DSD files instead of publishing an entire plan with a single DSD file.

  1. Add Publish Collection: This button will open a dialog to save a new publish collection. This name will appear in the active publish collection dropdown.
  2. Delete Publish Collection: This button will delete the active publish collection.
  3. Active Publish Collection
  4. List of *.dsd files in the active publish collection
  5. Add *.dsd to active publish collection
  6. Remove selected *.dsd(s) from active publish collection
  7. Configuration file: *.pc3 file to use plotting the *.dsd files. Only one configuration file can be used per publish collection.
  8. Process Simultaneously: Set the maximum number of DSD files that should be published simultaneously.
  9. Save the active publish collection

  10. Run the active publish collection

Plotting from batch file and scheduling

Requirement: The options below also require Civil 3D be installed on the computer they are run on.

  • Files created with the Publish Collections Manager are stored in C:\WisDOT\Stnd\users\Myc3d20XX\MyPublishCollections . For example, the screenshot above will create a folder C:\WisDOT\Stnd\users\Myc3d20XX\MyPublishCollections\Feb-2023-PSE
  • Each publish collection folder contains
    • An xml file of the *.dsd files.
    • BatchPublish.dll, Publish.scr, Publish.bat
  • The Publish.bat can be
    • Run from the Windows Command Prompt (or double-clicked to run from the command prompt)
    • Or added to Windows Task Scheduler to run on schedule

Migrating to a new version of Civil 3D

  1. Copy the Publish Collection directory from the current version. ex: C:\WisDOT\Stnd\users\Myc3d20XX\MyPublishCollections\MyPublish1
  2. Paste the copied Publish Collection to the new version. ex: C:\WisDOT\Stnd\users\Myc3d20YY\MyPublishCollections\MyPublish1
  3. Open the new version of Civil 3D
  4. Open the Publish Collections Manager
  5. Activate the migrated Publish Collection

  6. Save

If a scheduled task was set up to run the Publish.bat, be sure to update the task for the new Publish Collection path.