Best practices for creating staged construction design deliverables from Civil 3D

Last updated: 2025-09-22

Summary

  1. Staged construction is essentially the design/plan production process in quick succession with the previous stage becoming the existing condition for the next stage

  2. All of the same inputs and outputs of the roadway design process exist in staged construction

  3. There can also be temporary work that needs to be removed in a future stage. The scope and layout of temporary work cannot be determined ahead of time and can impact the scope and layout of future stages

  4. Design changes to the final design or in stages need to

    1. be managed in a single-source method
    2. applied appropriately to input/output objects/files/folders in Civil 3D

Summary problem areas

  1. While the concept of staged construction is straight-forward, it's application to design and resulting design output is unique to any given project, being dependent on:

    1. scope of construction work

    2. necessary design output to support construction needs (sheets, quantities, data files)

    3. assuming earthwork is required, whether or not temporary earthwork is needed

      1. temp ditching, temp roadways, removal of temp construction

  2. This topic will be assuming that ultimate and temporary earthwork need to be managed throughout design and will address all design outputs. Any given project may be much simpler depending on the variety of the items listed above.

  3. Common approach to staged construction

    1. Create ultimate corridor(s)
    2. Create staging plan
    3. Apply staging plan to ultimate corridor(s) by making copies of portions of ultimate and adding needed temp components

  4. Staged construction design often creates a stage that is partly final or ultimate (ult) design and partly temporary (temp) design

    1. Ideally both of these components would be single-sourced and not replicated
    2. There is no way to share only a portion (longitudinally and/or cross-section wise) of a corridor

Goals

Develop

  1. Framework for managing staged construction through the design process in Civil 3D

  2. Strategies and tactics within software to manage design inputs and outputs

    1. Keep design objects single-sourced (avoid copies)
    2. Keep design objects live connected through data workflow

  3. folder/file/object structure and naming that supports staged construction

Issues: below are items that prevent fully achieving the goals above

Design files/objects

Design inputs

Base

  • Exist surface

Dsgn

  • Aliprof.dwg

    • Stationed alignments and profiles
    • edgeline alis
    • ditch and other profiles
    • control profiles

Design work

  • assemblies
  • corridors (also output)

Design outputs

Plan view data (2D)

  • edgeline alis
  • horizontal data for pavt and all prop work in general
  • profiles in profile sheets

Cross-section data (3D)

  • objects for sheets

    • crdr/refinement surfaces (also used with exist surface for earthwork quants)
    • labels from corridor code set (off/elev, slope)

Constructin Data Packet data (2D/3D)

2D

  • alis/2D polys/blocks

3D

  • design feature lines

  • refinement surfaces

    • while only ultimate surfaces is a required deliverable for CDP, staged x-sections are required, so staged surfaces are needed for x-sections and quantities

Working concept

  1. Develop final/ultimate design with normal wisdot c3d structure/files/process

    1. Assume multiple corridors needed

    2. Assume corridors not built/structured to stage layout

      1. stage layout can change so preferred solutions would not constrain final design to stages

  2. Create a file to manage stage layouts across corridors/surfaces/sheet sets (plan or cross section)

    1. closed 2d plines on stage unique layers (maybe associated hatches?)

      1. slight overlap to catch edges in each stage
      2. if project has stages with ult and temp work

Staged construction design workflow

  1. Develop ult 2D/3D design

  2. Develop construction stages with portions of ult design identified in each stage

  3. Determine temp design needs for stages

  4. 2D/3D

    1. Reference only the ult design portion to be built in a given stage

    2. Develop the temp design portion to be built in a given stage

    3. Have tools to

      1. Manage ult and temp input/work objects individually
      2. Merge them together as seamless output objects

Proposed workflow concepts

Staged layout dwg (stg-layout.dwg)

After the concepts for the construction stages are developed

  1. Create a staged layout dwg

  2. In the DWG, create layers for each stage for ultimate and temporary work

  3. On appropriate layers, create closed 2dpolys defining areas of work for each stage ult and temp

    1. if there are multiple islands of work, may need/want to connect them with narrow bridges for surface workflows
    2. there likely will be a need for a stage total/all layer (merge of ult and temp)

  4. In files that need portions of ult or temp shown

    1. plan view

      1. XREF ult/temp design file > XREF/NCOPY stg-layout to stage design file > apply clip
      2. when file XREF'd, can adjust layerstate (black/grey) and display order with hatch/wipeout if needed

    2. surfaces

      1. DREF ult surface > XREF/NCOPY stg-layout > apply stage as boundary reference (avail in c3d26)

    3. cross-sections

      1. if stage is scratch grading (temp work not needed for construction to match in)

        1. display ult stage surfaces, only display elev/off labels for stage

      2. if stage requires temp work (combined with ult work)

        1. copy and adjust left/right boundaries of section views to display ult on one side and temp on other side

    4. earthwork

      1. if stage is ult only

        1. apply boundary reference as needed and calc as normal

      2. if stage is ult and temp

        1. apply boundary references as needed
        2. calc earthwork for ult surface
        3. calc earthwork for temp surface
        4. merge volumes in Excel

Data structure/naming

The concept would be that ult design files and objects would be as normal and that temp design elements either be in the same folder/file that they normally are in (if they are fairly small/light) or same location with a stage designator if they are larger objects. I'm thinking that this designator would be a prefix rather than a suffix to be more distinctive differentiator. Also, I think if stages are thought of as starting the design process anew rather than a subdivision of the design process, a prefix makes more sense. This concept will be demo'd in the following workflows

Stage 3 (s3) will be the example for the following workflows

TopoEx.dwg (2D) workflow

  1. Create s3-TopoEx.dwg
  2. XREF s2-TopoEx.dwg, Pavt.dwg, stg-layout.dwg
  3. From stg-layout, layfrz all but s2-all layer
  4. Ncopy stg-layout>s2-all layer plines
    1. issue: xclip does not work with an object in an XREF. xclip would need to be actively managed
  5. xclip Pavt with s2-all pline
  6. create solid hatch with s2-all pline
  7. adjust display order so bottom to top s2-TopoEx.dwg > s2-all hatch > s2-Pavt.dwg
  8. Greyshade all s2-Pavt XREF layers

  9. If all prop work in Pavt.dwg, then you're done. Otherwise, repeat for other prop work files

Srfc-Ex.dwg (3D) workflow

  1. Create s3-Srfc-Ex.dwg
  2. Create surface s3-Exist
  3. DREF s2-Srfc-Ex.dwg > s2-Exist
  4. DREF s2-Rfnt-All-Top.dwg > s2-Top-Rfnt-All

AliProf.dwg (2D) workflow

For this example I am assuming all edgeline alignment objects are in AliProf.dwg as that is what I have most commonly seen in production.

  1. All ult aliprofs and edgelines should already be in existence in AliProf.dwg

  2. Create any s3 temp aliprofs and edgelines in AliProf.dwg

    1. I'm thinking prefix of s3- or just tmp- to the standard. Possibly ali folders as well

Pavt.dwg (2D) workflow

  1. Create s3-Pavt.dwg

  2. XREF Pavt.dwg, stg-layout.dwg

  3. From stg-layout, layfrz all but s2-all layer

  4. Ncopy stg-layout>s2-all layer plines

    1. - issue: xclip does not work with an object in an XREF. needs to be ncopy into active file. xclip would need to be actively managed

  5. xclip Pavt with s2-all pline

  6. DREF any s3 edgline alis

Corridor/design surface (3D) workflow

  1. Create s3-crdr.dwg file
  2. DREF ult top and datum surfaces
  3. XREF stg-layout
  4. Ncopy stg-layout>s3-ult layer pline (single for all)
  5. Add reference boundary to ult surfaces (functionality available in c3d26)
  6. DREF necessary ult and temp aliprofs and edgelines
  7. Create temp corridors and corridor surfaces

The result of this process would be a staged ult surface and a staged temp surface.

- Issue: While both can be sampled into cross-sections, there is no way to easily merge them together (would require significant effort to manually create/manage the boundary around the two of them pasted together)

  1. reference boundaries

    1. verify boundary of triangles stays good

  2. merging surfaces

Plan view sheet workflow

  1. See pavt.dwg workflow

Cross section sheet workflow

  1. Create 090101-xs.dwg

  2. XREF stg-layout

  3. Ncopy stg-layout>s3-ult layer pline (single for all)

  4. DREF surfaces ult-Top-All, s3-temp-Top-All

  5. DREF corridors for ult and s3-temp that participate in s3

  6. Sample all surfaces and corridors in a staged sample line group

  7. Create cross sections and make any adjustments to height needed

  8. For stations where one side of section should be temp and one side should be ult

    1. Copy the section view twice (leave the original section view as is)
    2. Turn off all elev and offset bands on the two copies of the section view
    3. Turn off all draws of surfaces and corridors in orig section view
    4. Adjust left and right edges of ult and temp section views to match point
    5. Turn off draw of ult or temp in correct copy section views

Issues (many)

  • While it would be easier to manage viewing different corridors from the sample line group rather than the section view group, it's not possible and sample lines must have the baseline contained within them. i.e. you cannot have a sample line that is all negative offset (left) or all positive offset (right), the zero must be included.

  • There are a lot of steps to get to a correct section view merging ult and temp together

  • This cannot be kept live to design data

    • It is possible to keep the left or right side of a sample line interactive to a target, however if the sample lines are used instead of the section view, the baseline must be contained by the sample line (i.e. you could not use a reference line that did not match exactly with the match location of the stage) I don't think this would be acceptable for most designers.

Earthwork data workflow

With 2 staged surfaces (ult and temp) for top and datum, you would need to run the earthwork for each partial surface and then merge the quantities in excel

Issues identified in staged design and plan to deal with

  1. Xclip does not work with xref objects

    1. actively manage changes to stage boundaries

  2. Cannot easily create a design surface w/feature lines from multiple edge-matched design surfaces (surface paste does not respect original boundaries)

    1. Investigate coding solution to merge design ult and temp surfaces to make stage cross-sections and earthwork quantities easier to deal with

  3. Cannot easily restrict display of labels from corridor code set styles in section views

    1. Have investigated. Need more API from Autodesk. Have requested and tech tickets created.

Final thoughts

  1. Staged construction that has no temp work is far easier to deal with.

  2. Staged layout DWG

    1. May need ult, temp, (corridor and surfaces) and all (plan view) designators for each stage
    2. I would use plines, not just hatch (far better vertex editing)