The Civil Gamer By Heidi Boutwell You just opened InfraWorks 360. What’s up with this new interface? the Save, Save As, and Open commands, and gone is even a resemblance of the Windows ribbon setup. In its place are circular expanding icons and then the tools themselves. The idea is to make this program really easy to use for those coming straight out of college. Knowing that our younger generation is familiar with the gaming platforms of today, they chose to follow this setup instead of the traditional Microsoft ribbon. So your company purchased InfraWorks 360, or you downloaded a free trial of the software and decided to give it a try. Upon starting InfraWorks, you notice something very odd—none of this looks like the traditional CAD programs you’re used to. And I mean, none of it. The Home screen is odd- looking, and when you select an example project, the traditional Microsoft ® ribbon interface isn’t there. What is this, you ask? Well, I like to call it the Gamer display. That’s right—Gamer. For those familiar with Xbox ® and Playstation ® , it might actually look similar to some of the games you’ve played. Autodesk is transitioning the newer 360 products into a gamer-style setup. If you’re familiar with video games, than you’ve probably seen icons similar to the ones inside a project in InfraWorks 360. If not, you’re in for one huge shock. Gone are With all of this change, will this new game- inspired style end up in Civil 3D? No, it will not. There are just too many commands in Civil 3D, and that would make for a cumbersome mess. But, it will remain in InfraWorks 360. Not only is the interface different, so is the file type. No longer are you using a DWG, but rather, you’re using an SQLite file, which means that every move you make as you’re working in a project is automatically saved. The only way to Save a project as-is, is to Duplicate the project. One advantage to using an SQLite file structure is that the file size is kept to a minimum. But, like DWG, when you’re working with an area over two square miles, the program still bogs down due to its desire to constantly rebuild on the fly. In an effort to address that concern, the software engineers have at least given us controls to turn off certain portions of the Auto Rebuild features in InfraWorks 360. For smaller areas, though, the program works quickly and efficiently. www.cadlearning.com 27