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A First Look at InfraWorks 2017.3

CADD MicrosystemsJanuary 12th, 2017

Building upon the two previous releases this year, Autodesk just released InfraWorks 2017.3. This new version continues some of the trends we've seen in previous releases as it relates to the experience, modeling, connected workflows, and platform itself. Although many of the new features focus on road and bridge modeling, there's still plenty of new features to make this release worthwhile regardless of the project types you work on. Some of these new features include:

Configure and View Engineering Details

We now have more control over the units in our models, and can now control measurement elements such as the number of decimal places. Beyond that, views have what practically function as a toggle between presentation and engineering/design views.

Road Modeling

Continuing the trend of InfraWorks becoming more and more capable of design, InfraWorks 2017.3 expands the road design functionality. Selecting roads will now display station labels and key geometric locations. In a similar way, other such contextual annotations are found in other areas of the software as well. For example, the Road Section Viewer now display right-of-way limits, and many linear elements now display in canvas dimensions.

Bridge Modeling

The introduction of Bridge Templates mean you no longer have to reinvent the wheel for every new bridge design project you begin with InfraWorks. Bridge Templates let you gather key design parameters for reuse on future designs. As you work on individual bridge designs, a new Apply To Next Selection tool functions like a Match Properties command for geometric modifications to things like bridge girders.

Beyond the design and modeling experience inside Infraworks, the interoperability with Revit is also expanded. When sending bridge designs to Revit, you can now choose between converting your design to families or direct shapes.

Roadside Grading

Grading is vastly expanded in this release with the introduction of grading zones. In each zone you can specify design criteria such as slopes, materials, and even transition lengths. Speaking of grading, InfraWorks will now calculate earthwork quantities for you through intersections, roundabouts, and bridges. Beyond the expansion of whats calculated, you also have the option to calculate quantities for a range of stations.

Trees

It's just one tree style (for now), but we get a brand new type of trees called Adaptive Trees in InfraWorks 2017.3. With Adaptive Tree styles, InfraWorks will dynamically adjust how much detail is shown for trees depending on your view. The concept is similar to the Surface Level of Detail tool in Civil 3D that displays an adaptive amount of detail depending on your AutoCAD zoom level. This new tree style is particularly useful when creating large stands of trees in your model.