This study explores 5 typical areas of site grading common to the civil and site design industry. Designed by Autodesk and commissioned to an outside consultant, this study looks at direct comparisons of the time, effort, and perceived benefit of completing each specific task using the standard grading tools in Autodesk® Civil 3D® software versus the same tasks using the capabilities in the Grading Optimization for Civil 3D (Grading Optimization) toolset.

Key findings

74% overall productivity gains. This study shows that grading tasks completed with the Grading Optimization toolset saved more than 2 hours of grading time when compared to the nearly 3 hours needed to conduct the same tasks using the standard grading tools in Civil 3D.

Reduced

In addition to the concrete performance gains measured, this study observed that, because using Grading Optimization does not require constant input from the user while it iteratively grades the site, this allows for many more grading options to be explored with significantly reduced user effort. One example of this efficiency gain due to the reduction in user action was in pond storage volume requirements. When the storage volume needed to be met, Grading Optimization automatically iterated on grading alternatives and achieved an optimal grading plan that met those requirements in a single cycle. To achieve this grading plan using the standard Civil 3D grading tools would have required several user adjustments and several passes of analyzing the stage storage volume. Because Grading Optimization iteratively solved for an optimal grading option based on target parameters and with much less user interaction – as in the case of the pond volume example – achieving an optimal grading plan is more time and effort efficient.