Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

I am creating the ISO 19650 titleblocks for Micrographics for Civil 3D use in our company. I therefore must understand the intricacies of how Civil 3D generates sheet sets for plan, section and how to generate sheets for other views.

Civil 3D uses the concept of a template (with titleblocks and viewports set to scale on typical page layouts) to generate plan views based on project view frames. The view frames can be referenced as shortcuts if they need to be present in other drawings.

View frames can only be created from alignments.

Output Tab > Plan Production Panel > Create view Frames

Create View Frames > Alignment > Select from list or pick in model

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

In the template that I’m referring to only one viewport exists on the template sheet and therefore I am choosing to create view frames for plans only.

You have the choice to rotate the view frame to align with True North or to give you an algorithmic best fit on the alignment (using the least number of sheets).  I find it more convenient to rotate to True North, but the other method can also be accommodated with the inclusion of a N arrow symbol.

Create View Frames > Sheets > Plan Only > Rotate to North

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

Create View Frames > View Frame Group > Name > Name Template

What the image below shows is that one can incorporate a sheet naming strategy in alignment with the ISO 19650 standard for the view frames in the drawing. Thankfully there is a starting number and an incrementing value that will allow us to apply the necessary naming every time we create the relevant view frames. Note, the number style can be set to “01, 02, 03…”, causing a set number of digits to be used for numbering.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

Create View Frames > Match Lines > Name > Name Template

The same type of pattern can be chosen for match lines.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

The View Frames and Match Lines are shown below. The generate from origin of the stations and terminate at the end of the stations.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

Output Tab > Plan Production > Create Sheets

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

In essence, you are indirectly generating sheets for an alignment, because the view frames were created for alignments.

Importantly, you need to state whether you want the sheets to be created in the current drawing or create the layouts in stand-alone drawings that reference the current drawing as an Xref. Now it has become a trade-off.

Generating many sheets in the current drawing will result in a slow and unresponsive drawing that needs a strong computer to handle. One advantage of generating sheets in the current drawing is that the attributes in the titleblocks that are referencing project specific fields will be automatically updated.

The complexity of generating the sheets in other files might increase the sheet management a bit, but the model file will stay light and nimble.

The choice is yours.

Again, like with the View Frames and match Lines, we can use a naming template for the sheet layouts.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

A sheet set is created for the project. Note, you may add future sheets to the same sheet set.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

You can see the name of the Layouts have been allocated correctly.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

We now create sheets for another alignment’s view frames and we chose to create the layouts in new drawings. Note, I choose to create a new drawing for each layout, because it is then easy to identify the views, but if you created them in a single new drawing, you can manage their project attributes more easily.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

We add the sheets to the sheet set we already have.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

Because the sheets are no longer in the current file, one needs to specify eh data references one would like to include in the sheets. By default, Civil 3D makes the initial choice of references, but you can alter this.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

You can see the Subset for Wespoort added to the Sheet set.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

In the output folder, you can see how the drawings for the sheets are now created and the sheet set files are created.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

So much for the generation of View Frame Groups and Sheets in Sheet Sets.

What about the template that is used. Can we customize it to conform to our company standards?

I decided to start with a template that already exists. They can be found in this folder:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\C3D 2025\enu\Template\Plan Production

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

For the plan only template, only one viewport is included on the layouts.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

The Titleblock can be your own. In my case, I am using a Dynamic Titleblock for the suitability codes to be reflected. This is a simply a visibility state parameter.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

When you edit the Titleblock block itself, you  will notice that we used attributes that are relevant to each individual Titleblock and also attributes that refer to fields of the project (some are custom).

The easiest way to edit a Titleblock is to select it and then to click Edit it.

Insert Tab > Block Panel > Edit

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

It is automatically then the block that is selected from the list of possible blocks.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

This is the Visibility parameter for the Status / Suitability.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

If you double click on a parameter that was defined as a reporting a field, then it will be grey in the default field of the Edit Attribute Definition dialog.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

You can define your own attributes:

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

The Define Attribute Definition dialog is where you can reference a field to an attribute.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

In this case, it is referencing the Organization Description field of the Document category. We need this so that the drawing may conform to the ISO 19650 standard in terms of the full drawing name that will be printed on every sheet.

Civil 3D Plan Drawing Template

It is clear from what we discussed in this blog that it is not the easiest job in the world to set up the title blocks for a company if you want to use them within Civil 3D. Not only do you have to set up the title blocks for the different scales, but also for the scenarios where you want to include the long sections with your planned views. And then you also have to consider your sectional views.

It might benefit you therefore to contact us so that we may assist you with the creation of your title blocks if you are a new adopter of the software. At the very least guiding an initial understanding of the methods required to set up your own title blocks might be worth your while.

Especially with Civil 3D, the initial setup of your template is of critical importance, and you should not spend time trying to teach yourself from first principles, instead rather contract a power user for a while until you are comfortable and set-up.

While it would be unethical to leverage another companies intellectual property, these specialists often have institutional knowledge that they inherited from previous contracts and can leverage within your company.

At Micrographics we usually advised to start with the South African country template which is based on the American standard (this is because the software vendor is American) although it might be that you prefer the UK IE standards instead. These are also available in country kit form.

If you need help adopting the AEC Collection or the Autodesk Construction Cloud in your practice or you are looking to invest in hardware, please contact Micrographics so that we may be of assistance.

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