Adding parts to a part family - AutoCAD Civil 3D Tutorial

- In the last video, you saw how to add pipes to your parts list. Now let's take a look at structures. We're going to start the same way. I'm going to right-click Residential Storm and select Edit. This time, we'll go to the Structures tab and we'll add some of the structures that we need. Notice that there's always this placeholder called a Null Structure, and within that Null Structure part family is a single part called Null Structure. That's always going to be there, you can't remove it, so we'll add another one in addition to that. So let's start with our inlets. So I'll right-click and pick Add Part Family and I've got a whole list of options to pick from here, and I'm going to scroll down and pick a very simple structure. It's a rectangular junction structure and the NF stands for No Frame. Now, the parts that you see here come from something called Part Builder, and this is an environment where you can build your own parts, so the names can be customized, all the geometry can be customized, you can build these, really, any way you want. So what you have available here, in this view, comes with the software, but you can add to it. We're going to choose the Rectangular Junction Structure NF, for No Frame, click OK, and then we want to add some part sizes. And I want to add two types of inlets here. A very simple set of choices: One is going to be just an inlet and it will be two-foot by four-foot, and then we're going to have something called a yard drain, which will be two-foot by two-foot, so there's smaller areas that we maybe need to drain in and around the building. We'll add that as well. So I'll right-click and pick Add Part Size and I'll start with my larger inlet of 48 by 24. So I'll select the 48. Notice that we saw earlier that there was a situation where, if we picked one value here, it would automatically change the other, and that's not the case with this particular part. The inner-structure length and inner-structure width are completely independent, allowing you to come up with lots of different combinations of dimensions. So we're going to do a 48 by 24, click OK. Now, something we didn't look at in the previous video was changing the name of the structure. This is kind of a generic and lengthy name for this, and wouldn't it be much more efficient to just call it an Inlet? And if you're able to do that, if you're able to simplify the name, it will just make it that much easier to use the parts in your parts list. So now I'll add another part size. This one will be 24 by 24, two-foot by two-foot. Just click in the cell here for the name. I'm going to call this Yard Drain. All right, pretty simple there. Let's add another part family, and this is going to be a concentric cylindrical structure. You probably guess what this is; it's a manhole. So I'll check that box and notice the graphical preview that you get on the right to kind of just make sure you're picking the right object. That can be a handy way to make sure you're selecting what you, in fact, want to select. So I'll click that, and, this time, for my concentric cylindrical structure, when I pick Add Part Size, I'm going to go to Frame Diameter and check the box next to Add All Sizes. I'll go ahead and put in all of them. As I expand the list, I can see that there's a 48-inch diameter, 18-frame, so what changes is the frame diameter, going from 18, the whole way up to 48. As I look at that, I realize, you know, I really only need the 24-inch diameter frame, so I'm going to hold down my Ctrl key, select all of the options except the one with the 24-inch diameter frame, and then right-click and pick Delete. Now, here's another case where the name is pretty lengthy and kind of generic, so we're just going to call this Storm Manhole. Keep it simple. And then we're going to add one more part family, and that is our concrete rectangular winged headwall. So well check that box, click OK. And, for this one, I'm going to go ahead and add a part size again, and this time I will check the box next to Add All Sizes where it says Headwall Base Width, because I'm really not sure yet, maybe, what I need. I need to see it actually inserted into the drawing and take a look at how these available parts match up with the different pipes that I have, and then, later on, I can come in and remove, maybe, some of the parts that I know I'm not going to use. And by the way, that's an important thing to know: These parts lists can be modified at any time you're working through the project, so if you want to add part families or additional parts or take them away, you can do that at any time. So with that, we've added all the parts we're going to need for now, and we can focus on configuring the parts in the next video.