I know I seem to spend most of my time talking about the vertical industry, so why not give the horizontal world a little love? Well, the relationship between Civil 3D and QTO has been around for a while but many may not have know about or may not know the process. So how about a Quick How to Guide for getting from C3D into QTO? Sound like fun? OK then, lets get started! This is post is meant to get you started and not show you all the tricks... Feel free to explore!
Start with a Civil 3D drawing or model. It can contain just about anything as you can assign the Civil 3D Pay Items to AutoCAD blocks as well as Civil 3D objects.
Open the QTO Manager located on the Analyze Tab.
Once the QTO Manager Opens Click on the "Save" icon and select Open Pay Item File.
This will open the Pay Item File selection box. From here you should be able to locate a Pay Item file. I like using CSV files since they are simple to build and easy to load.
From here select ok and it will take you back to your QTO Manager.
Here is a really quick CSV Pay Item file if anyone needs one to get started with: Download QTO-Complete
Begin selecting items that you want to assign your pay items to, I usually select 1 item and then use the Select Similar tool to grab all the corresponding items. Once you have them selected go to the QTO Manager (you will want to leave it open anyway) and Right-click on the items you want to assign the Pay Items to. Select from the list. In this example I select a group of fire hydrants and attached the pay items to the Fire Hydrant category.
Notice that after you have assigned and item (if you hover over the item) it now shows that this items has an assigned Pay Item
Next step is to create the DWF file, either 2D if you only have 2D geometry or 3D if you have 3D surfaces as well. You also need to export your Catalog information from C3D so that QTO will have some sort of record to what you have assigned. Save As Autodesk Takeoff Catalog. You will want this option if your working with QTO as it will allow you to import an ATT file right into QTO.
From here, use QTO as you normally would. Import your DWF files and your newly created catalog. Note, that with Pay Items assigned in QTO the Search Takeoff Tool works well to find the objects and get them assigned to the catalog.
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