AUD and ABD are coming to Civil 3D

Expanding choice for designers

By Brad Irwin, VP Distribution Design

At SBS, we believe intelligent automation works best when customers have clear choices about how and where they adopt it. Automated Utility Design (AUD) and Automated Broadband Designer (ABD) have been built and delivered on AutoCAD Map 3D, which has been a strong foundation for utility and broadband design. Increasingly, however, we hear from customers who want the flexibility to apply that same automation in Civil 3D, based on project requirements, organizational standards, or how civil and utility work come together.

We are pleased to announce AUD and ABD will be available and supported on Civil 3D in early Q2 of 2026.

A Broader Set of Options

As our customers’ environments evolve, so do the tools they use day to day. For many teams, Map 3D remains the right fit. For others, Civil 3D plays a growing role depending on the type of work being delivered and how projects are organized across disciplines.

Civil 3D is already used to design a wide range of infrastructure, including electric, gas, and broadband networks, along with transportation corridors, alignments, grading, and other civil elements. In many organizations, these components already coexist within the same Civil 3D models, making it a natural place to also apply utility design automation when coordination, context, and cross-discipline visibility matter most.

Our goal is to support that reality.

By extending AUD and ABD to Civil 3D, we are giving teams more flexibility in how they deploy SBS automation without changing the underlying design intelligence that makes it valuable. The same standards, rules, and constructability logic apply. The difference is simply the Autodesk environment in which that work happens.

This approach allows organizations to align SBS with their preferred workflows, whether that means staying on Map 3D, incorporating Civil 3D, or supporting both across different teams and projects.

What to Expect as This Comes Together

As with every SBS platform expansion, our focus is on consistency and production readiness:

• The same standards-driven automation customers rely on today
• The ability to leverage native platform data as design inputs
• Attribute-rich outputs suitable for downstream GIS, estimating, and work management
• A deployment model that avoids fragmenting rules, templates, or governance

In practical terms, customers can deploy AUD and ABD on Map 3D or Civil 3D in a way that fits their organization, without creating parallel systems or additional overhead.

A Familiar, Deliberate Approach

This will feel familiar to those who have followed our work on BIM Substation Designer. We are taking a measured approach, working closely with customers, validating workflows, and prioritizing long-term sustainability over speed alone.

Our Driving Purpose Remains the Same

SBS will continue to focus on delivering design tools that help customers do more with less by applying automation, connecting design to enterprise systems, and enforcing standards early in the design process to support faster, more reliable project delivery.

We will share more as this effort progresses. In the meantime, if you are thinking about how Map 3D and Civil 3D fit into your future design workflows, contact us here.