AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

I am currently running a trial version of C3d. I currently use PDS (England) and want to see if it's worth switching. I'm trying to create a profile (long section) of an alignment which shows the cross sections of another alignment it is to connect to so that I can fix the start of the vertical alignment of Road 2 at the channel level of Road 1. How can this be done or is there another way of fixing this level to the first designed road channel or crown?

Also, I would like to edit the channels and crown to cross fall from left to right along a straight length of the alignment for about 30m with transitions start and end of about 15m from and back to a balanced. Is there an editor which will allow this to be done?

Sorry for the questions but I'm trying to design two simple roads as a trial and I'm not yet convinced C3d can do it as quick and easily as I do now!!

[#2]

Try using the  intersection tool this should do everything that you want very easily, it has a wizard that can walk you through the steps, have a quick look at the help and you should be able to figure it out

[#3]

Watch the getting started videos for intersections.

I'm sure that if I opened up PDS for the first time, I may not be convinced it can do faster what I already know how to do either?

Civil3d is not something you can simply open and design with there is a learning curve and a trail of crushed egos through the history of these pages. Yet most come around in time. Me being one of them.

As the saying goes you simply need to understand the basics......

But with many things.... It usually takes a while to get the basics down though.....

But remember: "If you are forced to eat an Elephant, don’t complain about it; Take one bite at a time."

[#4]

Ok, I have done the tutorial videos, accessed the help and even bought a book, but none answer my question: how do I tie-in the start of a vertical alignment with the channel of another at a junction?

I have attached some images to highlight the problem. It seems such a fundamental part of basic highway design that I must be missing something obvious here!!.

Also, I applied some superelevation to a curve and the kerbs and footway features did not move relative to the cross fall gradient; see attached.

Can anyone answer these simple questions for me?

[#5]

Out of curiosity, which book did you purchase?

[#6]

If you use the intesection wirzard you can lock the levels to the primary roads levels other wise you have to do in manually in the profile geometry editor window see a screen capture here

http://c3dxtreme.blogspot.com/2011/04/manually-lock-and-unlock-pvi-in-profile.html

Justin Rlaston

[#7]

I understand how the junction wizard works in principle but in practice I'm still having trouble working out how this is applied to the vertical geometry of each alignment at the junction. For example, as far as I can gather vertical alignment designs can only be done independent from one another therefore you will have a level difference between one vertical element and another, say 1m higher, for argument sake. Are you suggesting that the junction wizard then automatically lowers the level to match the channel level? If so how is this done in relation to the rest of the vertical geometry? How is then reflected in the long section for this alignment? Say I want to fix the first 10m of the vertical alignment at 10% from the intersection channel level of the other alignment? How is this achieved without having to interrogate the channel level and putting inputing this manually? I'm sorry if I sound negative, but I'm at the first hurdle and I can't seem to get over it!!

[#8]

You could create a surface for the carriageway you are tying into and make it display in your profile.

Or as has been said above there are geometry constraints in the intersection wizard which will adjust the initial section of your alignment.

The PDS junction facility is much easier to use but has less flexibility to control final levels although this has never proved a problem to us.

[#9]

Hi

As summarised above, this workflow isn't completely automated in Civil 3D but there is a semi automatic way of achieving it with temporary corridor surfaces.

You might like to have a read of Dana Probert's blog article on this as a good illustration.

I think you should be able to figure out how to apply to your situation.

http://bimontherocks.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/03/using-temporary-corridors-and-surfaces-to-drive-d...

This is quite an elegant solution, especially if you can set all your corridors to build automatically, this means that with any design change all the section views reflect current corridor surfaces.

Wrt the kerb (curb) SA responding to super elevation, some of them do and some of them don't, you don't say which you are using. It depends how they are written. You can look in the help for the individual SA and look at the input parameters for "Use SE" typically that is set to "True" if it is there.

regards

Ian