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    AutoCAD Civil 3D

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    Active Member
    Posts: 7
    Registered: ‎12-19-2012

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    12-19-2012 02:23 PM in reply to: Neilw

    This is exactly what I was trying to do. I didn't realize you could manage the offsets and tapers in the offset alignment properties!

     

    Consider this one solved!

     

    Cheers to all,

    Aaron

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    Valued Mentor
    fcernst
    Posts: 521
    Registered: ‎01-07-2011

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    12-19-2012 03:43 PM in reply to: Neilw

    He can just graphically slide the transitioning grips to change the Transition Segment length if he changes the length of the Parent alignment.

    Ernst Engineering
    Fred Ernst, PE
    C3D 2013 SP1, C3D 2014
    W7x64; i7 8gb; Radeon HD 5700
    www.ernstengineering.com
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    Valued Mentor
    fcernst
    Posts: 521
    Registered: ‎01-07-2011

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    12-21-2012 10:48 AM in reply to: aafulton

    You can do this also with the help of the Subassembly Composer and some API calls, no Offset alignments required.

     

     

     

     

    Capture.JPG

    Ernst Engineering
    Fred Ernst, PE
    C3D 2013 SP1, C3D 2014
    W7x64; i7 8gb; Radeon HD 5700
    www.ernstengineering.com
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    Active Member
    Posts: 7
    Registered: ‎12-19-2012

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    01-03-2013 03:39 PM in reply to: sboon

    Hi Steve,

     

    Your alignment drawing worked perfect. Could you explain how you actually went through the steps of creating the offset alignment and then tweaking the widening. Did you use some type of constraint or do it manually?

     

    Cheers,

    Aaron

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    *Expert Elite*
    sboon
    Posts: 1,440
    Registered: ‎11-08-2005

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    01-03-2013 04:30 PM in reply to: aafulton

    Start by creating a very basic centerline, just a straight line from your proposed start point to end point to get started.  Before you create any offset alignments you likely need to edit the default settings for the Add Widening command.  Otherwise your transition segments through curves don't work very well.  The default settings can also cause the command to fail, because the segment and transition lengths won't fit within the overall length of your alignment.  Here's what I'm using for the example drawing.

     

    Clipboard01.png

     

    Use the Create Offset Alignments command from the Ribbon then select one of the new alignments and use the little cyan + icon to create the default widening.  Once that's done you can select the alignment again and pick on the white dot in the middle of the transition.  This should turn on two new cyan grip points which allow you to drag the start and end of the transition.

     

    Clipboard02.png

     

    You cannot move them to the absolute ends of the centerline alignment (if you do then the transition disappears and you have to recreate it) but you can use the station-offset transparent command to get them close enough.  The idea is to have that one transition cover the entire length of the centerline.

     

    Once you have all of that done you can go ahead and start editing the centerline to add PI's and curves etc.  Note - you can also try to do this step first, but I've sometimes had difficulty creating the widenings if the centerline already has complex geometry.

     

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    Active Member
    Posts: 7
    Registered: ‎12-19-2012

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    01-06-2013 05:47 PM in reply to: aafulton

    Great Advice!


    My problem seemed to be fixed by changing the default settings.

     

    Thanks to everyone for their spectacular help.

     

    Cheers

    Aaron

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    *Expert Elite*
    BrianHailey
    Posts: 2,436
    Registered: ‎04-27-2005

    Re: Transitions Between Assemblies

    01-06-2013 08:06 PM in reply to: sboon

    sboon wrote:

     Before you create any offset alignments you likely need to edit the default settings for the Add Widening command.  Otherwise your transition segments through curves don't work very well.

     


    I KNEW there had to be some way of changing that! Thanks Steve!

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