wb-65 truck sweeps in autocad lt for mac

[mitchellbrothersconstruction]

Is there any way that you can show the path a wb-65 semi truck and trailer will take with autocad lt for mac?  I have to put together a site plan to determine if a piece of property is large enough to get the truck in and out.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

[Charles_Shade]

AutoCAD for Mac

You could draw a truck and rotate it from your center point of the curve or intersection and see if it fits.

Not sure of a way to "animate" an item thru a predetermined path in LT.

[mitchellbrothersconstruction]

Thanks but what I'm looking for is a way to show where each wheel will travel as the truck makes turns.  There is a way to do this with the full version for windows but I'm not sure if lt for mac has the same capability.  

[heinsite · Accepted solution]

The best way to do this type of analysis is with dedicated software such as AutoTurn (http://www.transoftsolutions.com/autoturn ).  But I don't know if it will run on a Mac or not.  You'll have to contact them. 

Short of that you have little other choice but to find out the specifics of the wheel paths for that vehicle and draw them in yourself.  This will help:  http://design.transportation.org/Documents/TurnRadii,GreenBook2004.pdf 

Dave.

[Charles_Shade]

Yes - One reason LT is $1000 and not $5000

[heinsite]

Yeah... with the full version of AutoCAD he would be able to use this AutoLISP routine:

http://autocad.wikia.com/wiki/Turning_path_tracker_(AutoLISP_application)

I bookmarked this one myself! 

Dave

[mitchellbrothersconstruction]

Thanks for the help.  It appears that you must have the full version and it has to be on a windows system.  It's a shame because I only use this for that purpose and it would be very difficult to justify spending the $5000 on the full version.  

[heinsite]

This always boils down to economics and how much revenue you're going to generate from the work.  If you do this sort of thing a lot then yes, it may be worth it to either upgrade to a full version of AutoCAD or purchase something like AutoTurn.. which may work in LT and/or in your Mac version.  You'll have to contact them.

For your current project it might be just as quick to draw out a scaled template for this particular vehicle and play around with it in your drawing.  I'd print the template to a PDF and then make it transparent in Photoshop.  Tweaking with it back in the drawing would make analysis a snap.  It's one of those work-around sacrifices we make when we don't have all the proper tools.

Dave.