Residential Street Design - Designing from top of curbs to set crown elevation.

[cfiene]

We have one local municipality that requires us to design the profiles for the top of curb on either side of the roadway. The easiest way to describe this is to imagine a string stretched from one top of curb to another. (The left side might be higher than the right and vice-versa.)  The crown of the roadway needs to be one inch below that line. Is there a way to set the crown elevation as described? Inroads has a tool called vector offset where the controlling points can be identified and the critera set. I am pretty new to civil 3d and might be missing somethign here, but it seems that this is not possible.

Any help would be creatly appreciated.

[Joe-Bouza]

And both gutters typicaly follow indipendant gade lines, right?

you can design you tc profiles create asswmblies with only a curb, create the corridor surface with top links. the curb top links will connect like a string line. Then lower that surface 1"

create a surface profile for C.L using the string line surface

[Neilw_05]

Nice solution Joe. My question is, does the centerline need to be 1" below the average of the curb heights or 1" below the highest curb height? Joe's solution will provide the average (assuming the center is 1/2 distance between curbs). The latter will require a different solution.

[Joe-Bouza]

I took the string line literally, and this does cause flat spots on many residential streets that are obvious to the casual observer.

I've been dealing with these situations for years and then someone wants to know what the typical section is and I have to tell them there is nothing typical about it, follow the three grade lines on the plan.

[peterfunkautodesk]

Here is another possible solution:

1. Make a corridor from the two curb lines by adding a generic link that targets them. (omit the link and just use the points)

2. Make a surface from this corridor

3. Make a second corridor with the following

• at the center line a vertical offset of 1"
• from the center, generic links that target the curb lines (like above)
• Curbs added to the ends of these links
• Marked points added to the inside of the curb
• Link to maked point from the vertical offset to the marked points on the curbs.

These corridors will be dynamic and can react to changes in the 3 alignments and the 2 controlling profiles. The final CL profile can be extacted as a feature line and projected into the profile views if you desire.

Cheers,

Peter Funk

Autodesk, Inc.

[Neilw_05]

Hi Peter,

I may not understand your workflow correctly, but it appears to me your workflow would require establishing a centerline profile and create the corridor from centerline outward whereas the task requires establishing the centerline profile from the tops of curbs going inward to the centerline. Could you please clarify how your workflow would achieve this?

[peterfunkautodesk]

sorry about that... Make the profile for the CL from the surface created by the first corridor.

Peter Funk

Autodesk, Inc.

[Neilw_05]

Thanks for clarifying. So essentially the difference between your solution and Joe's is you don't use curb assemblies to create the sample surface, nor do you create an offset surface for the final profile. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[cfiene]

Hi Joe, Apologies for not responding earlier. Thanks to you and the others who responded. I ended up using Iroads, however in the future I want to use Civil 3d as the client has no prefeence to which software we use . . . I will give all solutions a try.

[Joe-Bouza]

HTH.

I missed the period after resonded at firs read and thought it said "......Thanks to you and the others who responded I ended up using Iroads!

English can be so funny at times. Cheers

[Neilw_05]

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@cfiene wrote:

I ended up using Iroads, however in the future I want to use Civil 3d as the client has no prefeence to which software we use . . . I will give all solutions a try.

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Hi,

I have been using Power Civil (Geopak flavor). I've been wanting to evaluate InRoads but haven't had the opportunity. If you don't mind commenting here, would you explain why you prefer C3D over InRoads?

[cfiene]

Hi Niel,

I am a long time Inroads/Microstation user and have only recently started using Civil 3d. So far the main advantages are the dynamic updates to designs and settings. They are ablolutely incredible. Change a profile, change an alignment, change a target . . sections, models, profiles, tables are all dynamically updated. Change the font or color of an alignment label . . everything updated . . i know inroad is trying to catch up and has added dynamic updates to styles and geometries. But they still have a ways to go. I mentioned the tabling capabilites of C3D . . . alignment reports, quantities, parcel reports . . . all easily added to the cad file. Inroads has many, many xml reports, but it is a process to get them into a cad file. Alot of our clients prefer to have tables added to the contract drawings . . C3D makes it alot easier.

I prefer the look and feel of C3D as well, it seems "fresh" if you know what I mean. I prefer the dialog boxes (panoramas) over inroads/microstation.

Creating contract plan and profile sheets are easier in C3D, especially since we have been using sheet sets for a while . .. Inroads plan and profile generator is very good as well, but setting up the tags for titles etc is cumbersome.

I am not discounting Inroads at all. Inroads and Microstation have thier advantages as well. I much prefer the dgn library, ucf, pcf files and the centralized xin file. It is much easier to control standards in Bentley products. Of course you can create wonderful templates in Civil 3d, but there is nothing preventing users from adding styles, layers, assemblies etc . . . These things are much easier to control in bentley products.

Templating in inroads is superior as well. I believe that they are much more flexible than C3d's assemblies. Naming points, point controls, etc are more advanced in inroads.

I also think that the Quantity Manager in Inroads is better than the QTO in Civil 3D.

They are both great programs, each has its distinct advantages.

As i say, i am fairly new to C3D and might be missing some things, but overall, it is a great program.

Hope this helps.

[cfiene]

LOL!! It must be the long island accent!! I was trying to thank you guys!!

[Neilw_05]

Thanks for offering your feedback. I too find the dynamic nature of C3D and Autocad's Annotation capabilities to be superior to Power Civil/Microstation in many ways, As I've never used InRoads I can't compare it with C3D for corridor modeling. I do find working with C3D corridors to be quite tedious and cumbersome, particularly when there are lots of variations between left and right edges of the roadway such as in urban areas. If InRoads is like Power Civil, you can create templates that automatically vary according to plan view line symbology. When you combine that with the new Civil Geometry capabilities in Bentley's civil products you have a very efficient way to design. Anyways, your feedback indicates to me that switching to InRoads would not resolve some of the challenges we've had of getting the design into annotated documents.

[cfiene]

One other thing I forgot to mention . . . intersection design is much easier in Civil 3D!

[Neilw_05]

Agian since I don't know Roadway Designer in either InRoads or Geopak (Roadway Designer is not included in Power Civil) I can't say this for sure, but I beleive the Geopak version has the Intersection tool while InRoads does not. At least it is available in the Geopak version of Power Civil. Still the intersection tool in PC is not as robust as C3D's tool so it would not be a apples to apples comparison.

As Bentley evolves it's Civil Geometry I expect there will be better tools for intersection modeling. In their present state the planar graphics from Civil Geometry are actually better than C3D as far as being dynamic, and I beleive we will see support for Civil Geometry elevation relationships soon.