What is the benefit of using corridors?

[ltmullen]

OK, I'm still pretty new to Civil 3D and quite frankly to the world of civil engineering in general (graduated college less than a year ago) so I realize I may sound kind of silly (maybe like a caveman asking modern folks why they would want to use silverware) in asking a question that probably has a rather obvious answer to some...but what is the benefit of using corridors rather than simply using all of the things that go into a corridor--alignments, surfaces, profiles, sections, assemblies (which I don't understand yet either)--independently?

Is it just for design visualization? Does it have any benefit for developing construction plans?

[neilyj666]

because all the objects you mention work together to make the dynamic model from which volumes can be computed, surfaces can be derived for final surface and earthworks outline (formation), sections can be cut and plans produced.

PS welcome to the wonderful and occasionally frustrating world of civil 3d.....

[ltmullen]

Thanks for the reply.

What I don't get though...is that you still need to develop all of those individual components on their own before you create the corridor, right? And then if you were to update the corridor, you would still be updating things sort of "one dimension at a time," right?

(I'm not trying to actually argue that corridors are pointless, I'm just asking these questions to understand).

Could you give an example of something that you could do that would only take one step with corridors that would take two or three steps without corridors?

[ericcollins6932]

Cant generate surfaces with only the components (at least not easily). The corridor makes it easy to gen surfaces and volumes.

[jeff_rivers]

In your list of things that go in a corridor you list alignments, profiles, and things that are used to create a corridor, but you also listed sections.  Sections are the output from a corridor, they are not used to create a corridor.  The corridor creates the sections. 

Now for something that's easy to do with corridors but very hard without, think of daylight lines.  The corridor calculates and generates all the daylight lines automatically and very quickly.  If I want to change a slope for some reason- let's say that in a particular region I have limited RW, and I have an approved deviation to use a steeper slope than normal- I can create a new region, copy and modify my road assembly, and rebuild the corridor.  Now I'll see the new daylight lines.

Or I could use the section editor and quickly step through and modify the daylight slope myself if it's only a few sections affected. 

But to calculate, by hand, the new daylight slope intercepts, then draw it myself would take far longer and would introduce the chance for error by miscalculating. 

Now for an even bigger example, imagine I've discovered that I can lower my road profile to improve sight distance over a vertical curve.  I grip-edit the proposed profile.  Done.  I've previously set the corridor and FG surfaces to automatically rebuild, and as soon as I'm done I have new cross-sections, new cut/fill volumes, new daylight lines, and all calculated automatically for me.

If I was to have to calculate the new cut/fill volumes by hand, I'd be spending far longer and would probably introduce calculation errors. 

That ability to push, pull, adjust, change, and experiment with my corridor is golden because I can see in real time what the effects are, and what their impacts are on my project with respect to all the physical constraints: right-of-way availability, utilities, existing structures, and so on.

[neilyj666]

...and of course any sheet sets that referenced the corridors would be updated as well.

[Joe-Bouza]

Welcome.

The road design process kinda starts with a typical section, right?

* alignments: your typical section is governed by that horizontaly
* surfaces: you can get one without a typical section but good luck revising it.
* profiles: your typical section is governed by that vertically
*sections: you can draw them by hand but wouldn't you rather have your typical section in it
* Assemblies: they are the building blocks of your typical section

whatch the getting started videos on your startup screen it should seal the deal