Profile Masking

[rdlongbow]

It would be useful to be able to mask profiles the way that you can mask alignments. To get what our clients want for a profile view, we need to create 3-viewports and go thru a few gyrations to get things to look right. Being able to mask the EG, FG and text, and leave the grid, would make our jobs much easier.

[publicworksengineer]

second.

[rdlongbow]

The command CONVERTLINEWORKTOMASKBLOCK does the job now. Previously, when used on profile text, the un-masked text all changed to TXT font. It would still be nice to be able to specify a User Range and get the finished product I need without the extra steps just like the Automatic Station Range.

[yee-fan]

Darn.  I third it.  I was just about to start a new post asking how to mask profiles.  Currently I have to split up the profile views, and it's a pain to deal with my bands at odd stationings.

[troma]

I think you should be able to assign different styles to each component  of a profile.

[yee-fan]

Sorry, can you clarify that?  I would like to stop showing one profile at station 55+05.35, say, and start another profile at that same station.

[troma]

I think you should have one style that applies to the whole profile, but also be able to override it for each individual tangent or curve within the profile.  This way you could have a profile that changes from continuous to hidden, or to a no-plot style for a portion of its length, and then back again to the default style.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, coz you certainly can stop one profile and start another at the same station.

[yee-fan]

I want to continue my profile view, but show only part of my profile in the middle of the profile view.

The controlling factor is the station limit, and could be in the middle of a tangent or a curve.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying.

[publicworksengineer]

I have no idea what troma is talking about either. I think maybe troma has misunderstood the problem. From the original poster: "It would be useful to be able to mask profiles the way that you can mask alignments."

[troma]

I've never tried or needed to mask an alignment, so that's probably where we're missing each other.  But my idea still stands as a wish.  If the subcomponents of a profile could be put on differnet styles it would give you the flexability to hide or show as much of a profile as you want.

[rdlongbow]

I can see where troma is coming from, and having different styles will work for the profiles, but not for labels where a vertical begins on one profile, and ends on the next. Convertlineworktomaskblock takes care of this nicely, except now I'm having the old problem of it changing the font on some of the profile text. I'm willing to put up with that glitch for now as I'm getting what I want in my profiles.

[el_nath]

I mask offset alignments through intersections. The profiles associated with these offset alignments also need to be masked. The work around is to create several design profiles at different stations, and then overlay the band data on top of each other (negative band offset). This can become very tedious and monotonous, and it is far from ideal; you certainly cannot pass the model onto someone else to work on without a long explanation. If I want to show a top of curb profile, I shouldn't have to create 5 separate profiles, just to avoid displaying the profile through the intersection.

Mask, mask, mask.

I would like to propose adding masking points to the alignment geometry points to label (masking start, masking end), and if masking is made for profiles, do the same.