Problems entering information in manually for "Roads & Terrain"
I typically do not get the LandXML files from the designers. My problems were when I was trying to enter information in manually. Here were some of the problems that I encountered:
1) Regarding the Bridge tool in the Extensions tab, is there any documented workflow for entering the Roads & Terrain data manually? I ask this because we rarely get our hands on the LandXML files that Revit seems to prefer to load up and use. The data we typically get in the plans is PC, PT, and PI stationing/Northing & Eastings for each curve or segment of the roadway. When I looked into the help documents for the Roads & Terrain, specifically under “Road segment definition”, it says this:
“For a project with no data imported from a LandXML file: the Horizontal Alignment, Vertical Profile, Cross Section and Topography tabs are deactivated. You can only load the data from a LandXML file (Browse).”
This is confusing to me for a few reasons. One, it reads as “if you don’t have a LandXML file and are entering parameters in manually you can’t do this. You need the LandXML file.” Second, what they stated doesn’t seem to be true because when I opened up the Roads & Terrain I did not have the LandXML loaded and all those tabs were available for input.
The problems that I had trying to input data manually were as follows:
A) Road Configuration Tab – When I try to enter the begin station/end station for the segment I get an error saying: “The segment end cannot exceed the road length. The road length can be changed by the horizontal alignment.” Also, the Add/Delete buttons were grayed out so I could not add more than one segment.
B) Horizontal Alignment Tab - So when I go to the horizontal alignment tab to correct the road length I get this error: “Max length of each element cannot be larger than 6561 ft.” My segment length does not exceed that but it thinks it does because I cannot enter the start point data first because I get this error: “Segment end station cannot be smaller than start station.” I seem to be getting thrown into these circular error loops because each time I go to change something to appease an error, whatever I entered in before changes back to the default values.
2) What is the best way to load/place a custom family element into my project so that it asks me for the parameters that I defined earlier or do I have to place it and change the parameters after the fact? I have been using the “Place Component” method up until now.
Once the custom family element is in the project what is the best way to move it around to specific spots? Normally I would just use the move command, snap to a point on the object I am moving, then snap to a point where I want to move it to. The problem with this is I can’t seem to snap to a point where I want to move the object to. The objects that are already in the project don’t seem to be “snapable” and I couldn’t see any on/off toggle for object snapping.
