Creating Long Section of curved profile

[felixfly]

I have a problem i'm trying to solve and wondered whether anyone can help.

I'm trying to create a long section of a tunnel in AutoCAD. I have the 3D profile of the tunnel and this goes left, right, up, and down so is a 3D centreline.

What I'm trying to do is to show a 2D side view of this line showing how it goes up and down. It needs to be longitudinally accurate though so I can't just show a side view as that won't take into account the left & right turns and won't give accurate gradients. 

The best way to describe it is to imagine a piece of string that you then pull tight, I still want to show the up and down gradients though.

Any ideas?

[CodeDing]

@felixfly ,

What vertical of AutoCAD are you using? (Vanilla, C3D, Map?)

Also, what type of "Line" are you using for your 3D profile?

Can you post an example dwg?

Knowing these will help others understand your situation better.

Best,

~DD

[felixfly]

Hi

I'm using Vanilla AutoCAD. I'm thinking I would need Civil3D to create an alignment or corridor of some sort but I'm not proficient in C3D. Just wondered whether there was any way to do it in AutoCAD? I would need a curved section plane that follows the tunnel centreline in plan view.

The geometry will come in the form of a 3D Microstation model. I don't really have an example as I'm trying to decide whether I can take on the job or not. Basically it would be a section through the centre showing a tunnel rising up and down from the side view but stretched out rather than projected so that it was a uniform length on the drawing.

[CodeDing]

@felixfly ,

Thanks for getting back, good to know. 

I would not know how to create that profile in regular AutoCAD. It is not so simple. It would probably require a cumbersome custom routine. 

Sounds like a job for C3D for sure. You would just make an alignment then a profile.

Wish I could help more.

Best,

~DD