Create Road from designer information (PDF's)

[steven.oliver2ZTSK]

I'm looking help in regards to creating a 3D model of a road from designer information for a tender I am working on. The information I have include a longitudinal section, detailed plans, and road layout sections. The main issue is that the existing road is being widened at the certain points a different offsets from the centreline which is which I cannot just use the normal method of creating a alignment, profile, assembly etc.

[tcorey · Accepted solution]

Create your alignment, profile, assembly, and corridor.

Edit the Corridor Properties and add Targets where appropriate. This allows the lane (or other structure) to widen to match a polyline or alignment you have drawn in plan view, representing the widening specified in your PDF.

Another option would be to create the corridor with normal widths, but then use the Section Editor->Parameter Editor to widen to your known offsets at specific stations. 

[neilyj666]

I can never quite understand why it is thought acceptable to provide pdfs rather than CAD data...???

[steven.oliver2ZTSK]

Unfortunately it is a downside to tendering as designers are very reluctant to handover there models which I can understand but trying to create accurate models from PDF's can be very frustrating to say the least.

[neilyj666]

Tell me about it...this is always our first Tender Query..!!!!!!

Sometimes we get the CAD versions sometimes we don't but we always ask.

It tends to make a bit of a mockery of BIM and sharing information unless the consultants have something to hide...!!!!!

In the event we don't get the CAD files we use the PDFIMPORT functionality as a starting point which can work very well albeit everything is in 2D and levels generally appear as polyline objects. I find this workflow is more efficient than just XREFing a pdf.

[steven.oliver2ZTSK]

Thanks a lot for the help. Although its not perfect, its much better than i could get to previously and will work fine for the purposes of 4D visualization. Cheers