Road signs that follow road curvature

[jc.zamora.29]

Hi All,

I'm working for a traffic management company and we use a lot of cad blocks for our road signs. We plan the placement of road signs and follow specific standards. I've made a "combo" block with a specific arrangement and spacings as we use them frequently in this order. The problem is they only work on a straight road. We usually explode them and rotate them to follow curved road. So what i did is add a rotate function for every part or the combo, the problem is the signs are perpendicular to the dimensions and not the road. And so i added a chain rotate so that the signs rotate 50% when you rotate the proceeding part. This will keep the signs perpendicular to the road, but i think i messed it up. It only works when you rotate from 3rd part going up to the first part. The signs move out of their place when you rotate from 1st part going down to 3rd part. Anybody who can help me with the proper actions? My main goal for the signs to be placed in order with proper spacing and be perpendicular to the road, if anybody has another idea in doing this, that would be great. My first idea is for me to make a block that automatically snaps and follow a curved polyline but that is ambitious and so im sticking with manual rotate for now. Thanks for anyone who can help.

[hwalker]

Why don't you make one block with different visibility states for all the different signs you need and then use the ARRAYPATH command? See the link below

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/AutoC...

[jc.zamora.29]

I don't think i get what you mean or am i just missing something? I need those exact series of signs in order and with the right spacing to follow the curvature of the road. If i used array, i will need to repeat the process a lot of times cause the signs are only repeating once per street. I've attached a sample plan on where we apply them. We usually place a set of sign per street, that's why i made the whole set as a "combo". That would be easy if the road is straight, i could just copy every "combo" per street. But if the road is curved, i would need to adjust the signs one by one. 

[hwalker]

See the attached drawing.

The top part is a block arrayed along a path.

The bottom part is after I've exploded the array and then changed the visibility state of a few of the blocks.

If you look at the block you will see it has multiple visibility states for different items.

[jc.zamora.29]

I get what you mean now, i like the idea. But i think it still a longer process - cause we usually have 3-4 signs max per street, and if we have 20 streets to put signs on, we have to do array 20 times, explode them all, change every single sign so around 60 to 80 signs to be changed. We also use hundreds of signs, for example our speed sign block has 9 visibility states - from speed 20 to 100, advanced warning signs which have few visibility states in itself. For the array to work, we have to combine all those signs to 1 block with hundreds of visibility states. Thank you very much for your reply though, it's much appreciated, i could apply this idea to other things.

[Libbya]

The attached file fixes the issue you were having and allows the same results whether going 1-3 or 3-1.  There is still an issue with the fact that your 1/2 rotation speed is only correct 1/2 of the time.  I believe that is intrinsic to how you are accomplishing the 1/2 rotation speed and I do not know a way to fix it.  

[Libbya]

I played with it a bit more.  Here's one more version.  This makes the chained rotate parameters the same diameter as the ones that are not chained.  That corrects the incorrect movement.  With this version, the 1/2 speed rotation is always correct but jumps 180 degrees at the 180 degree point of the main rotation in order to make up the difference.  I think you will want to add another point in order to make the 3rd sign perpendicular to the road.  

[Libbya · Accepted solution]

Oops, wrong file attached to that last post.  Here's the right one.

[jc.zamora.29]

Thanks! I could work with that.

[roslansanensanen]

picture signange advance warning and speed limit