Pavement Markings

[ocastaneda]

Pavement Markings are an Important and Urgent matter when it comes to present preliminary concepts within a transportation project, not to mention when it goes for final design. Infraworks as a platform for PD&E studies, preliminary analysis and conceptual design tool has been way too short on this matter for me and for too long as well. As an example:

 

You can spend all the time necessary to produce a decent graphical representation for an intersection concept improvement, but the tools out of the box make it impossible (as they stand today), to have the different alternatives for pavement markings, other than the tedious and not very presentable workaround of coverage areas, or Civil 3D shape files import into Infraworks

Another critical example here:

I love how easy it is to check roundabout layouts for ROW impacts and such, bur is not realistic at all when it comes to presenting these concepts to City Engineers, or stakeholders, because pavement markings are a HUGE component of these concepts, stop bars, crosswalks, etc... In order for me to use these concepts I have to go over too many workarounds to make it technically sound to present it to a client, and this defeats the purpose of IW and what the concept Autodesk sale for it.

Infraworks should allows to:

1. Control pavement markings within linestyles for lanemarkings with more options (specially color). Be realistic, following the same concept of standards, (for me AASHTO 2011 as a clear example). 
2. Stop bars control over intersections, this one is a MUST.
3. Bike lane markings, specially over intersections where crossings and turning of these lanes are present.
4. Storage and turning lanes markings, we can manipulate the geometry of these lanes, but no option to mark them properly? (Same dashed white lane).
5. Crosswalks options, with a couple of ADA markings/signs alternatives to represent specific conditions for this matter.
6. Why intersections have no more styles?
7. Turning lanes markings, islands, safety buffers, etc.

These are just a few I can mention, but it will make a great start for us, transportation engineers... 

I agree with this post as well:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/infraworks-ideas/intersection-components-amp-styles/idi-p/6834819 by @Anonymous

and 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/infraworks-ideas/paint-markings-intersection/idi-p/6869702 vy @oriole_phillips

Thanks for your support and comments to complement this idea. It is good to know I am not the only one on this boat.

[lionel_boyes]

Infarworks has been around for years now and still no control over pavement markings, we as infrastructure designers are desperate to use infraworks as a main design concept tool but the lack of pavement marking tools prevents us from doing that. Clients and stake holders need to see the finished article, not a halfhearted attempt.

What is the delay, surely its not beyond autodesk developers to provide a pavement marking tool set? 

[Anonymous]

Yes Sir, Totally agree with you and appreciate the plug for My idea thread. Another major issue I find is that IW roads seem to "Must" connect to the center of other roads in order to "Create" an intersection. WHY? There are 3-4 main elements to the Roadway designers need in defining the Road, Centerline, Profile Grade (PG) if different from Centerline, Edge of Travel Way (ETW), and Edge of Shoulder (ES). There's plenty of examples where I want roads to intersect without that road connection being forced to the center of the connecting road.

Come'on Autodesk, all the effort you guys are putting into this software is all for not if Real World situations are so difficult to reflect easily with your software.

A Certain City project is wanting us to use IW software as a design tool for their project, but I have to tell them "No, because IW still have challenges that do not lend to a thorough workflow the truly show our final design."

We want to, but IW just isn't there yet.

[kksabah888]

Yes, its definitely a must to have a custom lane marking. Ditto when encountering junctions with priority lane. Would it be nice if designing a road with embedded lane marking styles (Eg Chevron marking, central island marking) and a dedicated icon for car park design (open space or multi-storey carpark.

[lionel_boyes]

Is it me or has our posts been sitting here for almost a year with no recognition by autodesk, are pavement markings taboo to the autodesk developers because considering road infrastructure forms a major part of the AEC collection and by definition individual design tools none of the main tools, properly provides a tool set for pavement markings (road markings in the UK) with the excretion of 3DS Max which has Civil view but that isn't a design tool it is for visualisation.

What do we have to do to get recognition for this shortfall in the software.

[andrewofabley]

I've spend some serious time making 'work around' paint markings, the proper tools really need to be added.

Also, please please PLEASE add splitter islands for the roundabouts! The styles and standards are all there in Civil 3D.....

My clients just don't buy into concepts that omit islands and a decent standard of paint marking.

[ramesh_sridharan]

We are actively looking into this capability. We fixed the shadow effect of the lane markings in the recent sandbox and approaching this next. We will keep you posted.

[ocastaneda]

This is great news @Anonymous thank you for the update. I know this is going to make many users very happy including myself!... it has been a long time waiting for this! 

[ramesh_sridharan]

Hi @Anonymous, @lionel_boyes @Anonymous , @kksabah888 , @andrewofabley and others,

We are actively looking into this feature now and would like to have a quick session to each one of you to make sure we are on the same page on specifications. Can you please reach out to me (ramesh.Sridharan@autodesk.com) to have a session to discuss?

Thanks,

[ocastaneda]

Hi @ramesh_sridharan 

I just emails you per your request. Please keep me posted. 

Thanks!

[ChrisRS]

Interesting  ,,,

I thnk that therte wqs some ptogress on this in teh 2021 release.

My understanding is that IWX is for conceptualization and preliminary (30%) design.

I would assume that the 30% to 100% design and plan production would be in Civil 3D.

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

My thinking is that the goal is 100% design/plans, out of Civil 3D. It seems to me that the C3D methodology needs to be tied down (at least known) before a supporting/compatible IWX preliminary/30% capability can be developed.

This was not the case with IWX Culvert design. There is no corresponding C3D 30-100% methodology.

This distinction is moot if you are the suspicious type that thinks IWX is intended as a C3D replacement.

Personally, I never learned LDT. I jumped right into C3D during the years that it was officially not intended to replace LDT.

[austin_jephson]

Thanks for the ideas, and the patience.  We are looking into how we can improve Road Markings in InfraWorks (lane striping, crossings, symbols, etc), from both a short and long term perspective - and we would like to start off by gathering a bit more information.  If you are interested, we would appreciate it if you could provide your thoughts, requirements and general input by taking this Road Markings in InfraWorks survey.  It should take no more than 10 minutes. 

https://autodeskfeedback.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6lOBXqcez5TxokB 

Thanks!

[jonsarkela5302]

2021, April.  Any updated news on this front?

[ramesh_sridharan]

@jonsarkela5302 There were few capabilities on customizable lane marking styles, colors, etc and enhanced visual aspects like shadow removals in IW 2020 versions. Have you tried that and looking for more?

[jonsarkela5302]

Using 2021.  Is there any instructional page you can point me towards for turning off road marking's shadows, or is that shadows for everything?    I'll search for what I can find and take a deeper look at the marking styles.

Still have no idea why elevated road markings (with shadows) would be a default.  Any reasoning behind why they were designed to have shadows or to explain why that hasn't been removed in 4 years?   If they need to be elevated to avoid touching surfaces that's fine, but removing the shadows from the default markings would help greatly.  It's the first question anyone asks me about every time I show them anything.   I've been scrubbing them out in photoshop afterwards when no other options exist.  However doing so in videos isn't a viable workflow option.

[jonsarkela5302]

Excuse me, still using 2020 version I guess.  Still looking into it.

[ramesh_sridharan]

@jonsarkela5302 there are some technical reasons related to visualization and undulating terrains for the offset but that should not be users problem. Hence we are handling that internally and there are no more shadows. Since there is no usecase to show or hide shadows, there is no option to do that for pavement markings.

My records show that this feature is available since IW 21.1.

[jonsarkela5302]

Well, 20.2.37.0 still showing shadows on component road markings I see.  Maybe someone using 2021 or up can confirm if that's been changed or not.   There shouldn't need to be a use case for a switch to turn road marking shadows on/off because they just probably shouldn't have ever been there.  Since they are/were, then there becomes a case for why there should be a switch to turn them off if they are to stay on by default.   I hope you are right that 2021 versions were able to remove them entirely.    Please, if someone can confirm that it would be helpful.

[ramesh_sridharan]

@jonsarkela5302 my bad. My records show that this feature is released with IW 21.1 release. 

[jonsarkela5302]

Yes, I see you've edited your prior post on which versions have the road marking shadow change.   Good to hear thank you.  I'll wait and hopefully get confirmation from another user of the 2021 app.  One day I'll hopefully be allowed to install it and confirm myself.  Still just getting into the editing of styles myself.

[ramesh_sridharan]

@jonsarkela5302 Yep, I thought it would be a good idea to avoid wrong information hanging around in the forum that can potentially cause confusion to the future users looking for an answer.

Also here is the link to the video of roadway enhancements in IW 21.1. For reference, users can check out the features in Autodesk Infrastructure YouTube channel.

Thanks for your support and feedback for InfraWorks. We really appreciate it.