How to label RW lines in section views

Civil3D 2008

May 12, 2009

Jeff Rivers

Assume: The working drawing contains a C3D surface is ready for a corridor to be modeled. In this example the EG surface came from LIDAR data and the roadway centerlines are from GIS data. The proposed corridor will be a symmetrical widening about the GIS centerline. The corridor assembly will use the LaneOutsideSuper subassembly, the DaylightGeneral subassembly, and the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly.

Before beginning the corridor model the RW lines need to be turned into alignments. In this example the GIS polylines were cleaned up, trimmed, and joined; then the “Create Alignments from Polylines” command was used to create the RW alignments.

The LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly will target the EG surface along the RW alignments and insert a point called RW on every sample line at every point on the surface where the subassembly finds the RW alignment. The point will insert a marker called “RW Marker“ at every RW point. When the section views are drawn the section view will insert a label called “RW Label” at every RW Marker. For this to work the Snoco Basic code set needs to contain a new code to control the RW Points, Markers and Labels, and the subassemblies need to have the RW point code entered in their point code tables.

1 Create the Marker style, Point style, Code Set style, and RW Label.

1.1 Open up the Prospector and Expand the General | Multipurpose Styles | Marker Styles entry, right-click, and select New…

1.2 In the New Marker Style dialog box create a marker style with the name RW, set the Marker to be “AutoCad Point”, and you may also set the display Off using the display tab if you wish, to keep the marker symbol from displaying in the section views.

1.3 Select OK to close the New Marker Style dialog box.

1.4 Move down to the Code Set Styles entry and expand it.

1.5 Right-click on the Snoco Basic code set style and select Edit…

1.6 In the Code Set Style dialog box select the entry for Point codes, right-click, and select Add…

1.7 In the Pick Marker Style dialog box scroll down and select the RW marker you created earlier.

1.8 Click the Point Code Name in the Point Code list to edit it, and re-name it to RW.

1.9 Back in the Prospector expand the “Label Styles” entry, right-click “Marker” and select “New…” Use the Label Style Composer to create the RW label. This is the label that will appear in the Section Views. In the example below the label has two components, Text and Line. Use the same values.

2 Create the corridor assembly and model the corridor.

2.1 Create your corridor assembly as you normally would. In this case the assembly uses a left and right LaneOutsideSuper subassembly and a left and right DaylightGeneral subassembly.

Be sure when you create your assembly that you select the Snoco Basic code set style:

2.2 Now add the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly to your assembly. This is slightly different than adding a normal subassembly. The LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly does not have a setting for Left or Right side. Select the subassembly from the Imperial-Generic palette. The command prompt will read “Select marker point within assembly or [RETURN for Detached]”. Click the marker at the top center of the assembly. Select Enter. The command prompt will now read “Specify location for subassembly”. Select a point in the blank space on the left side of your assembly, and hit return. A marker will appear at the point you selected. Select Enter one more time.

2.3 Now you may enter the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly for the right side while the subassembly edit command is still active by following the same steps, but if you will have a left and right link subassembly you may not be able to tell which is the left side and which is the right side later in the process. So select Enter to end the command, and right-click your assembly and select “Assembly Properties…”

2.4 In the Assembly Properties dialog box select the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly and rename it to include LEFT or RIGHT as appropriate. In the Input Values section, set the Omit Link value to Yes, clear the point codes and enter RW as the only point code.

2.5 Follow these steps to add the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly to the right side of your assembly, rename it, and set its Link Value and Point Code Value accordingly.

2.6 Your finished assembly will look similar to this. Note the markers for the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassemblies at the far left and right sides. They do not appear to be attached to the main assembly insert point.

2.7 Continue with building the corridor. Set the target mapping as you normally do to follow the desired profiles and daylight to the correct surface. For the LinkOffsetOnSurface subassemblies set them to daylight to the EG surface, and set them to target the Right-of-Way alignments.

2.8 In the example corridor target mapping below, the assembly is only widening one side of a roadway, so there is only one LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly.It is set to target the EG surface called LIDAR, and to target the Right-of-Way alignment called “ROW-N1”. If you are modeling a corridor using an assembly which has a Left LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly and a Right LinkOffsetOnSurface subassembly you will map each one to the surface and to its respective RW alignment.

2.9 Verify that the proper codes are set. In the Corridor Properties dialog box go to the Codes pane, and check that the Points table contains the entry for the RW marker and the RW Label.

3 Create Sample Lines and Section Views

3.1 Create the Sample Lines. Be sure that the sample line section code style is set to “Snoco Basic” in order for the sample lines to pick up the new RW code and apply the RW label. If the RW labels do not appear when you create your sections, double-check that the Snoco Basic code style has been applied to the assembly, the corridor, and to the sample line groups.

3.2 Create a section view or multiple section views. The Create Section Views dialog box should show that the corridor section style is set to “Snoco Basic” but double-check it.

If your sample lines do not see the “Corridor” surface, or the code set, be sure that you are using the same alignment for the sample lines as you are using for the corridor baseline!.. If your corridor baseline is, say, a sawcut alignment and you set your sample lines using the RWCL alignment, you will not be able to sample the corridor and connect to the code set.

3.3 Your finished section views should show a vertical line and RW label at the RW lines in your

corridor.

Adjust the settings of the RW Label style to tweak the appearance of the RW label and line to suit you. In this example the line is 2 units tall with a Y-offset of -1 unit so that the line is divided evenly, half above the section and half below the section. The RW text height is 0.2 units with a Y-offset of 1.1 to put it just above the top of the line. The color is set to Cyan and the linetype is set to ‘Hidden’.