The Frequency of Complex Corridors in Civil 3D

How frequently do our civil engineering project’s design challenges in Autodesk Civil 3D encounter the Complex Corridor?

For the Feature Line Only crowd – Those who choose to construct design surfaces with Civil 3D Feature Line or Grading methodologies - the answer is almost never. Whoyah?

The breakline-based, or linear, classic design grading process is well known and commonly employed.
Why? It works.
The nasty backside is the skills, annotative, and QAQC processes that Feature Line Only techniques demand are often Civil 3D user individualized, notably drawing centric, and demonstrably man-hour intensive.

We are not stuck with either or choices in Civil 3D.

The Frequency of Complex Corridors in Civil 3D

The Civil 3D Corridor tools endeavor to reduce those negative production cost issues. The Corridor hopes to improve and better manage our design options, QAQC methods, and the deliverables annotative work at the price of new and unique Civil 3D skill sets and best practices.

We continue to investigate the common design problem of roadway Civil 3D Turn Lane and Median Corridors to help us root out these productive alternatives.

Speaking of Feature Lines

Notably. the Corridor engine produces managed collections of Features Lines that may be shared across multiple project drawings. As we see in the Plan to Manage Civil 3D Corridor Creation post and video, how we plan our Corridor Baselines, Regions, and Sets of Assemblies effects all the Corridor collector results.

This planned effort is worth a quick video reprise…

 

Drive Corridor Feature Lines

Clearly, we need all the help we can get from Civil 3D to cope with the WTMI realities of Complex Corridors.

Corridor Feature Lines by Baseline and Region

Our abilities to view published and shared Data Reference Corridor results are not the same as those view capabilities for the original Corridor model itself.

Currently, we cannot control Corridor Feature Line production (or Region Frequencies for that matter) in Data Referenced Corridors. All the employed Subassemblies and their codes collected from the Region Assemblies and the many Region Frequency settings drive the published Corridor results. That includes the output Feature Lines.

In the original Corridor construction drawings, we can manage the Corridor results better. That includes the Corridor Feature Line output that is produced and the available, or potential, Corridor Surface data.

Multiple Styles and Corridor Visualization

In each of the videos is this series we show that in all Corridors we can always manage Corridor Feature Line visibility and display representations with an applied Code Set Style.

We must note that the Code Set Style is like a Layer State Manager for Corridor input (Assemblies) and all the many forms of output for a Corridor in Civil 3D.
See the important Code Set Style in Civil 3D post.

The current Corridor Code Set Style property is separate and different from the Corridor Style itself.

The Corridor Style is about the display of Assembly Frequencies, the Baselines, and the Regions of the Corridor model during construction. Corridor Style is not about the published Corridor output. That distinction may be confusing.

Manage Our Lust for Detail

For many Civil 3D users, it appears that it is way too easy to get sucked into the construction of detailed Corridor Surfaces too quickly. We want the Surfaces, don’t we? Surfaces and Feature Lines is what we do.

Here’s a serious question to consider…
Do we build our Corridor Surface(s) inside the Corridor model that we publish or construct those Corridor Surfaces from DREF Corridor model data?

A shared Corridor model that includes Corridor Surfaces with Corridor output Feature Line data is constrained by the Surface data references.

Many tend to add details into the initial stages of the multi-step design process that Corridors are best adapted to deliver. The result may be simply overwhelming. Corridor WTMI can certainly get in our way.

Let’s clarify some significant Corridor Region Frequency issues with a not-so-simple example…

 

Frequency Consideration in Site Grading Corridors

This video from the Site Grading with Corridors post and video series clearly demonstrates that the Assembly Frequency properties inside our Corridors are particularly important for us to learn to manage effectively. All too often the additional application of more applied Assemblies with their collection of Subassemblies and resultant Feature Line output creates unnecessary complexity problems for us.

If we find ourselves weeding extracted Corridor Feature Lines all the time, we might want to consider more applied Frequency restraint.

We don’t necessarily need or want lots of Corridor detail right now and right away.
Here I mean both the number of Feature Lines and the Point Code related detail in them.

One of many reasons why we employ Generic Pavement Structure Subassemblies in the Datum Surface construction Corridor seen in the Shared Design Control and Complex Corridors video.

The Wisdom of When is as Significant as the Know How to Do it.

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Complex Corridor Posts

Complex Corridor Frequency Posts