Two Powerful Updates to Corridors in Civil 3D 2017

While teaching a Civil 3D 2016 class one of my students asked “Can you create a corridor from a feature line?” At the time, the answer was “No, you can’t.” In order to create corridors in Civil 3D 2016 and earlier releases, an Alignment and Profile were required for the horizontal and vertical geometry information. In Civil 3D 2017, the answer is absolutely “Yes, you can," no Alignment or Profiles required. If your feature line has elevation data you get a corridor from that. Yes! And not only can you create a corridor from a feature line, you can also share it across the project team by creating a data shortcut. 

If you have been waiting on the sidelines, wait no more – these two productive corridor updates are enough to justify upgrading to Civil 3D 2017.

With the ability to create data shortcuts for corridors and use them in multiple drawings you can split a huge corridor into multiple drawings and get a performance boost, resulting in a huge time saver; you can create a corridor in one drawing and use it in another.

This does change the workflow of creating cross sections from a corridor. Prior to this, you had to XRef the corridor drawing – that lead to a performance lag because you ended up working with the whole drawing even though you just needed a corridor. With this shortcut you load only the corridor, which is huge in terms of productivity gains.

The pre-2017 workflow would be to create an Alignment and then a Profile view. You had to make sure the Profile view displayed the right elevation so you could create a layout Profile, and only then would you be able to create the corridor (assuming you did not create an existing surface Profile).

The 2017 process doesn’t replace Alignments or Profiles because you cannot create data shortcuts for a feature line, yet. But this new method does gives you an option other than projection grading, aka grading object. Meaning, this will work great for parking lot grading, which has many feature lines for which creating an Alignment and Profile for each feature line is too time consuming and impractical.

So, create a corridor from a feature line and share it using data shortcuts – two powerful corridor updates that save a ton of time and easily justify upgrading to Civil 3D 2017.

Watch this video to get started!

Don’t forget to look through other great features our Ideate Technical Team has found in the new 2017 releases for Civil 3D, Navisworks, Revit Architecture, AutoCAD (and more) on our Ideate Solution Blog.

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Guarav Bagga

Senior Application Specialist Infrastructure 

Gaurav is a Senior Application Specialist for Infrastructure Solutions at Ideate based out of San Francisco. He has over 18 years of experience in construction and related software industry. With this extensive design technology background he helps engineering and surveying companies, federal and state government agencies, and ENR 500 firms critically analyze and improve their construction drawing production process. He implements Civil infrastructure design technology led by InfraWorks and Civil 3D and has helped Ideate grow Civil Infrastructure Services. Being an industry recognized speaker he has presented cutting edge design technology at several industry conferences such as Autodesk University. Find Gaurav on Twitter.

Dynamically Linked Corridor Profiles

Recently, a couple customers asked me how to create a dynamically linked corridor profile along a top-of-curb or flowline in Civil 3D.  They wanted to monitor the corridor elevation data along a particular feature line against a frontage road or pipe network.  I typically suggest Option 4 described below. But, decided to explore profile creation alternatives and discuss the pros and cons of each.

Option 1: Create Profile from Corridor
This tool is available from the Home>Create Design>Profile fly out which creates a profile from a corridor feature line.  The profile is added to the corridor's baseline alignment collection in the prospector and is automatically drawn in the profile view. 

Upon creation you'll notice a unique icon (See below...) in the prospector that gives the impression that this profile is dynamically linked to the selected feature line.  It is not.
 

Pros:
o Easily create a profile from a corridor feature line.
o Can be labeled with all profile label sets.

Cons:
o The profile is Static.

Option 2: Create Surface Profile - Sample Offset
First create a corridor surface using the subassembly Top links with overhang correction. Next "Create Surface Profile" using the corridor baseline with a Sample Offset value equivalent to the offset distance to the desired corridor feature line. The profile is added to the corridor's baseline alignment collection in the prospector and is automatically drawn in the profile view.

Pros:
o The offset profile dynamically updates.
o Can be labeled with all profile label sets.

Cons:
o Requires a corridor surface and a few more steps than Option 1.
o The profile is sampled only at a specific offset distance from the baseline and may not follow the corridor feature line.

Option 3: Offset Alignment- Create Surface Profile
This option is very similar to 'Create Surface Profile - Sample Offset' except you use the Offset Alignment tool and then generate a surface profile from the corridor surface.  The surface profile will then need to be superimposed upon the corridor baseline alignment's profile view from either the contextual ribbon or from Home>Create Design>Profile fly out.

Pros:
o An offset alignment can follow a corridor feature line more closely through Add Widening.
o The offset alignment profile dynamically updates.
o Can be labeled with all profile label sets.

Cons:
o Requires a corridor surface and a new offset alignment.

Option 4:  Dynamically Linked Corridor Feature Line - Project Objects to Profile View
From the corridor's contextual ribbon or from Home>Create Design>Feature Line fly out, select the desired corridor feature line.  In the Create Feature Line from Corridor dialog, ensure that "Create dynamic link to the corridor" is checked and that you give the feature line a descriptive name. Once created, select the desired Profile View and from the contextual ribbon, choose Project Objects to Profile View.

Pros:
o Requires the least number of steps to create a dynamically linked corridor profile.
o Best at displaying elevation data of a corridor feature line along its' actual alignment.
o Non-corridor feature lines can also be projected onto the baseline profile view.
 
Cons:
o Only basic Profile View labels are available for a projected object.

Note: To remove projected objects from a Section or Profile View, see this short video http://autode.sk/1WCZLW6

 

Thank you for reading. For more information on other Autodesk products, and information on training and consulting for the various products Ideate services, visit our website at www.ideateinc.com.

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Daniel Armstrong

ENI Application Specialist 

Daniel is an Application Specialist for Infrastructure Solutions at the Ideate Sacramento office. He is a California licensed Civil Engineer and LSIT with over 9 years land development design experience and 7 years Civil–GIS software consulting. Additionally, he provided 6 years of engineering support at a municipal public works department. At Ideate, Daniel assists Civil Engineering and Surveying firms in maximizing their utilization of AutoCAD Civil 3D through consulting, training, mentoring, and technical support. He conducts standard classroom and custom training on AutoCAD, Map 3D, and Civil 3D.