Problems with turnouts and bspline

Hi to all, 

I am quite a beginner of OpenRail and I am using it it to test some workflows in producing alignments from shp/dgn files. I don't even know if the workflows I am doing are intended or if I am forcing the program with bad workarounds.

Input data: horizontal alignment as a Dgn or shp file extracted from QGIS. 

My goal is to get an alignment upon which I can put turnouts. My attempts have been:

1)Get the geo-referenced shp as an attach ref --> merge into master --> Apply civil rule --> Create Complex. RESULT: no spirals or transition curves, the complex geometry is heavy as hell and slows down the pc. However, I can put turnouts on this.

2) Create directly a complex geometry from the lines of the dgn/shp, without apply civil feature--> it turns out a more managble geometry which does not slow down the pc, but I can't place turnouts because it says that it is a bspline.

3) Get the shp/dgn file, then Create Regression Line --> Horizontal Regression --> The problem it creates weird lines with no sense. I am attaching picture for reference...the zig-zag red line is the output of Horizontal regression.

However, these three attempts are also far from what I desire, i.e. a good alignment with tangents, transition curves and spirals. From a course I have another alignment in .alg format, and when I apply civil rule to its elements they are correctly generated. The problem with these course is that datasets are always too nicely set up, and when you have other files from real situation they don't work Disappointed

I have very few time to perform other workflows or attempts...and from the forum, youtube videos and videos on bentley platform I cannot find nothing that can solve my problem. 

Thank you for your help!

  • The main question here is: what do you have in the shp or dgn? Do you have element with lines, arcs, linestring?

    You should have at least elements such as tangents and arcs.

    Linestring or bspline are not really usable as alignment to place turnout on. Turnouts are parametric and can be bent along curves. It is not designed to be placed along linestring.

    Then there is a workflow if you have linestring to find best fit geometry (lines, arcs) along the points and fill gaps with spiral. This is using regression workflow (or best fit  alignment depending on what you want to achieve and accuracy).