just a few thoughts how to make software better and more user friendly.
When adding point control to corridor new entiers are added in Corridor Object to point control list. There few two issues tha affect productivity badly and one can be critical to any project.
For point control reference objects we use corridor points, external terrain model features and additional civil geometry graphic stored in separate dgn file. Basicly most of point control features are stored in separate dgn files and are attached to active corridor as a reference (Microstation Reference Manager).
1) When an object used as point control is deleted the entry from Point Contol list in Corridor Object is deleted as well. User has no feedback that one or a few point controls are missing. They are vanished from the list with no notice. It happend that a reference path for a file that stored point contol lines was lost in reference manger. This way we lost half of point controls we created in our corridor. It happens that user acidentaly deatache external reference file or an objet used as point contorl is deleted. A lot of rework is needed to set all point controls over again.
I am sure that when object used for controling points is missing the point control entry in Corridor Object shouldn't be deleted. We should get some kind of feedback. EG with red colour that sth is missing. It works that way in Inroads SS2.
That was the critical one.
2) At first glance it looks that Point Controls use object name to contol location of template point along corridor. In Corridor Object there is a list of linear objects that can be used as point controls in a given corridor. All featurized and named object that are in active file or in reference files are listed there. And here is the problem. Objects are listed by names. When there are few objects with the same name available for corridor (let ssay you have object EOP in reference A.DGNand object EOP in reference B.DGN) there is only one instance of EOP available on the list. Moreover you can not switch objects used for controling points by making graphical edits (no locate button to change linear object used as point contol feature) - graphical edits will not work here...
I think that linear objects used for contolling points shoul be listed sth like this: filename:featurename. Again it worked that way in Inroads SS2. It was easy to switch objects used as point controls even when this object was moced from one DTM or ALG to another. When object was deleted, the Point Control entry was still there and the collor of missing object's name was changed to red.
In SS3 it only looks that software use object name for contolin points. It uses element ID. so once object is deleted and than recreated with the same name given you will loose you point control definition. I do not bleive it is good approach. SS2 was superior to SS3 here.
3)No feedback on station conflict when one template point is controlled by several linear objects.
Adam
Best,
OpenRoads Designer 2023 | OpenRail Designer 2023
Have tried processing the corridor but the Point Controls entries stay listed in the Corridor Objects and the corridor reverts to it's standard template. When I update the reference file path and process the corridor again the Point Controls entries take effect again. Can you let me know the version number you have installed, it may be behaving differently in the release I am using.
When dropping and recreating the complex element it is creating a new object ID for the element so that's why it is loosing the connection to the point control. An override function to have Feature Name take preference over object ID would be a good way to do this as it would keep the function working as it does now but for users that require it they could select Feature Name control override.
Answer Verified By: Adam Wieczorek