InRoads SS2 vs SS4 usre opinions

We currently utilize InRoads SS2 for our design work (about 15 years experience with various versions), and have investigated moving up to SS4.  Our work consists almost entirely of site grading: yard grading, parking lots, stockpiles, basins and layered closure caps.  We rarely design very simple roads, but often utilize the roadway tools to design drainage channels which occasionally have varying cross sections, nor do we utilize features very heavily.

In my (limited) investigation, the OpenRoads paradigm appears to be geared more to road design, and site work doesn't appear to be as straight forward as SS2.  The one thing (I think) I really like about SS4 is the fact that data is stored in the design file.

I would appreciate opinions and discussion from those who have used both products to help in our decision process.

Thanks in advance.

  • Good Day Bill:  Pardon me for jumping into your request from users, but as part of your research I want to make sure you are aware of an additional capability that will be coming in the next release (SS4 Maintenance Release 1).  This release is now only a few weeks away.

    In this release, we are adding the integration of StormCAD for hydraulic design as an alternative to InRoads Storm and Sanitary.  Included in your InRoads licence will be capability to design storm drain systems with up to 100 inlets.  These hydraulic tools are completely integrated with the rest of OpenRoads and provide high resolution 3D models which are integrated with the rest of the 3D models produced for your road and site design.

    Below are some images to give you a sense of the toolset

    This is an image of the site design and the drainage network

    This is a closeup of one of the catch basins

    An analysis profile of the drainage network

    A profile view for editing

    Robert Garrett
    Senior Product Engineer
    Bentley Systems Inc.



  • Robert,
    Thanks for the reply, but again, this is capability that we don't really utilize. About 95%+ of our work is site grading. The tools that I've seen in the OpenRoads series don't seem to be as conducive to this type of work as the SS2 series.
  • Bill

    I've been using OpenRoads since it was released in fact I believe that the project OpenRoads implementation (...) I subbmited to BeInspired award in 2013 (www.yearininfrastructure-digital.com/.../2013) was one of the firsts accomplished with SS3 Civil products generation. Since than I utilized OpenRoads on another major airside project, few small street projects and 30 long highway schema.... and I have still mixed fillings. I believe Openroads has potential to be a game changer but not yet. In some areas you will find it as a productivity booster - I was using it to design and model rest areas for a highway schema and really loved what you can call parametric design. I could easily change size and geometric layout of my rest area and my grading plans, 3D modles were adjusted on the fly. I could analyze few options simultaneously. On the other hand I was missing SS2 Site Modeler tools that would allow me to balance cut/fill balance and help to set the best elevation for my site.

    Geometry - full of bugs, and native tools are still much more capable. However with SS3/SS4 you get Design Intent and all dynamic relationships between elements which really help. And again on the other hand in some areas new tools will not fit to most engineering workflows. Just to name one - dynamic profile view where you design your Vertical Alignment. It is fine unless you need to use external data there. In SS2 we could attach references with geology profiles, bridge designs to Profile Set. Now it is barley possible. You can only try to paste some cad graphic to the new dynamic profile view but when sth is changed there you need to paste it again. In ss2 you just had to update reference file.

    Corridor Modeling - in fact it is very similar to Roadway Designer but old Create Surface command is executed behind the scene. All changes done to corridor are visible in 3D model. It is fine... but again... it takes time for corridor to process before you can see changes. Let' say you are working on a 5 km long street project and are changing sidewalk width with Parametric Constraints on 25 m long section. If you want to see/preview you changes corridor need to reprocess - it takes time. So to see if you added Parametric Constraint for 25 long section correctly you need to recalculate 5 km long corridor. In SS2 you had instant preview to any changes done in Roadway Designer views. It was simplified and far from what you get with SS3/SS4 but it was fast. Now I often choose to prevent from corridor processing bu unlocking padlock. I reprocess corridor manually after most of changes are added without preview. But this way we had to work in 2004 with 8.5 and earlier releases before Roadway Designer was intorduced. There are some tools to make corridor processing time better - Design Stages. But I really miss Roadway Designer as a preview of changes I made to corridor. Of course having 3D model always up to date has some advantages., other users can reference your 3D model with confidence it is up to date without generating DTM. There are other things I am missing - like editable superelevation diagram or editing IRD file with notepad (changing point or component styles for example).

    I think I would be able to write a book on my adventures with moving to OpenRoads.

    Well Bill what I can say, if you are not keen Bentley software user you may regret moving to SS3/SS4 release. In some areas it will boost your productivity in other it will slow you down. Bugs are getting fixed with every next release and software is getting more and more stable. I am still using it on new projects but I know what I can expect. I know where it will bring me profits and where troubles. Currently I am involved in few projects project where we are using SS2 and it is like a breath of fresh air (especially Roadway Designer as a Preview before 3D model is created) but than it reveals that I would model that intersection or interchange in half time with SS3/4 or analyze few more potential parking sites in the same time iI need to analyze one with SS2. I feel the same when working with SS3 - for some tasks SS2 would be more efficient.

    I hope it helps. Please feel free if you have specific questions or concerns.

    Adam
  • Just to add one more. you can find surface template very usefull. You can add pavement layers to the top surface. You can than obtain bottom surface. The only concer is that surface template is applied vertically down/up and not perpendicularly to the surface. That may give you false results, especially for steep slopes. For example you wouldn't use surface template for 25% slopes to apply 15 cm thickness of topsoil. I wish surface template could differ point constraints in template - if depth is define by Vertical constraint than template would be applied vertically down/up. If layer depth is defined by Vector-Offset constraint - template is applied perpendicularly to the surface.

    AW
  • Adam,

    Thanks for your reply. It looks more and more likely that we'll stick with SS2 for the foreseeable future.