Hello,
I'm involved with transitioning to 3D modeling at my workplace which requires converting our 2D libraries to 3D. I've watched a few tutorials on working with OpenRoads / Civil Cells in Microstation, but there's several questions that I still have and am hoping there's perhaps some good tutorials / overviews that maybe I've missed.
I admit I know very little at this stage - I'm trying to get myself acclimated to how Microstation does 3D visualization before I get involved in this project in a couple of weeks. I should also mention that I come from a 3D modelling background, but it's using 3D mesh tools like Blender, which are designed for creating photorealisitc arch-viz, video game assets, movies, etc. Microstation's idea of 3D modeling is substantially (but not entirely) different.
So far, Microstation's accudraw tool makes a lot of sense, but I don't see it being used much in designing Civil Cells apart from building simple 2D structures. What I'm trying to get at is how to make complex 3D structures that can be made resuable as civil cells, beyond the rather simple approach that is taken to create intersections and roadway geometries. That is, suppose I want to build drainage structure cells, like standard box culvert, wingwall, and toewall designs we use. Or perhaps I want to create lighting structure cells. I can imagine ways that could be done using the paradigms that are employed in building civil cells, but I've seen nothing on building anything other than pavement surfaces.
I presume I've got some wrong-headed ideas about how these things work, so I'd greatly appreciate pointers or links to maybe more advanced tutorials in building custom 3D civil cells.
Have you looked into the Solids Modeling and Surface Modeling tools within Microstation. These are very useful tools and will require some training or experimentation to use them. I have seen bridge designers use these tools for designing bridge footings, abutments and wingwalls. I supposed you could use them for drainage structures as well.
The only drawback that I have found (please correct me if I am wrong) that you cannot use them in InRoads to display on sections or profiles. You would need to create DTM's from them. Since InRoads does not support vertical faces in the triangulation world, this task is not possible.
However, this can be very useful for using them in details in Microstation with automatic dimensioning. Whereas when the solid changes in length or width the dimensions will update as well.
I have just started to use Openroads and have only made Driveway Civil Cells and Intersection Civil Cells.
Good Luck
HTH,
Joe
Joe Lukovits
User Since TDP in the 80's,
Vax based Unix Workstations - Interpro32,
from the Intergraph Corp.
but other things, like setting the top of the culvert to be a minimum depth below the bottom of the subgrade, adjusting wall thickness based on culvert size / depth, etc. seems a bit undefined for me.
Joel, In response to the above comment, you can create components in your templates to create ditches with materials or thicknesses. You wouldn't need to use Civil Cells to use them. Then by setting some constraints on your point components (or display rules) you can get your results that you are looking for.
Case in point, I need to model retaining walls in my model. After drawing the wall with a footing in Microstation you can import the wall into your template library to create an component. Then with attaching an end condition to the wall on the outside or inside, I set the wall to solve with constraining the footing to always be 5' below the existing ground.
As Inroads models the wall the footing meets the end condition requirements for you.
You may be getting the wrong idea about civil cells and their uses. Try using components in your templates to get better results.