I am modeling a series of complex and detailed urban roadway corridors and intend to assemble the various terrain models generated into various complex terrain models. Because I am modeling this complex roadway project by construction stage, I will essentially be combining the various terrain models like "lego" blocks to capture both permanent and temporary construction by stage. Things are going relatively well. While I have come across numerous software issues, there have been no issues I haven't been able to work around, until now.
My workflow includes modeling a corridor and assigning alternate surfaces for proposed and temporary objects separately. To my surprise, creating an alternate surface does not automatically create a surface boundary. I was able to assign the corridor boundary as a boundary element(automatically generated mesh exterior boundary) to create a dynamic boundary element that will update with changes to my corridor. However, when I go to create a complex terrain model, it does not seem to merge the various boundary elements together, thus few or no traingles are displayed due to a confusing mess of exterior boundaries scattered throughout the complex terrain model.
I can create a complex terrain model that shows all the information I want if I do not assign the alternate surfaces a boundary. This is a non-starter because I get all sorts of unwanted triangulation or loss of data because I have a wide range of triangle sizes in most of my corridors. Furthermore, I am unable to add a boundary element (boundary or drape boundary) to the complex terrain model. I get a "not a valid element type" no matter what type of element I try to add. I have tried both merge and append without success. I think it may be because the elements I am trying to use are too detailed. This is also a problem because I want my boundary to be exact, preventing unwanted triangulation or clipping.
Boundaries are extremely important to be able to portray and verify data. I am very surprised at the wide range of issues I have encountered surrounding boundaries when previous versions of both Inroads and Geopak dealt with them reasonably well and almost entirely automatically.
To summarize, my questions are:
1. Are alternate surfaces intended to be created without an automatically generated boundary? Previous versions of Geopak/Inroads automatically assigned exterior boundaries without issue.
2. Are complex terrain models supposed to be able to rectify multiple boundaries?
3. Is there a specific element type required or maximum number of points on an element that can be assigned to a boundary in a complex terrain model?
4. Do you have any other suggestions for how I might accomplish what I am attempting?
Geopak SS4 08.11.09.872
Microstation SS4 08.11.09.832
Thanks,Ben
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Has this issue been resolved through the enhancement request you mentioned?(As a general suggestion for these community hubs - the trail of [problem > no current solution > intention to adjust or fix software] generally seems to just go cold at that point. It would be very helpful to have follow up comments and resolution info or links to it at the end of each article.)