Is it possible to import or export point controls from the roadway designer in Inroads SS2?
Just a little bit of background information as to what I'm trying to do. Out office primarily works on infrastructure projects and we will typically have multiple engineers working on the same project. I'm on the side of the roadway department that primarily handles the drainage design for our longer roadway and interstate projects so as a result we have a lot of coordination between my side and the other half of the department working on the rest of the design. I work mainly in Georgia so its very common for us to need a special ditch profile along an interstate or rural section of roadway and there are times where we need to modify the ditch width along a small section of roadway, transition between the ditch widths, make minor modifications to the ditch depths, elevations, etc. We are also going to start modifying the ditches for MS4 BMPs such as bioswales so that we can quickly add them to the cross sections without any manual edits.
Since we have multiple people working on these projects at the same time, If we needed a modified ditch we would typically tell the designer what we needed, he would modify the ditch, export the cross sections, we would look at it and realize its not quite right and the process would continue. Throughout this though, either we're waiting on the designer or the designer is waiting on us so we are trying to streamline this process.
With that we do, the easiest way for us to make the changes we need is via point controls so what we are trying to do is make a copy of the roadway designer so we can work while the rest of our roadway department is doing what they need do, and once we get the ditches where we need them and get everything working send the point controls to the designer really quick so we can get them into the cross sections and surface. But, like I said above we typically work on long projects so we need numerous point controls especially once we start adding BMPs into the ditch profiles.
With that being said is there a way to quickly export those point controls via a text file or .csv and import them back into inroads? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Colin, no, unfortunately Point Controls never had the export capability like Parametric Constraints currently have.
The only avenues that I can see that you have (neither of which do much for you) are 1) doing an XML report that catalogs the Point Controls that are used in the design Corridor, or maybe creating a custom XML report that might provide a more friendly format, or 2) just using the Copy From and copying the Corridor from one IRD to another. But that just means that you are handing off the 'latest and greatest' back and forth and will loose any changes that would occur if both people are working on their Corridor.
There used to be an older workflow for overlays (before the formal tools came out) where Point Controls would be set up in a Corridor and then the Templates would be swapped out, and the Point Controls would reassign themselves to the new Templates, but I don't think you want to be handing off a Corridor with Point Controls and then have to re-drop your Templates.
The only other thing that I haven't looked at, which might be beyond most folks, is to find those Point Controls in the IRD using an XML program. The IRD is an XML file and I'm sure the Point Controls have a specific format within the IRD. Those lines of code could be found, copied, and pasted into another IRD. But I've never tried it personally. ...iI might be worth a look. (I know I probably would if I were in your shoes trying to optimize your workflow.)
Isn't it possible to use a template with feature style constraints so that you don't have to assign point controls but just update the surface that contains the features to target ?
Sure, but those Style Constraints are really 'low level' Point Controls and have so many limitations besides the fact that they are so hidden from other users picking up that job later. Beyond that, you can't control Start and Stop Stations, or apply Offsets and are stuck creating your "controls" exactly where you need / want to use them. They obviously work, but have too many limitations for my tastes.