I am involved with a lot of sidewalk and accessibility projects in which elevations and slopes of sidewalks in road right-of-ways are very critical. i.e. sidewalk cross-slopes and running slopes have to meet minimum criteria of ADA and PROWAG. To date, to perform my designs, I manually measure every distance and elevation along a sidewalk or street crossing to calculate slopes and to see if it is constructable. This is very time consuming and requires a lot of trial and error. For a particular instance, I have setup a simple square intersection in an excel spreadsheet for an intersection crossing. I have manual edited the formulas to calculate slopes and elevation differences based on entered existing and proposed elevations (see attached).
Crosswalk Grades.xlsx
I was wondering if there was a way (VBA or existing tools) in Microstation (or OpenRoads/Geopak) to draw out a proposed project (a line), enter the elevations at the ends of the lines(a text box), and automatically calculate the slope of the line based on my entered data? Just having the ability to automatically see the slopes as I change elevations would be a tremendous help in my work process. I typically work in 2D but would be open to 3D if there is a way.
Thanks,
Matthew
It has been a while since making this post and I wanted to follow up with the group to see if maybe there were any new methods in OpenRoads that might could assist in my designs? I tried the Analyse Point and it really wasn't what I was looking for. Any other suggestions?
That's an impressive looking spreadsheet! You could certainly create something that resembles your other drawing with annotation and labels. I don't think there is any manner in which you could do the elevation in the canvas as you do in the Excel file, but with a creative view set up, you could have a pretty dynamic set up with some profile views where you could adjust slope or elevation. One thing I have had some success with is surface styles that would color once I exceed a slope. If you are modeling your sidewalk, that may be worth looking into.
Steve
www.envisioncad.com
ORD - 10.12.02.04 / 10.10.21.04 / 10.10.01.03 / 10.08.01.33Power GEOPAK / Power InRoads - 08.11.09.918Civil 3D - 2021 / 2022