Is Open Roads suitable for site grading?

I want to revisit this topic after a couple of years have passed. Civil 3D is absolutely horrendous for site modeling and I am desperate to find a viable alternative. I have looked at OpenSite almost a year ago and found it was not developed enough to be a solution. Considering OpenRoads has had a lot more development I need to know if anyone uses it extensively for site modeling such as commercial developments with lots of non-linear grading scenarios. From what i understand, OpenRoads is corridor oriented, meaning all the projection grading is done with templates and require applying targeting, clipping and masking. Civil 3D can do that as well but it is a terribly tedious approach for site modeling.

I know civil geometry has the ability to maintain horizontal and vertical relationships. For example 2 non-parallel elements can have a vertical slope relationship between them (eg. 2% cross slope) that is dynamic to changes in the reference element. Couldn't these elements be used as breaklines in a surface model? Thus couldn't I create dynamic models using just the civil geometry elements as breaklines? For example, If I have an edge of pavement element, could I create offset elements for the curb flowline, top face and back and add them as breaklines? Could I then create transitions for the curbs such as for sidewalk ramps by modifying their profiles and they would be dynamic to changes to the pavement? This is a workflow I would like to consider. It would be superior to the grading tools we have in civil 3D.

Hi Neil,

Surface Templates and Terrains are the key. There are some circumstances where we don't use Corridors at all, and use Linear Geometry, Terrains and Surface Templates for Site Design. This has been successful for us - the only criticism I have is that the dynamics of Surface templates has recently had some issues and you need to nudge them to update.

Mark,

Do you know of any videos or tutorials that show how to do this?

Sure, have a look at Site Modeling and Non-Corridor Modeling in here:

https://learn.bentley.com/app/Public/ViewLearningPathDetails?lpId=113450

These are really good. I worked on site designs for a light rail project a few years ago in InRoads Ss4 and we were able to do all of our site grading using many of the techniques covered in these. Sometimes we edited the relationships to revise the designs but if the design radically changed, it sometimes made sense to begin anew.

These are really good. I worked on site designs for a light rail project a few years ago in InRoads Ss4 and we were able to do all of our site grading using many of the techniques covered in these. Sometimes we edited the relationships to revise the designs but if the design radically changed, it sometimes made sense to begin anew.