Bentley,
I think you should task one of your employees to design a real project with OpenRoads Designer. Which means modeling a roadway project then after corridors are created start modifying the alignments. This includes extending alignments , removing curves and adding vertical curves. I would bet all the corridors you created with those edited alignments will blow up, lose connection and crash. This is my experience. I am currently trying to figure out how do I dumb down my modeling. I would rather redo work then sit here and watch a blue circle spin around for a half an hour after every change.
Creating geometry in OpenRoads is such a nightmare at times. Why can't there just be a "Create Simple Alignment by PI" for horizontal geometry like the vertical geometry "Create Simple Profile by PI". I just need to add PI's , insert PI's , delete PI's and change curve radius or length. That is it 99.999999% of the time. I don't need 50 rules controlling my alignment. For example, try adding a PI or curve to the beginning of a complex element. Basically, plan on starting over with your alignment, profile and corridors.
Sorry for the complaints, but these issues need to be fixed. Designers are wasting a lot of time and money on stupid issues like creating an alignment. At least give us a option to create a simple dumb alignment and the tools to edit it easily.
I understand, what I usualy do is create a copy of my alignement on a new fetaure definition (e: geo_v2), turn off the original one. Drop the new copy, modify it, re-complexe it, copy the profile from the original, open the corridor file then re-attach the corridor to the new alignement.
Actualy I have separated my geometry from alignements, I do all the geometry in one file/model then reference the geometry into the alignement model/file. I use the offset 0m to offset all the different lines created by civil geometry to get a copy of thoses lines, complexe them. So if I delete my geometry, I keep my alignements and if I change my geometry my alignement update. What do you think?
That is interesting, I will have to test that method. When you say geometry in a geometry file does that include the individual geometry elements for the alignments?
Regards,
Zane Pratt
Civil Designer
Zane:
I split my drawings so that Alignments, Terrains, Corridors, meshes, etc are in separate drawings. That way I can have multiple alignments and when I go into the corridor drawing, just reference the alignment that I currently want to use.
This way your spinning donuts will almost go away and you will not have time to go for coffee as your computer will be waiting for you.
David E. Stewart
Calgary, Alberta
ORD 2022R1
This is, at best, a workaround of the obstacles OpenRoads presents to iterations and revisions of a project's design.
To answer the OP's headline question, you can create a horizontal alignment by PI. Use the Complex by PI tool.
Woe be to the designer who wants to makes revisions to that alignment. You cannot, however, include any complicated geometry in that alignment. Try changing one of those curves to a compound curve without tearing the alignment apart. Move a PI back along a tangent by a certain distance. Change the direction of the back tangent without moving the current PI. These were all relatively easy to do with the geometry tools available in InRoads without impacting the integrity of the alignment and without creating a new alignment for every change made.
The developers seem to have had the idea that an alignment is constructed from beginning to end and that constraints are known when a designer starts to create the geometry. An alignment starts here and goes in that direction because someone made an arbitrary decision. The limits of a project, in either direction, may change due to new or differing constraints revealed during the design process. Those arbitrary decisions may control how the geometry is described but they should not control how the geometry is constructed or defined.
Complex Redefine partially fills the void. The Geometry Builder and Table Editor tool are good starts but don't handle complicated geometry very well, the Table Editor won't even accept degree of curve definitions. Civil AccuDraw is touted as some sort of panacea for many of ORD's limitations but I've found that AccuDraw (MicroStation or Civil) gets in the way more often than it helps.
I do appreciate many of the changes brought by ORD. For instance, the tools for editing superelevation are far superior to InRoads. Many of the changes will require rewiring my brain a little but that's to be expected. But the geometry tools and geometry workflow are abysmal.
Great reply !! In InRoads I basically only used the create horizontal by PI command for alignments. Worked 99.9% of the time. I could drawing my alignment in Microstation to figure things out then run this command, snap to PI's , fill in curve radius and be done. Inserting, deleting , and moving PI's was super easy. Worked the same for create vertical by PI.
I try and use the Complex by PI in OpenRoads as much as I can but adding PI's to the beginning or end of the alignment can become a nightmare. Sometimes new rules get created which wont allow you to move a PI locking the tangent bearing. Why? Then if you have a profile , it will usually totally blow up with any horizontal change. Also, never snap to anything while creating an alignment.
To me, if we had a simple create by PI tool that adds, inserts and deletes PI's with a right-click interface that would be a game changer. Also have an option to hold the vertical alignment PIs.