Geopak PowerCivil Roadway Tool

Again, I'm fairly new to the Powercivil world but have been using Microstation for 7 years and used Civil3D sparingly prior to returning the Bentley products. We're running a test roadway tool exercise to determine how to design a single road "corridor" and have PC grade the existing site. We've built the tin, created the chain, cut the profile, edited the design profile using vertical design tools but I can't seem to apply the roadway configuration to the base surface in order to modify the grading. Has anyone else come across this seemingly rudimentary lack of results? Matt PowerCivil 08.11.07.614
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  • I agree and have been working through some basics of Site Modeler.  I'd like to think we have enough basic understanding of some of the Site Modeler tools, enough to develop a model, add objects and modify the tin.  The Bentley Institute courses are expensive and lack information specific to our version of powercivil.  Also, I find the menus and user interface in powercivil convoluted.  We're beginning to look into migrating to another version or toward inRoads.

  • Hi Matt,

    The "Roadway" tools within Site Modeler basically pulls together all of the fundamental design tools within the application and applies those tools specifically to the design of multiple connected urban (subdivisional type) roadways.

    The purpose is to provide a mechanism to design these roads as quickly as possible and use the relationships between them to automatically design the intersections.

    But.. as Nico has mentioned, these are advanced tools that really do require some understanding of the fundamental tools and an amount of configuration to successfully implement them.

    As you are new to the software and, at this time, are working your way through your first roadway, I'd suggest you take a look at the Composite Section tool first and gain an understanding of how the SEC files (Composite Section configuration files) are created and function before moving on to the Roadway network tools. The Roadway tools require that you already have a SEC file to apply to the proposed roadways... so the effort is not wasted.

    There was once a PowerCivil tutorial CD that provided training materials and sample configuration files for the PowerCivil product.

    Maybe your account manager can locate one of these tutorial CDs to help get you going.

    HTHs

  • I think Michael is giving good advice about using the Comp Section tool. The Comp Section tool is the foundation of road object and is utilized by the Roadway tool, but you don't have to use the Roadway tool to model a road. You can use the Comp Section tool independently as well.

    Basically the way it works is you create an alignment and profile first, then using the Comp Section tool you specify the alignment and profile to be used. From there you define the edges of pavement, curbs, shoulders and daylight slopes, all of which maintain relationships to the centerline alignment and profile. The Comp Section tool uses all these components to create a modeler object which you can add to a site Model to integrate it into your finished ground terrain.

    Neil Wilson (aka Neilw)

    Power Civil v8i 08.11.07.245

    AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018

    Answer Verified By: Mburgcrzy 

  • Neil & Michael,

    Your responses forced me to start at the beginning of site modeler and assume I knew nothing about setting up a project.  After finding a document from 2005 title Designing with Powercivil we were able to run a few successful site modeler scenarios and have now begun to compile custom composite sections into a company library.

    Matt

    Answer Verified By: Nico Roman