Auto Create Corridor

Icon:         
Menu:    Roads > Civil 3D Outputs > Auto Create Corridor
Ribbon: Roads Tab > Modelling Panel > Auto Create Corridor

Introduction

During the design process in Civil Site Design, or after design is complete, the Designer can use this command to automatically generate a single Civil 3D corridor of the road networks, including all intersection match-in and trimming.

After creating the corridor, simply re-run this command (or use the Civil 3D options to rebuild the corridor) to update it with the latest changes made in Civil Site Design.

To create the corridor the Designer needs to:

The Create/Update Civil 3D Profiles command can be optionally run before the Auto Create Corridor command if it is desired to review the profile designs outputted from Civil Site Design into Civil 3D before building the corridor.

A single corridor will be created with multiple baselines for each road object (road, kerb return, cul-de-sac and knuckle) using the Civil Site Design assembly.  Designers are encouraged to augment the corridor with additional regions and additional baselines comprising 'standard' assembly configurations. 

Details

This command will output the design information from Civil Site Design to create a single, multiple baseline, corridor in Civil 3D complete with intersection trimming.

The command works by processing the Civil Site Design design data through a single Civil 3D Assembly which comprises the 'CSD Super Subassembly (or cadappsBasicLane) on the left and right side.

At the time of running the command, every profile designed within the software will be inserted into the drawing as a Civil 3D profile and then be used to build the corridor.  If the profiles already exist in the drawing, they will be updated.

To update the corridor after adding extra roads, simply re-run this command. After adjusting the profile designs inside Civil Site Design, simply use the corridor rebuild utilities inside Civil 3D.

Prerequisites

Before running this command the Designer must first:

 An example is shown below:

 


To add the subassembly to the tool pallette, from the Civil 3D Ribbon:

Insert Tab > Import Slideout > Import Subassemblies.  

Navigate to the CSD Settings folder (use the command in the General tab to open and confirm path).  Select file CSD-Corridor-20XX.pkt file.

It is critical to this command that the 'Civil Site Design' assembly already exists in the drawing.

If desired, the Create/Update Civil 3D Profiles command can be run before the Auto Create Corridor command to output the profiles from Civil Site Design and create Civil 3D profiles in the drawing.

Command Outputs

After running the command the software will process the profiles along each alignment and feed in the cross section design through the Civil Site Design assembly in the drawing (which is created by the Designer - see above) to generate a Civil 3D corridor of the entire road network designed.

A corridor is created in the drawing and is included in the Civil 3D Toolspace:

The outputted corridor is named 'CORRIDOR-EZY'. 

Running the command again will update the 'CORRIDOR-EZY' Civil 3D corridor in the drawing - if none exists with that name then the software creates a corridor.

An example corridor outputted using this command is shown below:

This is a multi-baseline corridor in Civil 3D.

Designers can review the properties of the corridor as per standard tools in Civil 3D. One method is to right-click the corridor in Toolspace and click Properties, as shown below:

The following form is displayed:

The corridor is made up of:

Designers can always use the Split Region command within the above form to insert a region within the corridor.  This may be desired when users wish to manually override the software outputs and utilise a standard Civil 3D assembly in certain sections.

Designers can also add extra baselines as desired.

Intersection trimming is included, so that overlaps do not occur at the interface between Kerb Returns and Roads, Cul-de-sacs and Roads or Knuckles and Roads.

As shown in the design process, the road section of the Kerb Returns, Cul-de-sacs and Knuckles are extended into the intersection zone (to the edge of travelled way and/or the Road centerline) to form an integrated road network with continuous road areas. This method ensures a higher level of accuracy in volume outputs.

Special Note: The software uses a specific naming convention for the profiles it includes in the Civil 3D corridor it creates. If Designers adjust the name, it is likely that running this command will add in a new design profile with the preferred name required by the software.
 

Setting Corridor Sampling Frequencies - Automatically added by Civil Site Design

Designers are advised to NOT have the Corridor creation process add any Sampling for the Corridor - Civil Site Design will add all the corridor sample points based on the sampling added in Civil Site Design for the CSD Objects.

To set up the system to prevent unwanted sampling, designers should:

The sampling frequency is set by the Civil Site Design software. It can be edited if required and the corridor rebuilt, however the software automatically adds sampling frequencies at all the intersections and relevant feature locations.

The cross section sampling from the Road objects (Roads, Kerb Returns etc.) is added to the Corridor model as Additional Chainages (see the individual chainages added in the lower table in the form, above).

In most circumstances, better results will be achieved when the Sampling Frequency along the Tangents, Curves and Spirals are set to something large (i.e. in this corridor 10000m) to ensure that there is no duplicate Sampling Chainages. The frequency along the Profile Curve can be set as desired.

To ensure appropriate spacings are set at the time of starting the command, the Civil 3D Command Settings for the Create Corridor command can be adjusted.

Corridor Output Controls - Subgrade Layers

Designers can control the corridor output to include/exclude the datum and/or the subgrade layers from the corridor built in Civil 3D. Excluding the datum can significantly increase corridor build speed, and may be preferred during the designing process.

The output controls for the corridor is controlled from the Modelling tab of the Active Drawing Settings form. To update the corridor with/without a datum, simply change the Subgrade Creation Method on the Modelling tab and re-build the Corridor using Civil 3D.

In the example below, all subgrade layers have been included in the output:

 

Other Outputs  - Civil 3D Profiles

As part of this command, Civil 3D profiles are created/updated in the drawing from the profile designs inside Civil Site Design. 

Examples of outputs from this process are shown below:

This command will automatically update these profiles as part of the corridor creation process.  Edits can be made to the profiles and saved back to CSD using the Profile Sync command

If a different Assembly is applied that does not use the CSD Super Subassembly (or cadappsBasicLane) components, then the current Civil 3D profile grading will be applied in those regions. Note that no trimming will occur where the 'CORRIDOR-EZY' assembly is not used, except as defined by the replaced assembly.