Conditional Formatting of a Corridor

The following example is to show how to use conditional formatting.  Conditional formatting allows for more design flexibility in the modeling process.  Using conditional formatting avoids using excess assemblies when corridor building.

We will model between the two thick brown lines (shown below).  You have to determine what length of roadway you think you can cover with one assembly.  Typically the less assemblies you can get away with, the better.  

From the current model (profile and alignment of main roadway as well as adjacent roadways being modeled), it was already determined that a couple of retaining walls would be required.  The green dashed lines below represent the locations of the wall.

To begin modeling, we will start to build as assembly that conforms to the general orientation of the roadway.  To be more specific, 2 lanes each way, a median, a shoulder on each side and concrete barriers on each side.  The continuous magenta block line represents the concrete roadside barrier.  On closer inspection, you can also see a concrete median barrier between the eastbound and westbound lanes.

Create an assembly that has the two lanes and a shoulder.  Lanes are 3.6m and the paved shoulder is 3.1m with a 0.60m wide roadside barrier sitting on the outer edge.  This allows for 2.5m of pavement.  Notice from the image above the concrete median barrier is offset slightly to the south.  This is to allow for more sight distance around the curve.  It would be wise to make the concrete median barrier independent of the construction centerline, since they may not necessarily always coincide.

Since the profile and alignment have already been defined, the task now is to model the roadway surfaces using the retaining walls as targets.  Since the walls don’t extend through the entire longitudinal stretch of roadway we are modeling here, we will use conditional formatting to stop and start walls.  

The final assembly for the area will look as shown below....

You can see below that there is 4 pavement sections on the left side.  The two inside pavement sections are “Subassembly.LaneInsideSuperMultiLayer” pulled from the Civil3d Toolpallete package.  The two outside lanes are "Subassembly.LaneOutsideSuperMultiLayer".  This is also important in the definition, since superelevation will be applied around the curve.  All the pavement section materials are inputted based on geotechnnical evaluation.

We will just concentrate on the left side.

We’ll just use one conditional option (found v. not found) for simplicity, but in reality you can use an infinite amount of conditional formats.  We’ll just use a target condition, to target to the wall (defined as a feature line and targeted in the roadway corridor definition)  when it is located along the stretch of the roadway.

If a target is found, a -2:1 generic link (Subassembly.LinkWidthandSlope) will be used to target to the horizontal wall location.  Once the horizontal location of the wall is targeted to, another generic link (Subassembly.SlopeToSurface) is used to grade back down to existing.

If the target is not found, a 2:1 daylight sub-assembly is used for whichever situation occurs (cut or fill).

The retaining wall (shown as the green dashed line earlier), is now defined as a feature line.

Now that the feature line is defined, it's time to target the corridor.  

Notice that the LEFTtargetfound (highlighted below), is targeting the defined feature line ("RETAINING WALL BETWEEN L35 AND L2000)

When using a conditional format you have to target the feature line in both the "found" and "not found" condition.  Notice above the "LEFTTargetNotFound (2)" is also targeting the same feature line.  You'll also notice the feature line is also used a target for the "LinkWidthAndSlope (Left) - (177)".  This is used so that the -2:1 generic link extends to the horizontal location of the feature line.

Below is the produced cross-section for the entire roadway.  The left side shows the -2:1 slope graded to the feature wall, which also abuts the adjacent roadway.

When the feature line is no longer found along the longitudinal section, the corridor revert back to the "not found" condition" and a straight 2:1 daylight will be used.

I realize this is a very brief overview of conditional formatting.  There is a lot to soak up, but you'll find that if you can employ conditional formatting, it will help you avoid constantly creating more assemblies to cover minor changes along a roadway.