An InRoads user asked for Mark's help with this problem he was having:
Hi Mark,
The question I have is I am trying to create a report of the existing ground elevations at the pc/pt points of an alignment (cardinal points). I was able to generate a report using the Station Base Report but it gave me finished grade elevations and I need existing ground. Is there a way I can tell this report to use the existing surface to report back?
- MRJ
Here is the Zen Dude's response:
Hi MRJ!
Yes, there is a way to get those elevations but it's not a very intuitive process that the average person would know about and it's based on the fact that even though horizontal alignments are 2D, they have the ability to store elevations. Go figure. So, follow along with this:
If you lay out a horizontal alignment (no vertical)
And then do a report (InRoads > Tools > XML Report > Geometry), it shows the elevations, and will look like this:
But if you go to Geometry > Utilities > Assign Elevations you can assign Z values to the alignment based on the existing surface.
When doing a report, the alignment now has the elevations assigned to it from the existing surface.
You can, and should verify that these elevations are correct using the InRoads Tracking tool.
Now, it gets a bit more involved if you already have a vertical alignment associated with the horizontal because InRoads really wants to pull the elevations from the vertical alignment . . . if there is one (this is where the trick is).
This is an example of an XYZ report that has a vertical alignment, but this vertical is not as long as the horizontal. Notice that where there IS a vertical alignment it uses those elevations, and where the horizontal is longer than the vertical it says the elevation is 0.00.
If existing surface elevations are assigned to this horizontal using the Assign Elevations tool, it uses the vertical where it exists, and then the 'assigned' elevations where there isn't a vertical.
Now, knowing this, what you can do is create a new vertical alignment called something like Temp_Vert_Empty and don't add anything into it, it's just an empty placeholder. Then assign the elevations to the horizontal using the existing surface as the Source of the Elevations, and do your report with the temporary vertical as the active vertical, and it will feedback only the existing elevations.
Also, hunt around the report style sheets because there are a number of them that report on the elevation like ListCoordinatesStation, HorizontalElementsXYZ, ListCoordinates and others.
Of course, let me know if this makes sense and works for you.
Enjoy!!
Civilly yours,
- zen
There is only one Mark Ditko. We need him for future training. I think he could help iron out some of the problems in the department. 
