As some of you know, Mark maintains a long-term business relationship with our "Zen Friends" and provides guidance to them when they need it. A short while ago Mark was asked to critique a few InRoads files that were being developed internally from within a company for their current and future InRoads projects. So in this issue of Footsteps, we'll follow Mark's commentary as he reviews an XIN (InRoads configuration file) and ITL (InRoads Template / Section Library).

This is not a traditional 'tip' but I hope you all can learn something from Mark's review!

Here is how the Zen Dude responded...

Hi Rebecca!

Okay, I'm done for now. I looked this over for a solid couple hours with the perspective of using it for a standard XIN on a project or within a company, and here are my comments (some are general and some are specific):

1) Overall it looks okay and it seems like it contains an adequate amount of information. The Templates and Components look nicely detailed and the use of Parametric Constraint Labels is applauded!! ; )

2) The  Default Symbology is unusual because InRoads will never use the Default Line/ Text  / Point "Use" settings. That's not a big deal and the only thing that might be a problem is any Plan Line using this symbology will end up on the Level called Defaultinstead of 60 Nongeo Data like the others.  

3) I stumbled onto a few Symbologies that had a similar issue like above. In this case shown here the Default Text Use will never actually be used because there are specific settings for Plan Text, Profile Text and Cross Section Text.   

4) There are some issues with the correlation between the settings defined in the Style 

versus the settings defined in the Symbology. For instance, this Gas Style shows that it is set up to be able to display on Profile as a Line and as Points. However, theSymbology doesn't have anything set up for a Profile Points or under Default Points. And the Line, since it's not set up under Profile Line will fall back to the Default Line which uses the Utilities level. This level doesn't seem to conform to any Caltrans levels that you use in other places. And the Cross Section Display is opposite - the Styleis not set up to display Lines; however the Symbology is configured with settings for theUse called Cross Section Line.

5) I'm generally pretty picky about the configurations so this is just another one that is odd to me. It's highly likely that it may never be used this way so might never be a problem. The Style for the Exterior Boundary is a Plan Line Display which makes sense in theStyle, but I generally wouldn't have this configured to show in Cross Section or Profile, and can't see the application to use it on a Component.

6) It seems like most of the Surface Styles are set up to be used as Components. I would question whether or not this is actually the case, like this Hinge Point Style for example.

7) The Preferences seem to be relatively well-controlled. There are a few that are probably junk that could be deleted for example - Test, IDs only and Frame.

8) There are some Preferences that should have more intelligent names like Aleksandra... I see it's for Tracking, but what is it really for? And others like LK, LMK and Lindsay.

9) Because you have numerous Preferences for different contour spacing like CT Contours 1', CT Contours 2' and CT Contours Detail 0.2', I would probably tie theSymbology of at least the Major Contours and Minor Contours to the Symbology Manager. This way, if the color or level or weight of the Major Contour line had to be revised you wouldn't have to do it inside each View Contour Preference independently.

TEMPLATE LIBRARY:

10) The Template Point Name List seems a bit lean. This is really under-valued and should be leveraged and kept up to date whenever possible.  

11) The Template Point Name List here is not in sync with the XIN that I have for this work. I can see this when I select a Point Name from the list and the Style near the top of this dialog box doesn't show the Style that's shown in the lower list box next to the Name.

12) It would be nice if the Barrier Components had Descriptions on them like Curbshave.

13) It seems like some of the Components are not tied into the XIN that you gave me since it can't find the Styles in some instances.    

14) It's almost like double work when creating single Components but each Template is given a name and Description as well as each Component. When there's only oneComponent in the Template then the Component Description and Template Description should ideally match. It's the Component Description that will carry forward into the Template when that Component is used.

15) Some of these comments are very minor in the grand scheme of the functionality of the Template and the finished design model, but it is sometimes nice to have theComponents show up as different colors so that it's a little easier to differentiate them from one another. All of the Components that I've looked at in this ITL have been white. The color is defined in the Symbology for that particular Component Style, and since InRoads considers this a Cross Section view the Cross Section Line Use determines its symbology. The Fill is also a nice option if it doesn't pose trouble in later Cross Sectional displays.

16) Were the Components intentionally unmerged in the structural section of the overallTemplate? Unless you are interested in getting quantities for the various individualComponents (if they are different material types or gradations) then it's completely acceptable to merge the common materials into a cohesive layer and single Component.

17) Unless you wanted to see a different Feature Name in the final DTM you could apply Feature Name Overrides on your End Conditions that contain multiple solutions. This is under the Tools menu on the Create Template dialog box in the upper left. This will result in a continuous breakline called Cut or Fill, or whatever you call it ...instead of the multiple Features called 2:1 C, 3:1 C, 4:1 C and so on. Sometime the individual unique names are valuable during analysis and debugging so this could be done later in the Roadway Designer if necessary.

And there you have it. Let me know if you have any questions.

... I hope this helps!!!   

Civilly yours,  

-zen