An InRoads user and Zen Engineering book buyer made a comment about Mark's book and asked for his help with on this question :

Hi Mark,

Your Guide to InRoads Essentials Workbook has been extremely useful in my attempts to learn Bentley Inroads over the past couples weeks. I can't seem to find out how to add a horizontal & vertical alignment to a surface for cross-sections. I have already created my horizontal and vertical alignment but I just can't figure out how to add it to my existing surface.

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks You,

Mitchell

Hi Mitchell!

I'm glad the book has been helpful!!

The Horizontal and Vertical alignments are stored in the Geometry Project (ALG) and are separate from the DTM. Cross Sections, like Profiles, use the alignment to define the path for the resulting Cross Sections (or Profile). What exactly are you trying to accomplish? ...maybe something for the display, or annotation?

Civilly yours,

- mark

Hi Mark,

I'll just explain my situation to give you a better idea of what is trying to be accomplished. We are in the midst of a redesign a bridge that will be under construction this summer. We will be changing the horizontal and vertical alignment as part of this work. I have already completed a functional vertical alignment using k values over the bridge. I would like to try to import that vertical and horizontal alignment into the existing surface so that I can produce cross-sections showing the existing and proposed center line. Right now the proposed cross sections have no cross fall even though the proposed vertical alignment allows for  a 2-3% cross fall. The reason I need to add it to the existing surface is because we are maintaining the curbs and sidewalk approaching the bridge from the east side where we have a building with a fixed elevation and my new proposed centerline is about 200 mm higher than my existing centerline. I have included my profile view to help.

Above is the cross section and profile of the surface that I have already created. The black line in the cross section is the existing surface and the green line is what I have drawn in and am hoping to automatically produce. My goal would to input the vertical alignment as a feature so that the cross fall exist in the surface. So essentially we are hoping to provide the appropriate cross fall represented in the cross section.

I hope that explanation works,

Thanks,

Mitchell

Hi Mitchell!

I understand now.

The tool that you would use would be the InRoads > File > Import > Surfacecommand on the From Geometry tab. If you need help with this tool let me know.

But I'll add a few additional comments. If I were in your shoes I would create a separate surface for my proposed Bridge deck. I would use the Surface > Edit Surface > Copy Portion of Surface command to grab the breaklines that I want from the existing surface and put them into my 'proposed surface'. And then add your new centerline into that surface. That way you'll keep your existing surface untouched and then can do whatever you want with your Bridge surface as your design. Maybe you were going to do this anyway but I just thought I would mention it.

I hope this helps!!

Civilly yours,  

-zen