Help my corridor surface isn’t being built properly!!

We will see if this one makes it through the nite without James posting ahead of me. Enjoy
Nick

So to wrap up my little discussion on how Civil 3D handles corridors I am going to explain how the surfaces get built from your corridor model and the impact of your assembly on the surface. In the last post I briefly mentioned codes, what I failed to mention is all the pieces of the corridor model get assigned a code, both the points and the links are coded. A lot of you might not even realize it is happening, but if you scroll all the way to end of the help topic for any sub-assembly you will see what is called a coding diagram, its is the most important piece of information you have in troubleshooting problems with corridor surface creation. If I had my way it would be the first diagram shown, but I think the bookend position is also a hold over from CAiCE because every CAiCE fragment help file I have seen also had them at the end. I have included a sample from the help file below.

At any rate when we build a surface from our corridor model there are two possibilities presented to us, both are dependant on codes. The first option available is by links. This builds the surface by connecting similar coded links and then triangulating between those links. The other option is to build based on feature lines, this is more akin to adding a bunch of breaklines in to build a surface model.

I won’t debate which is better, a lot of times I try both just to see which result I like better. So after 2 pages of ranting and rambling I am finally going to talk about what prompted this post. Someone in the newsgroup was having a problem with a sub-assembly not creating the datum surface properly to get accurate earthworks volumes. The answer to their problem lied in the information I gave you previously. The sub-assembly in question was the urban curb and gutter series, in the attached screen shot I have shown how the datum was being generated with the assembly as designed. As well is a picture of the assembly.

Now that you have seen the problem here is the resolution, by looking at the coding diagram for the two sub-assemblies involved here we can see both have the datum code applied(I have labeled my images for simplicity, when the software is working from the centerline outward it gets to the bottom back of curb and then the datum surface flies upward, this is because the software although nifty and intelligent isn’t a mind reader, it operates on pretty simple logic which states if you find a sub-assembly with the datum code the surface needs to hit it. The spiking here is caused because no decision can be made if it should be connecting to the upper sub-assembly or the bottom of the curb sub-base, the surface just ends up bouncing between the two. My correction for this problem requires an extra sub-assembly be used, in this case one without the datum code applied. As I need a simple link at grade I have used a generic link at slope, for codes I have applied only a top code to the link. In the screen shot you can see the surface generation problem has been resolved.


I am not going to document this one but another common cause of these problems is stacking two basic lane sub-assemblies ontop of each other, while the software will often manage to connect them properly, in corners it will very often get confused and result in similar spikes. This is because you end up with 2 sets of point codes that are identical just separated in the z direction. Hopefully this helps you get a little deeper view into how a model is built and lets you make some better choices when you are building your assemblies.

6 comments

  1. ldickieson says:

    I understand more and more about corridors since reading these posts. Thanks for tieing it all together in an easy to follow format. Looking forward to more technical posts.

  2. I read it. I get it.

    I am further in awe of Nick’s complete and total mastery of all things corridor and assembly.

    I am once again intensely greatful he is on my contacts list.

  3. mark premo says:

    This definetly helped me see things better. Thanks!

  4. Jeff Buffie says:

    I can’t believe this isn’t addressed in the tutorials or help menu
    I never would have figured this out.
    Thanks

  5. For anyone reading this now, note that with C3D 2008, we have the option for Overhang Correction within the Surfaces data. Use top for FG surfaces, Bottom for Datum and Earthwork calcs.

  6. Tom Pisani says:

    I know this is an old article but can someone help me with this similar situation. I have a corridor that is not linking to the bottom of the curb. I’ve used this article but not sure if I’m doing it correctly. When using the surface tab in corridor, do I tell it to build my surface based on curb, sidwalk, and datum or do I need additional information? I know a screen shot would work better so if anyone reads this, give me your email address and I can send some screen shots with addtional information.