Author Topic: Pavement Markings - Best Practices, Tools, Ideas, Etc.  (Read 3766 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

caddcop

  • Guest
Pavement Markings - Best Practices, Tools, Ideas, Etc.
« on: November 28, 2012, 04:02:01 PM »
How does everyone draft existing and proposed pavement markings in AutoCAD?

I've been using MicroStation longer than AutoCAD, but am learning more every day. In MicroStation, we can assign a linetype a property that makes it fixed in its scale. We also can create multiple parallel lines into a style. So many years ago, while I was employed at the local DOT, I setup linestyles for all of the MUTCD stripes: Double Solid, Double 1/2 Solid 1/2 Skip, Standard Skip, Puppy Tracks and even some wide lines for stop bars and crosswalks.
What is really nice, is that since these are linetypes, the survey crews can code pavement markings and we get a 3D topo file including pavement markings.
I am looking for suggestions, software, anything to get the same thing out of Civil 3D. I've setup layers, descriptor keys,  a figure prefix file and can get linework, but I do not know how to get linetypes in AutoCAD to work like I have them working in MicroStation. And when we are designing, we need to create pavement marking plans - so I'd need a similar thing for proposed.

BlackBox

  • King Gator
  • Posts: 3770
Re: Pavement Markings - Best Practices, Tools, Ideas, Etc.
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2012, 04:14:29 PM »
Posts #2, and #4 in this thread may be if interest to you.
"How we think determines what we do, and what we do determines what we get."

caddcop

  • Guest
Re: Pavement Markings - Best Practices, Tools, Ideas, Etc.
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2012, 12:30:52 PM »
We are not on 2012 yet and I believe it will not install if it does not find 2012 on the PC.
Do you know what is in it that I would find useful?

I know I'm not supposed to start a new topic within another thread, but...

Related to this, how do you draw double faced traffic barrier - existing or proposed?

I say an old thread that you were asking about setting up templates for multiple clients. How did all that go?

I found a tool via an AU seminar by Robert Steltman (www.rsteltman.com) that imports a more complete descriptor key than OTB Civil 3D can do. It creates and assigns Point Styles based upon the settings in the descriptor key file. Since that is nothing more than an Access database, as is the Figure Prefix file, I setup both of them using Access and pasting from Excel. One I use Steltman's tool to import, the other I just edit the database directly.

For everything else, I started with an NCS template and renamed layers as needed and copied a few styles to make client specific styles. Still not 100% finished, but if I started with an empty template I'd be a lot less along than I am. And by jumping in to it manually for a number of things, I have a better understanding of what I need to do with layers - although I am still exploring where to use client layers and where to use Layer 0.

I still don't feel like there is a clearly defined "best practices" for layers in Civil 3D styles and templates.