Topic: Assemblies, Feature Lines, and Parcels... Oh My!

[BlackBox]

Never really needed Parcels before; worked in different disciplines, and had different project needs previously.

Now working in an Urban Land design group, and need Parcels... But what's the most productive means by which to grade Parcels, specifically rear and side lots (and manage it later, when engineer makes gobs of changes because it's the day before a SWFWMD submittal, so why not)?

Or do you not grade Parcels at all, and just use them for number, area labeling/depiction?

Use Alignment/Profile/Assembly for everything within R/W, Feature Lines for rear and side lot grading, and then OFFSETFEATURE from rear lot Feature Line down well past existing Surface to extract MINIMUMDISTBETWEENSURFACES lines (and subsequently convert those to Feature Lines as part of proposed Surface)?

You don't use Assemblies for this do you? Yes, it would handle the daylight targeting well, but how does this work with side lot grading, and finished floors (different than rear and side lot grades), etc.?

TIA

[Jeff_M]

I do not grade parcels, they are strictly 2d objects for us. I use a combination of corridors and featurelines (on different Sites than the parcels!). MJF did a class at AU in 2011 where he showed how to grade with corridors. It was quite informative and if I ever have a project with real lots again I will likely revisit that process. Perhaps he still has the class handouts, or they may be on AU or AUGI.

[mjfarrell]

IF

One needs to do lot grading, I have found the using assemblies and or offsets work best when the streets are not
exceedingly curvaceous.

OTHERWISE

Extracting featurelines from the corridor and THEN grading from them for the lot grading can be the fastest

[BlackBox]

Using OFFSETFEATURE Command on some FL's extracted from Alignment Profiles - Even though I enter a specific elevation difference, this is not necessarily being observed.

I've tried NOT including the elevation difference in same procedure, and manually perform Raise/Lower thereafter as well, and still get _some_ inaccurate reads when said FL's have been added to Surface as breakline, and subsequently labeled.

What's causing the FL's to NOT adhere to the elevation difference specified, and/or the surface labels to not == the FL elevations?

The Surface has no edits (i.e., raise/lower, etc.), and Surface Labels are set to round normal to 2-3 decimal places, and I still get a 'bust'; WTF.

[mjfarrell]

Are they still dynamic to the corridor object?

And or why not geth directly by including a link/point in your assemblies?

Are they predominately in curve areas/super elevation station ranges?

[mjfarrell]

are you smoothing them?

[BlackBox]

I am not, AFAIK - I just ran through the process again to be sure, extract FL from Alignment/Profile, OFFSETFEATURE Command with elevation difference.

This drawing has had to be fixed via AUDIT, RECOVER, and even REMOVEDUPFEATURELINES... I know that Sites/FLs can be removed during PURGE, AUDIT, etc. but can they just become 'broken' or corrupt somehow? *not sure*

Here's a screenshot of a rear lot line (5 FT from rear) that has been OFFSETFEATURE out to actual rear lot line +0.50... Some Surface Labels come in accurate to 0.00, and the very next set of labels are +/- 0.05 off, and then 0.01 off, etc., despite Elevation Editor showing exact 0.50:

[BlackBox]

_Really_ wish Civil 3D modeled NURBS Surfaces - looks like TIN is the culpret, particularly around any sort of FL radii, and here I was hoping I didn't have to grade each-and-every-single side lot line:

[BlackBox]

Coming from transportation & water sector projects, we'd only have the occasional corridor (that goes beyond the roadway, that is), and ponding - for urban land subdivision work, how then does one accurately model the subdivision's lots, as 'it's right in CAD, the label's just off' is just not going to be acceptable?

For context, the users here hardly utilize C3D - mostly because they're still in an 'old school' mindset, so they do not use Corridors, etc. - getting them to use Alignment, Profile & Feature Lines is within reach, but I need to be able to demonstrate that this is, or is not, better than grading the site by hand, so-to-speak with dumb text/blocks.

TIA

[mjfarrell]

A more palatable method might be to get front most feature line from the corridor, let it remain dynamic then use grading objects, and feature lines for the side lot grading...


Or model the lot grading as much as practicable with an assembly that is applied within the building envelope area only

It can be done, just takes a bit more targets...and practice

[mjfarrell]

what length Mid Ordinate are you specifying when adding those curvilinear FL's to the TIN?

perhaps you need to shorten that up.... (0.1)

[BlackBox]

A more palatable method might be to get front most feature line from the corridor, let it remain dynamic then use grading objects, and feature lines for the side lot grading...

That was my original course of action, and I'm subsequently using FL extracted from Alignment & Profile as it's substantially faster to model same R/W to R/W

Or model the lot grading as much as practicable with an assembly that is applied within the building envelope area only

It can be done, just takes a bit more targets...and practice

I'll explore Create Grading more if absolutely necessary - needed to use it once (albeit back in 2011), and it was a nightmare, on an admittedly inferior workstation.

what length Mid Ordinate are you specifying when adding those curvilinear FL's to the TIN?

perhaps you need to shorten that up.... (0.1)

Shortening the mid ordinate from 1.0 (default, never needed to change it until now), to 0.1 seems to provide the level of accuracy I'm after (from the resultant Surface Labels, that is), and is a really quick fix that doesn't require I duplicate any work thus far (aside from adding to new Surface; big whoop) - this is most helpful, thank you MJF! :beer:

Cheers

[mjfarrell]

ANY time you have cured breaklines the Mid Ordinate distance should be adjusted to achieve desired level of accuracy from the resultant breakline(s)

[BlackBox]

Taking another approach - I'm looking at now using Profile Expressions as part of a small handful of Alignment Station Offset Labels.

So far, it's pretty simple to yield Front Lot (at R/W), Finished Floor, Mid Lot (where adjacent ponds), and Rear Lot elevations... When rounding up to nearest 0.10, that is.

My Engineering on this project prefers to grade to nearest 0.05 - so a series of Finished Floor grades might be 53.00, 53.45, 53.50 as example (depending ultimately on the PGL elevation, of course).

To get the nearest 0.10 I just applied my 'Front Lot Elevation' Expression, to 0.10 decimals, set to 'Round Up' and appended a "0" to the end of the Label's Contents.

How do I go about the If-Then rounding for nearest 0.05...?

Cheers

[Dinosaur]

Just curious ... is this a development planned to the point you know what structure will be placed on each lot?  All f our developments had a variety of models for buyers to choose from; some of which worked well on the lot given the general grading surrounding and others not so much.  In addition, other builders would be permitted with their own plans.  The most information we would supply until a plot plan was generated was a pad elevation at FF with grades to front plus any rim elev's for back lot utilities.  nothing else was determined until basement excavation.

[BlackBox]

Just curious ... is this a development planned to the point you know what structure will be placed on each lot?  All f our developments had a variety of models for buyers to choose from; some of which worked well on the lot given the general grading surrounding and others not so much.  In addition, other builders would be permitted with their own plans.  The most information we would supply until a plot plan was generated was a pad elevation at FF with grades to front plus any rim elev's for back lot utilities.  nothing else was determined until basement excavation.

Pretty much, yes; this development is also located in SW Florida, so no basements to worry about. Haha

That said, yes, the client does have a specific model(s) that fit within the setback envelope for each of the four lot types we have designed for, with room enough for pool + cage, etc.

As for the site grading, we're submitting SWFWMD/ACOE plans for the entire project, and once approved/permitted, breaking the project out into four separate construction phases: 5.0 Miles of Water/Reuse mains (to supply the site), Phase 1 + Primary entrance roadway improvements, Phase 2 + Secondary entrance roadway improvements, and Phase 3 - We break ground in August-September

[BlackBox]

How do I go about the If-Then rounding for nearest 0.05...?

Got it - Thank you, Dave over at GBUG!


Example 'Finished Floor' Alignment Station Offset Label's Profile Expression, where 2.75 is the elevation difference above Profile Grade:

Code: [Select]

ROUND(({Profile Elevation}+2.75)/0.05)*0.05


[Dinosaur]

Pretty much, yes; this development is also located in SW Florida, so no basements to worry about. Haha

That would do it for sure ... we had to deal with full basement, partial basement, raised ranch, split levels and walk outs with street grades usually between 2 and 5 percent.

[mjfarrell]

How do I go about the If-Then rounding for nearest 0.05...?

Got it - Thank you, Dave over at GBUG!


Example 'Finished Floor' Alignment Station Offset Label's Profile Expression, where 2.75 is the elevation difference above Profile Grade:

Code: [Select]

ROUND(({Profile Elevation}+2.75)/0.05)*0.05


sorry I missed that earlier,

is that {code} used in an expression?  Just to clarify

[BlackBox]

How do I go about the If-Then rounding for nearest 0.05...?

Got it - Thank you, Dave over at GBUG!


Example 'Finished Floor' Alignment Station Offset Label's Profile Expression, where 2.75 is the elevation difference above Profile Grade:

Code: [Select]

ROUND(({Profile Elevation}+2.75)/0.05)*0.05


sorry I missed that earlier,

is that {code} used in an expression?  Just to clarify

No worries; yes, that is the Expression, used to populate an Alignment Station offset Label Style, as described above.

Screenshots:

[mjfarrell]

thanks, I was good at YES

[BlackBox]

So I'm loving how fast it was to grade a site using Station Offset labels via Expression(s).

Now, how does one extract COGO points for same, or integrate said labels value into a Surface?

[BlackBox]

Looks like I'm going to have to use StationOffsetLabel Class to filter for if IsTextComponentOverriden(), then GetTextComponentOverride(), else GetTextComponentIds(). 

[BlackBox]

Hooray Civil 3D .NET API!

http://screencast.com/t/I335akrQXugK