TIP - Vehicles along a curve workflow (Civil 3D to Infraworks)

[Matt__W]

Normally, placing vehicles along a curve in Infraworks is a tedious and time consuming task, having to place the object, then rotate, then repeat the process for X number of objects along a curve. The time to complete this process can be greatly reduced by first arraying blocks that represent vehicles (or whatever) along a curve in Civil 3D then exported to a SHP file using the MAPEXPORT command and then imported into Infraworks. However, there are two things to keep in mind to make this process work correctly...

1) you must include the ROTATION attribute for the block when using the MAPEXPORT command

2) And this is the biggest one... you MUST convert the Z rotation from radians to degrees. This can be accomplished by using a simple formula: ROTATION * (180/3.14159)

Check out this screencast for more info and to follow along.

After placing the vehicles, you can use a style rule to randomize them.

[Anonymous]

I came up with the exact same workflow with an addition:

In this topic haik2 tipped me that the "rotation" in the C3D is not based on true north, therefore there is a error that needs to be compensated.

Then I've created and posted a rough workflow to get to know what the deviation is at the area of intrest (AOI) that I would like to share:

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-set your desired coordinate system in Toolspace> Settings tab

-go to layout, create a viewport

-layout tools tab, place a North Arrow, associated with the new the viewport

-draw a vertical line with ortho on, draw a line on top of your north arrow

-"dimang" the 2 lines you just drew

-make sure your dimstyle has a high enough precision

-the dimang value is your angle offset value

If your AOI is large, your offset value could have a relatively big difference, but most of the time it's neglectable

Why is this so important?

Because it allows you to: (do I sound a little bit like Eric C. ?)

1. use "mapexport" command in C3D with rotation data field and import objects in IW360 with the right location

2. use IW360 materials with "TexCoord anchor" turned on and have a perfectly matched angle: measure the angle between true north and the area you want a coverage on

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The formula becomes: "ROTATION * (180/3.14159)+[angle offset]"