Boundaries

The boundaries are available through the Road Surfaces dialog, located at the top of the list of surfaces for the left and right sides, respectively.

Boundaries are used to limit the extent of the road model data in the cross-sections. Typical use cases limit the road design against other road models, buildings, structures, or design data. The boundaries will clip all road model data at the defined left and right limitations of the model. It is also possible to define that the limitation is because of a bridge/tunnel which will remove the fill/cut solids within the sections.

Stationing/Chainage

Define a from-to interval for the boundary. When using different limitation elements the boundary description can be divided into subsections.

Subsections need to be defined based on at least two station values (start-end stations). Within the start-end sections, there can be multiple intermediate sections if needed.

Subsections can be split with a Break. Add a break by writing any text in the chainage column.

Methods of Defining Boundaries

Surface

Select a surface from the pull-down menu of the column Surface and define the end station of the boundary in the next row.

• The selected surface will be used throughout the whole subsection (from-to station).

• The selected surface will be shown in the column Surface.

• Nothing else is required to define this method.

• The road cross-section will be terminated at the assigned surface.

Line

Click the button New Line in the lower right corner of the dialog box.

• All the properties related to this method are to be defined in the dialog box Lines as Surface Edges which pops up with the button New Line.

• Define the section for where to use the line as a boundary.

• The selected line will be used throughout the whole subsection.

• The selected line will be shown in the column Line.

• The road cross-sections will be bound to the selected line's horizontal geometry (the vertical geometry of the selected line is not considered).

• The line must be located on the left-hand side of the reference line to be able to use for the left boundary description. Same logic for the right side.

Distance

This method is an extension of the two methods above.

• Select the boundary limitation.

  • Either a surface or a line as selected in the methods above.

  • The selected primary line will be shown either in the column Surface or Line depending on the method used.

• Assign a distance from the primary line in the column Distance.

  • Assign the value with a sign in meters. + (plus) means to move the limitation further away from the road model centerline, - (minus) means to move the limitation closer to the centerline.

• The distance value can vary within a subsection.

• A not-defined/blank distance cell is interpreted as "Distance = 0.000".

Object

The object column makes it possible to define that the boundary used is related to a location of a bridge, tunnel, or retaining wall.

In addition to adding left/right limitations to the model, when using Bridge or Tunnel the road calculation will cut away the features for Cut and FillLayers that are in between the left/right boundary. This means that the solids and volumes will not be part of the resulting model. This will improve the Quantity reports and how a model is presented in a view (typically in an interchange with road models crossing each other with different elevations.

How to use

• Add a boundary limitation on both left/right sides of the model.

• Add bridge or tunnel info in the Object column on both sides of the model on the corresponding chainages that are in a similar location.

• The function will remove solids at an angle if the from-to chainage is not equal on both sides of the model.

Note: The road pavements will not be affected and thicknesses for the pavement needs to be adjusted in the Pavement dialogs.

Tip: Using a Retaining Wall object will not give the same functionality as Bridge/Tunnel, and is just informational in the dialog.

Next topic: Ditch Design