Alignment Design

How long alignment can I make before I have to split the alignment in parts?

Answer: 2500 elements.

The Alignment Design tool and the road model calculation supports upto 2500 elements and therefore have no limitation in length.
Wheater or not you need to split your alignment vary from project to project and the level of detail on the terrain making alignments slow in the vertical window. Note that the alignment design tool can be experienced as slow depending on what tasks are used as calculation basis or illustration objects. Longer alignments will lead to slower road model calculations because of the increased amount of data.
The amount of input data to process is normally more limiting than the length of the alignment editing alignment or building the road.

Dialog crashes

Answer: There are many possible reasons for the Alignment Design dialog to crash during start-up, picking a line, in use or when drawing out. Often it is a local factor/issue on the computer that has occured that are causing the issue. It might be settings on the computer, error in Novapoint, error in the CAD-software, issues in the drawing or sometimes the lack of memory/RAM on the computer.

Everytime a crash occurs you should as minimum restart CAD if you are not forced to do it. Restart of Novapoint/Quadri could also be necessary, but not normally a must.

Below you will see some ways to solve the issue you are experiencing. Some processes will reset settings to default and in that process might whipe out some company settings. In that case you need to contact your IT department to get all your company settings back in order.

The error might be related to…

…using a specific alignment in the drawing:

• Do you experience the issue in other projects?

• Make the same operation on a colleagues computer and se if the issue still occurs there in the same project and on the same alignment(s)

• Delete the alignment from the drawing and draw it out again from the line task in the project. Try then to pick the alignment from the drawing. There might have been issues with the previous drawout.

• Save the alignment as TIT/NYL or XML from the dialog and read it back into the Alignment Design tool from file

• Try to run Reset User Settings

• Try to run Reset Settings to Default from AutoCAD (basically a “Reset User Settings” for CAD)

  1. • NOTE! Some companies may have restricted to run this function.

…issues with the drawing or other XREFs:

• Try to restart the Alignment Design/pick alignment from a new empty drawing

• Clean up potential errors or heavy drawings with different CAD-commands (CONVERT, PURGE, AUDIT etc)

• It might be related to using UNC-filepath to the drawing or project

  • (UNC-filepath is of the type \\server-name\Project\Contract… and you must use “mapped network drives” of type M:\Project… or similar)

…missing files in the CAD-software:

1. Close down Novapoint and CAD

2. Start CAD alone (not through Novapoint)

3. Close down CAD

4. Start Novapoint and then CAD from Novapoint

… the CAD-profile for Novapoint:

1. Close down Novapoint and CAD

2. Run CAD-software reset function: 'Reset settings to Default' (NOTE! Some companies may have restricted the use of this)

3. Start CAD from Novapoint again

4. Go to Options > Profiles

5. Set “Unnamed profile” as 'current'

6. Delete the Novapoint profile for your Novapoint version

7. Close down CAD

8. Start CAD from Novapoint again

9. CAD-profile for Novapoint is now a new one

10. Test Alignment Design

In some cases it will necessary to restore your setup according to some company profile to create these files as some customers have spesial setup for this. Contact your IT.

…visual style in CAD:

• Make sure your drawing is using 2D Wireframe visual style inside CAD.

…graphics card:

• Turn off the LineWeight in AutoCAD (command LWDISPLAY in CAD)

• Turn off Graphic Performance in CAD (command GRAPHICSCONFIG in CAD)

• Turn off all “SNAP”-functions (press F3, F4, F6, F10, F11 in CAD)

…software:

• Reinstall Novapoint and/or CAD-software (normally not necessary but is a last resort)

• Upgrade/downgrade your Windows version (ex. Windows 10 version 2004 may have issues)

• Upgrade/downgrade your NVIDIA graphics driver (ex. Nvidia driver ending in 4.1967 may have issues)

If non of the solutions above work you might need to format your computer and install all again.

As a last resort you should consider if it is time to get a new machine or swap/upgrade components as your computer may not be up to the task.

But before the last steps, try contacting your Novapoint Support channel to see if they have any good thoughts related to your specific problem.

Length is set to -nan(ind) and dialog crashing

Answer: We have detected that the length column in Alignment Design may show -nan(ind) and the dialog then crashes.

This may be related to a combination of using Windows 10 version 2004 and the integrated Intel Graphics card.
Possible solutions:

• Force your computer to use the NVIDIA graphics card (high performance) for both AutoCAD and Quadri/Novapoint.

• Upgrade/downgrade your NVIDIA graphics driver to see if that helps.

• Upgrade/downgrade your computer so it doesn't use Windows 10 version 2004.

Ask your IT support for help with these items.

Error 400025: Coordinate referance system is not defined

Answer: Try to restart the software or your computer.

Grip points are very big

Answer: Sometimes the grip points and numbers in the Alignment Design can be big and making it hard to see what you are working on. This is especially experienced when zooming in and making tight connections.

It can be solved by doing one of the following:

• Change the drawing scale
  a) Make sure the correct drawing is selected (horizontal or vertical)
  b) In AutoCAD, go to the Novapoint ribbon
  c) Go to Scale and reduce the scaling. Press OK.
  d) Refresh the drawing by writing RE, REGEN or REGENALL
   

• Turn off LineWeight
  In AutoCAD it is possible to turn off LineWeight by writing LWDISPLAY in the commandline. Set the value to OFF. It is also possible to turn this off via a button in AutoCAD.

I have a problem moving my alignment without it being "NOT OK"

Answer: If you have a complex alignment or an alignment with little flexibility you can help yourself by instead making a new alignment in the area where you want to move your projects alignment. If you manage to make this new alignment OK, then it should be simpler to move your project alignment to this location.

Note:  Start and end the new alignment perfectly aligned with the project alignment. Also start and end with the same fixation as the project alignment.

How can multiple elements be moved in parallell?

Answer: Mark the alignment so it is highlighted. Select the grip points you want to move while holding down the SHIFT button on your keyboard. Now move one of the highlighted grip points and they should all be moved together.

My alignment is never "OK"

Answer: There are multiple reasons why an alignment calculation is “NOT OK”.

1. Fixation, is this set up correctly? Remember that there are many combinations for the fixation between the elements and this setup has to be correct.

2. Poorly placed grip points for the elements. If the placement of the grip points does not allow for an OK calculation it will not work. When there is not enough room for placing the curves, clothides or straights it can be hard to find the correct placement for the grip points. Go back some steps by looking in the History-tab or Undo the latest changes. Maybe making the radiuses very small could help to make room for the straight lines.

3. Look in the error-tabs for both horizontal and vertical to identify where the problem exist and look at the design in this area. If you find it hard to figure out what is wrong, then try to make another alignment in the area with errors and see what you need to do to make that work. Now change the radius, grippoints location and fixation on the alignment with the errors so it matches the one that calculates OK. It should now be working OK again and be able to calculate the input data to an alignment geometry.

Undo-button not working

Answer: Did you press the “correct” undo-button? The Undo-button in Alignment Design applies only for changes in the Alignment Design dialog, while the Undo-button in AutoCAD applies only to changes in AutoCAD except those done by the Alignment Design.

Alignment Design is slow

Answer: Sometimes the Alignment Design is noticably slow. This can be experienced with very long alignments, when there is a very detailed calculation basis/illustration objects or there are many stored alternatives in the Alignment Design history.

It is also possbible to turn off Automatic Quadri Save found in the pull-down Object menu and pressing the Automatic Quadri Save. When turning this off you should also save the alignment regularly to not loose data if something suddenly doesn't wrong. More about this here.

Terrain is missing in alignment design, Why?

Answer: When tearrin profile is missing in vertical window in alignment design the cause often is an incorrect calculation basis. Finish the tool. Go to Quadrimodel and choose edit for your Alignment Task. Make sure you have selected a correct calculation basis (including Ground surface) If calculation basis is defined using feature level - make sure the object type UnspecifiedLandCoverArea is selected.

Drawing horizontal alignment into dwg-file makes AutoCAD crash! How can I get rid of this problem?

Answer: You need to reset your Novapoint User Settings. This will reset settings to default, so you might need to contact your IT department to get all your company setup back in order for the softwares Novapoint or CAD.

1. Turn off AutoCAD and Novapoint. 

2. Press Windows “Start-button”, scroll to the folder Novapoint XX.XX. 

3. Select “Reset user settings Novapoint XX.XX”. 

4. In the dialogue that appear - press the OK button. 

5. Then start Novapoint and AutoCAD again. 

6. Once again, try to draw your alignment!

In alignment design it is difficult to see needed information in the background drawing. How can I make the alignment construction line “thinner”?

Answer: Go to Tools - Options and choose to change lineweight to a thinner appearance.

Is it possible to change the size of the annotation texts shown in alignment design?

Answer: Yes, if you find the annotations to large, hiding necessary information, you are able to make them smaller. The texts are depending on what Novapoint scale that is used. Go to Novapoint - Scale and set another scale factor (Ex. 1:100 if earlier used is 1:1000). Then press “Recalculate all” in Alignment design and You will see that the text strings will take a smaller place.