button, or select the Channels/Footpaths Tools... option on the Road menu.
To access the tools for modifying road channels and footpaths click the button, or select the Channels/Footpaths Tools... option on the Road menu.
You will then see this toolbar with the options for the selected channel or footpath line.
These are the buttons in the toolbar:
Edit the horizontal design of a channel or footway
Add a vertical transition to a channel
Edit a channel vertical transition
Delete a channel vertical transition
Click this button to close the toolbar
A road carriageway is not always a constant width along its entire length. Often the road may widen or narrow. There may be parking bays or bus-stops. Residential sites are often designed with all sorts of fiddly shaped carriageways and footpath.
Accordingly, Site3D provides a set of tools to allow the engineering design of virtually any shape of road channel and back of footpath line. Site3D remembers the geometry of your design, so that if you should need to move the road centreline afterwards then the shape of the channels and back of footpath will automatically follow.
After pressing the Edit Channel Horizontal Design button you will see the following message appear on the right of the toolbar indicating that you should select a channel or footway:
You can now select which road channel or footpath you want to edit. As you move the mouse over the drawing the channel or footpath closest to the cursor will highlight. Click the mouse to select the desired item.
You will then see this toolbar with the options for the selected channel or footpath line.
Click on a tool to view more in depth information on the use of the tool inside Site3D:
Add parallel item
Add widening or narrowing
Add mitre item
Edit channel/footpath item
Delete channel/footpath item
Add amorphous design
Delete amorphous design
Finish and apply changes
Click this button to close the toolbar
The Parallel, Widening, and Mitre Corner design items allow you to define a portion of the channel based on the centreline chainages and offsets from the centreline. This means that the channel design input with these tools stays relative to the centreline. Any changes you make to the horizontal position of the centreline will cause these items to be recalculated such that the same chainage and offset is achieved along the length of the channel.
The Parallel item allows you to specify a portion of the channel which follows the centreline at a parallel offset.
The Widening item allows you to specify a straight widening from one centreline chainage and offset to another centreline chainage and offset.
You can also fillet the start and end points of the widening, which uses the widening as one of the arc tangents and the proceeding/following channel design as the other arc tangent.
The Mitre Corner item is used to square off corners or set the radius of a corner and can change the parallel offset around a corner.
A combination of these above tools allows you to input almost all standard channel designs.
The Edit Item tool can be used to modify a channel item that been added.
The Delete Item tool can be used to remove channel items that have been added. Another approach to removing items from a channel design is to simply overlap them with a new item. A new parallel item can be drawn over a section of chainage to overwrite the channel design back to a simple parallel offset.
The above items are defined by centreline chainage and offset which makes them very flexible to design changes. When you reposition a centreline these items move with it, keeping the same relative positions. However, a limitation to this approach is that the items cannot overlap or reverse the chainage direction. To input designs that cannot be achieved due to this limitation, the amorphous design tool can be used instead.
Below is an example where the channel zig-zags and the corresponding centreline chainage goes back and forth along the channel which has been input using the amorphous design tool:
The Amorphous button can be pressed to open up the amorphous design tools.
The Delete Amorphous button can be pressed to delete an amorphous design line.
When modifying the path of a channel or footpath it may be necessary to make a series of changes to design the line to the desired path. In many cases this would lead to an incomplete intermediary step where it is undesirable to recalculate the knock-on effects.
Accordingly the knock-on effects are not calculated and applied until you press the Apply Changes button.
This also gives you an opportunity to quit the channel editing mode and cancel any changes without the edits being applied. You can also cancel or apply channel edits by right clicking and selecting either "Quit and Apply Changes" or "Quit and Discard Changes".
The Vertical Channel Tools can be used for making localised changes to the road crossfall/camber (the gradient from the centreline to the road edge). This will allow you to specify a section of the road chainage where the crossfall gradient changes, allowing you to create superelevation on a road or transition from a crossfalling road to a cambered road.
The Add Vertical Transition tool allows you to change the crossfall gradient of a road by adding a transition from one crossfall gradient to another.
The Edit Vertical Transition tool allows you to edit a channel vertical transition that has been added.
The Delete Vertical Transition tool can be used to delete unwanted vertical transitions.
The Vertical Channel Tools help page has more in-depth information on the vertical transition tool.