AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012 Preview: Superelevation Enhancements

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Autodesk has a major focus on the transportation industry, and many of the enhancements this year reflect that direction. One major change that has come about has been in the area of superelevation. I went over just a few of the changes in my overview post on alignment enhancements, and will dig a little deeper here.

I’ll split this post up into three overall sections – small changes, medium changes, and big changes. First, the small changes:

We have a new button on the ribbon that allows direct access to the tabular editor. It does require that an alignment be present in the drawing before the button works, and can be seen below:

 

The other small change refers to buttons also, but these buttons are in the tabular editor. The new buttons allow you to export your superelevation data to a spreadsheet, an undo and redo button, and a button with a red “X” that allows you to clear all superelevation data from the tabular editor.

 

Next, we will look at the medium changes – this one is pretty simple, as it allows you to control how shoulder slopes are treated. You can now set the maximum shoulder rollover and apply different treatments to the high side and low side of the road. The new options in the wizard interface are shown below:

 

 

 

Now on to the big stuff – the major changes. This is what you really came to see, right?

The main major change is the new axis of rotation options, also known as the pivot point. In prior releases, we supported two conditions: road centerline and inner median edges on a divided road. With the 2012 release, we add 5 new conditions:

• Inside of curve
• Outside of curve
• Left road edge
• Right road edge
• Options for maintaining or distorting the inner median

You can see more of these options in the video below:

 

Video of Civil 3D 2012 superelevation pivot options

 

For those of you unable to access our video channel on YouTube, please refer to the following table for pivot options in each roadway scenario.

	Undivided Road	Divided Road
Crowned	Pivot Center Pivot Inside of Curve Pivot Outside of Curve Pivot Left Side Pivot Right Side	Pivot at Centers (distorted median) Pivot at Median Edges (maintain median shape) Pivot Inside of Curve (both treatments) Pivot Outside of Curve (both treatments) Pivot Left Side (both treatments) Pivot Right Side (both treatments)
Planar	Pivot Center Pivot Inside of Curve Pivot Outside of Curve Pivot Left Side Pivot Right Side	Pivot at Median Edges (maintain median shape) Pivot Inside of Curve (both treatments) Pivot Outside of Curve (both treatments) Pivot Left Side (both treatments) Pivot Right Side (both treatments

 

The other big change with superelevation is the new subassembly that makes modeling a corridor with superelevation much easier – LaneSuperelevationAOR. Stay tuned for another article that explains all about that subassembly.