Smart Elevate Command - Home - Click Here
Common Selection Requirements
In the Absolute, Delta, Plane and Surface Modes, the following setup options are common to each mode.
Portion
In Absolute, Delta, Plane and Surface modes you can select the line portion that you wish to elevate. This can be any of the following options
- All - For single or multiple line selections, you can adjust the entire line or all lines selected
- Start to Location - for single line selections, you can adjust the line from its start point to a defined location along the line.
- Location 1 to Location 2 - for single line selections, you can adjust the line between two defined locations along the line.
- Location to End - for single line selections, you can adjust the line from a defined location along the line to the end of the line.
When you select anything other than All, you will be asked to select the Location or Location 1 and 2 to define the range of the adjustment.
Primary Adjustment
In these modes you can make a primary adjustment and an optional secondary adjustment. The options for primary adjustment include the following
- Constant
- Range
- Undefined (Only in absolute mode)
Constant Adjustment
In this mode you can set a single elevation that will be applied to the entire station range of the line selected. for example set the value to 100 if you want the line to be raised / lowered to that elevation over the range selected.
Range Adjustment
In this mode you can specify an absolute elevation to be applied at the start of the range and a second elevation value to be applied at the end of the range. The line will transition between those two elevations over the distance between those two points.
Undefined
In this mode you can eliminate all elevations that are defined on the line between the start and end point of the range selected. The elevation is computed at the start of the range and at the end of the range and locked in with new elevation controls, and all elevations between are removed. This mode only applies to the Absolute mode.
Secondary Adjustment
If you wish to further vary the elevations over the range, you can apply a secondary adjustment that is compounded with the primary adjustment to adjust the line elevations. For example you may wish to set the line elevation to 100 between the range points but then subgrade adjust that by a further 1’ to create the base of subgrade. The secondary adjustment can be
- Constant
- Range
- None
An example of a secondary adjustment that is constant is a simple subgrade adjustment of 1’
An example of a secondary adjustment that is a Range Adjustment would be e.g. that at the start of the range the subgrade is 1’ thick but at the end of the range it is 1.5’ thick.
When you select the secondary adjustment mode, you will be asked to enter the value or values required when the mode is anything other than None.
Plane Mode (P)
The Plane mode will elevate curved and or straight sections of a selected linestring defined using a “Portion” range to a planar surface defined using 3 points.
Video Demonstration
The following video shows you how to use the Plane mode of adjustment
Video Demonstration
When modeling curb and gutter lines in 3D, you will often be provided with elevation spots at the PC and PT points of the curves. In some cases you may also be provided with elevations at mid curve or interval points around the curve also. In the latter cases, the curve sections will be elevated correctly when using the PC, PT and mid curve points, however where you are provided with the PC and PT points only, you will often find that the elevations along the curve will not create the surface as intended by the engineer.
This is because the curve was designed to fall on a grade plane and the elevations have been interpreted at the PC and PT points only on that grade plane, however when interpreted just from the PC and PT points around the curve (how TBC interpolates elevations of a line between provided vertical controls on a line by linear interpolation) you will find that you get a small sag or crest in the curve vs the intended planar grade for the curve.
Take the following example
The parking island was designed to lie on a plane defined by a rectangle where the south side is at elevation 100 and the North side is at elevation 101.50. The arcs are 4’ radius, and the elevations at the PC and PT points are all computed correctly. However when you look at the surface model generated using just this line where all the elevations are correct, clearly shows a warping of the plane at each of the arc corners (the non linear nature of the color bands across the island. This is caused by the fact that the elevation interpolation for the line is along the line between the PC and PT points rather in the N-S and E-W axes of the plane that was used to define the island.
In this exaggerated oblique view of the island you can see the problem more clearly
The Plane mode and Surface mode of Smart Elevate is designed to help you correct these issues on either individual elements (an arc return or a single island) (Plane Mode) or all lines of a parking lot to a grading framework surface (Surface Mode).
Filled out command dialog looks as follows
Interpolated points on arcs
This setting allows you to choose from the following options to determine how the elevation nodes are added to arc segments along the line.
- None - does not add any additional elevation nodes to arc segments
- Angle - uses an angle increment computed at the arc radius point to place elevation nodes in arc segments, i.e. if your arc subtends a 45 degree angle at the radius point and you select 15 degrees as the interval, you will get elevation nodes at the 0, 15, 30, and 45 degree locations. Note that if your arc subtended an angle of 47.5 degrees that you would have a short 2.5 degree segment at the end of the arc in this scenario.
- Arc distance - uses a distance along the arc to place elevation nodes in arc segments, i.e. if your arc is 50’ long and you select 10’ arc distance then you will get elevation nodes at the 0,10,20,30,40 and 50’ points along the arc. Note that if your arc was 53.6’ long that you would have a short 3.6’ long segment at the end of the arc in this scenario.
- Arc to chord - uses an arc to chord separation tolerance to determine the location of the elevation nodes. If you enter a value of e.g. 0.01 then you will get more nodes than if you enter a value of 0.05. The value you enter is the maximum distance allowed between a chord line drawn across the arc between one elevation node and the next, and the arc at the chord mid point. Smaller values = more nodes along the line, larger values = less values along the line. The benefit of this method is that you will get a uniform number of segments on the same radius arcs, and you will get more segments on tighter radius arcs and less on looser radius arcs allowing the software to adjust the number of elevation nodes automatically based on a single tolerance value.
- Number of segments - divides the arc length into a number of equal segments i.e. if your arc is 50’ long and you elect 4 segments you will get 4x 12.5’ segments between the elevation nodes.
Pick the method that you wish to use. Number of segments or Arc to chord are popular settings for arcs in e.g. Parking Lots because they both create a uniform spacing of points around arcs that will create more uniform triangulation in surfaces that are generated later from the linework.
Once you have selected the interpolation method, enter the values that are requested to support that method i.e. if you select Number of segments, enter the number of segments that you require, if you select Arc to chord, enter the Arc to chord distance that you require etc.
Plane Definition
Select 3 points that define the plane you want to use. Each point / location that you select needs to be a 3D location. The plane will be created once you have selected the line that you want to elevate so that the plane extends beyond the limits of the line that you select.
Reset plane after adjusting linestring
Check this checkbox if after each linestring elevation adjustment you want to define a different plane for the next line that you want to elevate.
Linestring
Select the line that you want to adjust the elevation of
Portion
Select which portion of the line that you want to elevate - choose from the different portion options i.e. All, Start to Location, Location 1 to Location 2 or Location to End.
Once the Portion method has been selected, select the necessary locations to define the range. Note that Start and End are already known so you will only need to select one location for the Start to Location or Location to End modes. For Location 1 to Location 2 mode you will need to select 2 locations.
Secondary Adjustment
If you wish to apply a secondary elevation adjustment over the selected portion of the line, you can choose the Adjustment mode (from None, Constant or Range), and then define the values for the secondary adjustment in the normal way.
Results of the process
You can clearly see that the warping at each curved corner has now been corrected and that the plane has now been supported through al of the arc sections through the addition of the extra vertical controls to the curved sections of the line. Note that the additional vertical controls are equally spaced around the curved sections resulting an more uniformity in the surface model created from the line.
In this second example (shown below) we are given spot elevations at the PT / PC on the bullnose of an island at the end of a parking bay and additional spot elevations at the IP point of the curves and then a further elevation point at the back of the parking bay. The intent of the engineer is clear that there is a slope of 0.4’ over the 20’ from the nose of the island to the back of the parking bay. The arc radius is 4’ so at the PC / PT points of the arcs not provided, the elevations should be 100.08 (4’ x 0.4/20), however if we query the line at those same locations having been elevated as provided, the elevation at those points is 100.11 i.e. 0.03 higher than the engineers intent. In addition that difference also shows up in the curved sections as a crest or sag in the same way as in the previous example.
So the filled out dialog for Plane mode in this example will look as follows
On execution the result is as shown below
Here is the colored elevation view of the island surface - again showing that the warping of the surface around the curved sections has been corrected.
Before correction
After correction
