Creating Dynamic Civil 3D Offset Alignments and Widenings

Proposed linear designs are often represented using multiple parallel entities. Lane edges, medians, shoulders, ditches and R.O.W. are just a few examples. When design changes are made, it’s important that all related entities update as well. Fortunately, modifications like this are made easy using Civil 3D’s offset alignments.

Offset alignments are dynamically linked to a “parent” alignment, meaning they will maintain their offset, even when the parent alignment changes. This makes them perfect for defining linear geometry that would otherwise need to be redrawn as a design evolves. Offset alignments can also support “widenings” to accommodate things like turn lanes, transitions and on street parking geometry. No matter how offset alignments are defined, they will always maintain a geometric relationship with their parent, making future design modifications much more efficient!

In this session we’ll explore some workflows for defining offset alignments and widenings. If you are interested, I’ve created a quick video below that walks through everything you need to get started…

-Jeff

Comments

[Jack Garcia]

This is a pretty awesome tool.

[Ken Lasher]

Awesome tutorial. I look forward to using this feature on my next project.