AutoCAD Civil 3D is industry's top
software by Autodesk for various types of engineering projects such as roads,
highways, motorways, stormwater sewer, sanitary sewer etc. These projects can
be classified as Infrastructure projects.
An Alignment is a Civil 3D entity in two dimension and
describes centerline of road or pipe. It's important to create an
alignment accurately, as it determines the final layout of the project.
In this article, we will briefly discuss the various options available in
autoCAD Civil 3D for creating of Alignments.
Creating an Alignment:
To create an alignment, follow these steps:
- Open the AutoCAD Civil 3D software and click on
the Home > Create Design > Alignment button.
Alignment Command
- It will open a menu as shown below:
Alignment Creation Menu
- This menu contains various options for creating an
Alignment. I have numbered these options from 1 to 10. Let me
describe these one by one briefly.
It is used to create New Alignment using Tangents and Curves
from scratch. It prompts for creation of Tangents and Curves with different
options. Also compare it with Create Alignment from Objects.
This
is one of the most frequently used option.
- Create Best Fit Alignment
If your alignment is very simple
alignment and regression equations can be used to describe geometry of your
Alignment. Otherwise, you will need to split up your alignment into smaller
parts and use the "Create Best Fit Alignment" option.
- Create Alignment from Objects
This option can be used to create Alignment from other
objects such as Polyline, 3D polylines and Feature lines already created in the
drawing. It is also one of the most frequently used options used to create
alignments.
- Create Alignment from Corridor
In certain cases, Alignment needs to be created from feature
lines of a corridor. This option will create alignment from feature line of a
corridor.
- Create Alignment from Network Parts
To represent Network parts on a profile, an alignment will
be created so that we can draw its profile and project the network parts on
that profile. Further labels can be added to the profile.
- Create Alignment from Pressure Network
This option is same as Network Parts but will create
Alignment from Pressure Network parts.
- Create Alignment from Existing Alignment
This option can be used to create Alignment from existing
Alignment.
Offset Alignments are created for various functions such as
widening.
- Create Connected Alignment
Connected alignment can be created using this option. It
will associate the alignment with each other at the intersection point and
their profile at intersection point will have same elevation. These profiles
can be raised or lowered at the same time. It comes handy in creation of
intersections.
It also creates an offset alignment will widening options.
Further details of each option can be checked on Autodesk website.