Dynamic Long Sections

Drawing a long section isn't rocket science, but it is a painstaking process and it can take quite a long time - several weeks is perfectly reasonable for an 8km water main.

If drawing the long section is tricky then updating it is a nightmare. If the route is altered then all subsequent chainages have to be updated. If you're lucky the change is near the end of the route. If you're unlucky the change is right at the start!

To solve the problem of updating a traditional 'dumb' CAD long section, dhp11 developed a 'Dynamic Long Section' add-in for MicroStation. The annotation is 'intelligent' so as sections of the route are modified the chainage and heights are recalculated automatically. In dense areas it is common practice to manually offset the annotation for clarity so to make updates even easier the annotation remembers if it has been offset and redraws itself accordingly.

Digital Terrain Model

To create a Dynamic Long Section you need three things:

1. DTM (Digital Terrain Model)
2. The route
3. Background maps

Strictly speaking the background maps are optional, but it would be quite difficult to do much design without them.

See Also...Hide