CES321122

Dynamic Bridge Information Modelling in Civil 3D

Valentin Belets
Aurecon

Learning Objectives
• Learn how to set up Civil 3D template for Bridge Information Modeling
• Learn how to stick bridge geometry and components to road design
• Learn how to produce deliverables
• Learn how to transfer the bridge information model to the next design stage

Description
Ever felt like you’ve modeled a bridge too many times trying to catch up with road design
changes? Civil 3D software and this class can make it easier! The class will cover the ways to
use Civil 3D for modeling bridges. Civil 3D not only links bridge design with ever-changing road
design geometry on the earliest stages of design, but also builds up the information model of a
bridge to be carried through the following design stages.

Speaker
Over the last 8 years I have been specialising in bridges and tunnels design in Russia and
Australia. Things I enjoy the most at work are mapping out workflows, finding ways to improve
and digitise them, parametrics and modelling, coding and codification, getting things sorted in
every possible sense. I am a regular attendee and occasional presenter of subject matter
specialist gatherings in Sydney and Brisbane, including Revit User Group Sydney, buildingsmart
activities, Computational Design Meetup, Digital Construction Meetup, Power BI Meetup and
others.

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Using Civil 3D for Bridge Information Modeling
INCEPTION OF A PROJECT…
PROJECT TEAM IS WORKING REALLY HARD TO WIN THE NEXT TENDER. HIGHWAYS TEAM ARE
DOING OPTIONEERING, FROM TIME TO TIME PROVIDING BRIDGE DESIGNERS WITH VARIOUS
BITS OF INFORMATION. PLAN ALIGNMENT, DESIGN AND EXISTING GROUND PROFILE, BARRIER
STRINGS, TRIANGULATION, ALL THAT. SURVEY FILE IS A 3D DWG WITH [HOPEFULLY] NONE OF
THE 3D OBJECT “DROPPING” TO ZERO Z LEVEL. ONCE BRIDGE DESIGN CATCHES UP WITH THE
LATEST INPUTS PROVIDED, IT GOT FED BACK TO A MASTER REFERENCE FILE. FOR BRIDGE
DESIGNERS THE PROCESS REPEATS EVERY TIME INPUTS ARE CHANGING.

If it sounds familiar to you, then most probably you’ll find materials of this class useful. This
document will give some examples of linking bridge components to road design and provide
guidance in setting up your own Civil 3D styles to implement similar processes in your office.

The industry had Bridge Modeler plugin for Civil 3D (also known as Civil Structures extension
for Revit). It now has Infraworks with Bridge Modelling getting better and better. Both methods
could/can generate a model of various bridges types, but couldn’t do a simple thing, display
Bridge Geometry on Developed Elevation/ Longitudinal Section. Dispersed 3D Solids can be
projected, yes, but can they be dimensioned, labeled, dynamically updated when the plan
arrangement changes? Revit still can’t do a true section (Minimizing View Depth is not good
enough), not even mentioning a proper Developed elevation.

Civil 3D can do a proper LSEC as Road Designers have, enhanced with labeled Pier Centre
Lines, simplified representation of piers and more detailed representation of a superstructure.
Dynamically linked to the corridor Feature Lines can be projected to Long Section.

Of course it requires some time to create the Civil 3D styles, but then bridge components such
as piers, deck and bridge furniture placed along alignment using Civil 3D functionality are
prepared for road design changes, such as:
- alignment plan geometry tweaks,
- chainage adjustments,
- design profile changes,
- superelevation changes,
- barrier strings changes.

With all that, Civil 3D labels are there to query true linear infrastructure properties, such
as chainages, object names, bearings etc…

Even when detail level moves forward, C3D model can be used for design verification or quality
assurance. Through DataShortcuts, Civil 3D objects can be brought in the drawing files with
NoDisplay style applied. Labeling these objects will then tell actual story.

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Overall C3D approach scheme.

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Sample Line

Even if the task is just to define bridge articulation (arrangement of pier centrelines) along an
alignment, to me Sample Lines are perfect to use!

This is why:

Placement

Sample Lines can be placed at regular intervals

starting from a particular chainage using By Range of
Stations… method. If you’ve already done it using Path
Array, then Select Existing Polylines is the way to go.

Labeling

Text-based Sample Line Labels can show exactly what is needed for a bridge pier:
- Sequential numbering while placing with regular (or not) intervals.
- Name
- Chainage
- Distance To Previous Sample Line (Span Length)
- [Optional] Sample Line Number (minus 1) placed at SpanLength/2 can be used to
denote Span Number for a relatively straight bridge.

Block-based Sample Line Labels (example shown in the middle above):

- Various types of Headstock, Column, Foundation. Multiple labels can be assigned
either to a range of stations or swapped one-by-one.
- To increase LOD and LOI can be exported to a separate dwg, swapped with more
detailed blocks.
- Expression is used to undo blocks’ annotativeness, showing them at actual size.

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Profile View Data Band Styles (Sectional Data Labels = Sample Lines). Same color
coding is applied.

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Label. Anti-Annotative Sample Line (and not only) Block

To be able to create a label showing the pier which won’t scale up or down we would
need to undo that.

First, there would need to be a geometry (Circle would be the easiest one to put in) of a
certain size (Diameter for circle) In this example it is 40 units. It would need to go onto
an unplottable layer of choice. In my example it is a “_NoPlot” layer, color 125.

Then go to Sample Line Expressions and create an expression which will revert the
scaling of a label (Previously created circle diameter value would be divided by {Drawing
Scale Conversion} property:

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Next step is to go and create a label itself.
Name it, put on Layer 0

And assign the following parameters:

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To be able to use existing block library representing pier components in plan, just copy
the circle D=40 units across and copy SL Label, choosing the customized block.
To assign a skew to a block, copy the style and assign a value to Rotation Angle
parameter.

Some inspirational examples (Available in the dataset):

Parametric abutment with a skew:

Retaining wall with adjustable wing length and angle:

Unfortunately, parametrics only become accessible after Sample Line Label is exploded.

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 Label. Sectional Data on Profile View
To be provided
Recommended Sample Line Feature Settings:

- Styles

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- Names

o Sample Lines:

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Sample Line Group (Each alignment can have multiple groups)

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Feature Line

Tricky as many Civil 3D Styles. Can be displayed differently in different views (Plan, Section,
Profile). But not the trickiest.

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Placement

Manual at Sample Line Locations. Style while placing can be any. It is recommended to
ISOLATE alignment and sample lines – easier to snap to intersections. This Feature
Line projected to Profile View can display piers in a simplistic way. Linked to a defined
profile. Unfortunately, feature line labels can not be swapped one-by-one in Profile View.
Once disconnected/exploded, Wblock workflow can exchange separate blocks with
different ones.

1. Create Feature Line

2. Choose the settings:

3. Place it, confirming Elevation/Grade as 0:

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Style

__BRDG_LSEC_ABUT_A __BRDG_LSEC_PIER

Notes:
Blocks can be of any complexity.
Parametrics become available
after explosion.
In combination with EATTEXT
quick quantity takeoffs can be
extracted from the model.

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Projection to Longitudinal Section

1. Pick Profile View;

2. Project Objects To Profile View;
3. Pick PierArrangement Feature Line;
4. Choose the style and the Profile.

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What if there are multiple intermediate pier types? Well, If you like the idea of pier
positioning being simultaneously linked to particular chainage and design profile, here is
a way:
1. Create another Feature Line Style.

2. Select PierArrangement Feature Line and delete PI’s at which architectural piers
are to be placed:

3. Place PierArrangement_Archi Feature Line:

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4. Project it on ProfileView using the same approach as for original one:

Of course, you might want to display piers on

LongSection after the Superstructure depth is defined.
IN the above example pier block on Profile View
positioning is driven by Design Profile and assumed
Superstructure depth.

If Superstructure soffit profile is not following design profile or not constant along the
bridge, then two thing s would need to be done:
o blocks insertion point would need to be adjusted
o profile would need to be swapped in profile view properties with a “Deck Soffit”
one.

You might be wandering how can we get Deck Soffit profile (amongst others)
displayed on the Profile View. This is covered in the next section, Corridor.

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Additional Use Cases of FeatureLines
Since recently, it is possible to use Feature Line as a corridor baseline. Let’s look at how
it can be leveraged in bridge design.

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Corridor
Overview
Civil 3D corridor is good at representing Superstructure for various reasons:
- Highly configurable smart geometry of the cross-section;
- Dynamic link to alignment change;
- Low-to-Mid LOD Solid geometry generation with attached metadata;
- In many cases easier to understand than Revit’s Adaptive Component Environment;
- Especially useful when dealing with bridge widenings;

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- Variety of objects can be extracted from the corridor maintaining dynamic link to it.

Assemblies
Assemblies are represented by multiple Subassemblies (building blocks)
Often times out of the box assemblies can be used to start with and to get a rough idea
of how superstructure will look like.
(Number Transform point based):
Generic shapes are good enough as long as parameter output-input is used.
Verticality, but instantaneous grade can be used to “undo that” (also as a
NumberTransform pkt)
Examples:

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 Targets
- Feature Lines
- Alignments
- Polylines
- Surfaces
Extracts
- Solids
- FeatureLines
- Surfaces
Bridge Modelling run through
1. Road geometry from DataShortcuts
a. Alignment
b. Offset Alignments
c. Profile
d. Superelevation
e. Triangulation
Control String

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With Offsets:

Bridge longitudinal section – Create Profile View (It’s best to enable grids and grid snapping
prior to that):

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Profile View Style:

Skip other settings, specify Data Bands:

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With Alignment Profile loaded in as a DataShortcut, this would be the picture:

Generating Sample Lines:

Select an alignment either interactively on the screen or hit enter and choose from the list.

Settings configured on previous steps:

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Hit OK
Another one:

Bonus
Feature Lines and Corridor for Bridge Widenings

Bridge Superstructure initial SetOut in AutoCAD.

1. In a separate simple AutoCAD file spread out lines representing each plank top
centerline. XCLIPped AutoCAD Block with path array (with Number of items in array
as a parameter) can be used to get more dynamic results.

Example - PSC Plank assembly with denoted location

of the lines needed to be distributed in plan.

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Page 26
2. Copy and paste to original coordinates plank centrelines into the Civil 3D BR-
MODEL file.
3. Create FeatureLines from (just copied) objects:

4. Pick the lines, hit Enter.

5. Create new site for plank Feature Lines, give it a meaningful name:

6. Configure naming convention for FeatureLines. Tick the Name box and push the
button on the right:

7. Suggested settings:

NUMBER STYLE 01, 02, 03 WILL

ARRANGE FEATURELINES IN THE
RIGHT ORDER.
INSTEAD OF 1, 11, 12, 13, 2, 3, 4
ETC.

No need to touch other options for now:

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This is how the result should look like:

The next step is to build a deck soffit corridor model. Extracting a surface from it will
allow these Feature Lines’ ends to pick elevation from it. An outline of the process:

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Deck Soffit Corridor modelling.
At this stage, BR_DECK Assembly is going to be built from Generic Links.
1. Give it a name, no need to touch any other settings.

2. Components to build an assembly from are called Subassemblies. They are

available on C3D Tool Pallette (Ctrl+3 shortcut to bring it up). Highlighted are the
ones needed to build this assembly (Generic Tab).

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3. Assembly breakdown.
a. The first component (“Subassembly.LinkOffsetOnSurface”) is pointing to
Start of the Deck target in plan and picks up the elevation from the road
design surface.
b. The second component (“Subassembly.LinkVertical”) is going down by
nominated asphalt+ deck thickness.
c. The third component (“Subassembly.LinkWidthAndSlope”) has a slope
nominated as well as the offset alignment from the Control String as a target
in plan. (With some auxiliary links this link can pick up the slope from the road
design surface in a more complicated scenario.)
d. The forth one is the same as the third one, but with a different slope and
target in plan.

4. Build the corridor

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5. Provide “DeckSoffit” Link Code to links 3 and 4.
6. Add “DeckSoffit” Surface to the corridor.
7. Select one of the PlankTopCL Feature Lines.
8. Elevations from Surface

NOTE: RELATIVE ELEVATION TO

SURFACE CAN LATER ON BE DEFINED
INDIVIDUALLY FOR EACH
FEATURELINE.

9. Pick remaining featurelines

10. Now FeatureLines are linked to “DeckSoffit” surface and ready to be used as
PlankSet corridor Baselines!

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Feature Lines and Corridor for Muiltispan Precast Girder Deck Modeling

1. Build a DeckSlab corridor

2. Frequency – by SampleLine/Pier CentreLine locations
3. Extract FeatureLine
4. Build Assembly by repeating LinkOffsetOnSurface, then LinkWidthandSlope+Girder
Subassembly, capturing the slope. (WidthandSurfaceSubassembly can be built)

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Not To Forget:

If units or precision are not available in Label, it can be manually configured in a

text editor and then pasted in.

Merge Layers.

Links:
https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/dynamo-for-civil3d-nodes-do-not-appear-on-open/36129
Civil 3D Template Tips & Shortcuts - Pt. 1 Template Settings
Civil 3D Template Tips & Shortcuts - Pt. 2 Style Creation
Civil 3D Template Creation with the CIM Manager Suite

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