What’s New in Road Estimator 6?

Faster Drawing engine

Road Estimator 6 boasts of a much powerful and enhanced core drawing engine which means your
outputs are generated much faster than was earlier required. Saving a project and opening the project
takes lesser amount of time and taking outputs is also much quicker. We have overhauled the internal
drawing engine and memory management completely to achieve this.

MRU
Most recently used road estimator project files are now listed in the file menu for easy access and
opening and upto last 9 open projects are listed.

New from Template

Now you can have a quick start when you begin your project with the new option for New from
Template wizard. You can browse through various types of cross section templates for road and airport
project. Once you select a template a blank project is created for you with all the pavement layers
definitions, display settings, template settings, element settings & all you have to do is get your original
& design data into the project and your cross section will be ready. You also have the option to save a
road estimator project file as a template file which can be re-used later.

Auto-Recovery
In the uneventful situation where you were working on a project and there system failure, do not panic
from now on. With the Auto-recovery option of Road Estimator 6 you can get your project back and
continue as if nothing has happened. You can customize your settings for auto save time so that Road
Estimator keeps backing up your project as you work. Use command AST to change your auto save
timings.

Slide Show
To enhance user experience and browse through various cross sections a new ‘Play and Pause’ option
tool has been added in the main screen. This tool is extremely useful to review lot of chainages easily.
Once Play option is used, cross section view is shown as slide show. You can Pause the slide show and
perform changes and again continue from the same position.

Dynamic Re-calculation
When changes were made in design or OGL which may include toe modification, pavement layer
changes or any other operation with elements, a complete re-processing of data was necessary to view
the changes and update the quantities accordingly. This is a thing of past with the new feature for
Dynamic Update of drawing in Road Estimator 6.0. Now you can see your changes immediately with
immediate calculation of toe, application of pavement layers & elements etc.

Multi Sheet Cross-Section View

To enhance & speed up the overall delivery time from concept to finish, Multi sheet cross-section view
option is added. This feature gives you greater control on output generation. With this feature, sheet
template can be fixed and layout editing can be done in a single view. You can easily print all the sheets

or save the sheets in other drawing formats with a just a single click of button. It also gives you flexibility
to print number of copies & perform gray scale printing automatically. From now on, you do not have to
spend your valuable time printing your cross sections as Road Estimator 6.0 will do it remotely &
silently.

Enhancement in OGL sheet

Paste Un-limited data from ExcelTM to OGL Sheet: In earlier versions of Road Estimator when you copied
more than 16K rows of data and pasted it in Road Estimator, data upto only 16K rows were only pasted.
So there was only one way to get this data in project, using file import option. With Road Estimator 6.0
this is a thing of past. Using Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the data and all rows copied from ExcelTM will be
pasted in Road Estimator’s OGL sheet.

Filter OGL Data based on chainage: It is sometimes necessary to have only data for chainage which fall
in a particular interval. With the new Filter option in OGL screen, you can simply specify the interval at
which data is required and road estimator will keep only the data falling in specified interval and remove
the rest.

Selective chainage: It is sometimes necessary to keep data for selective chainages. With the new option
for selective chainage you can just enter the chainages required and the rest of the OGL not
corresponding to chainages mentioned will be removed automatically. Use Ctrl+F11 key to activate this
option in OGL screen.
Height based scarification
There are situations when scarification is performed only if the design level and original ground level
difference exceeds a certain height. Up till now there was no easy way out and we needed to identify
the chainages where height difference criteria matches and used to scarify individual chainages.

Now a new feature has been added in Scarification screen: Conditional scarification which takes into
account the height difference criteria automatically and scarifies only those chainages which meet this
criterion.

Mass Haul Diagram

To enhance your analysis experience, mass haul diagram has been added as a standard feature in Road
Estimator 6.0. Mass hauls can be generated as per your user defined specification of reference quantity.

The report and diagram can be directly printed or saved to other formats. You can also add additional
comments, tags, progress status in the diagram.

Single Side Slope

In Road Estimator Side Slope definition has various options such as berm condition based on height,
berm top slope etc. which can be applied to individual chainages. In certain case, such definitions are
not necessary as single side slope is used. To simplify the process, a new feature to define slope directly
for corresponding chainage has been added in Road Estimator 6. With this feature you can directly enter
slope value with prefix #.
Crossings
Crossing such as culvert, bridge, intersections have different way of quantification and should not be
included in general road quantities. They can now be easily accommodated in report generation for
quantities. This saves a lot of time in removing the quantities individually for specific chainages and re-
calculation for corresponding chainages are done automatically.

Active Depth Display

You can easily track the difference in level between selected lines in cross section and longitudinal
profile with the new feature for active depth display. This tool is very useful for cross checking, design
verification, compensation for quantities and other analysis. This is a dynamic tool which displays the
level difference as you move your cursor along the lines. Use command ADP to use this feature.

Active change in FRL & Side Slope

Like OGL now active change option has been extended to FRL & Side Slopes. So you can simply drag FRL
location or toe location and change on screen. Once you combine this option with the active change
option these changes are reflected immediately on your screen.

Existing Road Layer Group

A new type of layer group anchor is added in Layer group definition so that you can easily define layers
on top of existing road surface. There is a provision for excavation on existing surface and you can
provide starting and ending offset the layers in the layer group like any other standard layers.
Upgrades to Baseline settings
In Road Estimator, one of the most powerful features has been automatic calculation and creation of
embankment top line also known as base line. You earlier had limited control on this automated feature.
In Road Estimator 6 some significant features have been added to baseline settings to give you more
control on auto-creation of base line or Embankment line.

From Offset and To Offset now supports the

use of F10 key for easy selection of offset.
Also a new feature for condition is added
using which you can either specify OGL line
for baseline calculation (OGL_B) or median
area calculation (OGL_M) or both (OGL_MB).
You can now define a line based on 2 points
also and pass it for baseline calculation
(P2P_B) or median calculation (P2P_M) or
both (P2P_MB). With this feature you can
now have complete control during service
road construction as well as main
carriageway construction.

New features in Drain

More flexibility has been added the drain definition so that you can create any desired shape of drain.
Some of the new features added are given below (Refer user manual for all options):-
Separate Left & right Offset for drain top cover, Bottom cover, and PCC cover: You can now specify the
left and right offset of drain top cover, bottom cover and PCC cover by separating both offsets with a
comma e.g. 0.2, 0 means 0.2 offset in left side and 0 offset in right side.

Right Offset Top

Cover for Drain 1
RCC thickness in left
side only for Drain 1

Drain 1 Drain 2

PCC Offset in Left

only for Drain 1&2
Separate Thickness of Inner RCC lining: You can specify the left and right RCC thickness of inner lining
separately by separating both left thickness & right thickness with a comma e.g. 0.2, 0 means 0.2
thickness in left side and 0 offset in right side.
RCC Lining Projection: RCC Thickness accepts another type of definition where there are 4 fields
separated by comma “F1, F2, F3, F4”. While F1 & F2 represent the RCC thickness for left and right side
respectively, F3 & F4 represent amount of projection in left and right sides respectively.
Right projection in RCC
Thickness definition of 0.25 Definition
RCC Th Side=0.2, 0.2, 0, 0.25 RCC Th Side=0.2, 0.2, 0.25, 0.25

Tick Drain
Drain with Projection
both side

Inner & Outer lining & cover: You can now specify whether the lining & top cover needs to be provided
for inside the drain outline or outside by simply changing the sign. By default, the Top Cover is applied
above the drain outline. If you specify the thickness for top cover with a negative sign then top cover is
applied inside the drain outline. Similarly RCC lining of drain including bottom is applied inside the
outline. Once you use negative sign for thickness of RCC side and notation O for bottom, lining is applied
outside the drain outline.
Top Th= 0.2 RCC Th Side=0.2 Bot RCC Th=0.2

Drain with Inner RCC

Lining & Top Cover
Above outline

Top Th= -0.2 RCC Th Side=-0.2 Bot RCC Th=0.2, O

Drain with Outer RCC

Lining & Top Cover
Inside outline
Separate Inner RCC Internal wall slope: In case your RCC lining has different slope for the internal wall,
it can be easily defined with the new option. You can enter the slope to follow for right and left side for
internal wall.
Left RCC Top Lev=LTL, 5/1 Right RCC Top Lev=RTL, 5/1

Wall slope of 5V in 1H

Drain with Separate

RCC Wall slope for
inside & outside

Side Slope definition & variable offset location support for Drain side slope: It is sometimes desired
that the drain side slope be fixed at a particular offset which varies as per chainage. This can be achieved
with this feature. It is also possible to set an initial slope which can be taken directly from side slope
definition and then fix the final point of drain using variable offset. With this feature, more flexibility in
drain side slope definition is added. The earlier features for fixing side slopes to anchor point etc. are
also available.
Final Point to OGL/FRL/Fixed location/Auto: By default side slope for drain stops either at OGL or at FRL
depending on the location of OGL line and FRL line with respect to drain slope line and Road Estimator
automatically determines the termination point. With the new feature, now you can instruct Road
Estimator whether to stop slope line at OGL or FRL or at a fixed location for left and right side
separately. Entry should be made in “Left/Right DR Top Sl” as F1, F2 where F1 can be OGL for
termination at OGL line, FRL for termination at FRL line, & FIX for stopping slope at drain top level. F2
can be the slope from drain to toe location which is applied only when drain is outside road toe.

New features in Retaining Wall

Retaining wall now boasts of new feature: Library. Using Library option you can easily define Composite
retaining walls, Gabion breast walls, Composite breast walls or get height based parameters for normal
retaining wall definition.
Composite Retaining Wall: In composite retaining wall, entries of various parameters are height
based, so Road Estimator can automatically detect the condition to apply for your composite retaining
wall. Outer slope nf, inner slope nb, Base width B, bottom slope q, bottom width b1, and depth of
foundation d are height based. Special option is provided for initial cutting condition and cutting slope
for right & left can be defined separately along with offset of cut in left and right side. Cutting slopes and
offsets can be defined using fixed entry or variable name so that it can be varied based on chainages.
Gabion Breast Wall: Gabion breast wall parameter entries are height based and Road Estimator
automatically detects number of steps to be provided and the foundation depth required as per the
height conditions. Minor & major offset for steps can be specified as fixed entry or variable. Top cut
slope and depth from anchor point can be specified as fixed or variable. Special option is provided for
initial cutting and cut slope for outside portion can be defined separately along with offset from base.

Composite Breast Wall: Composite Breast

wall is similar to composite retaining wall.
Some more parameters are added for breast
wall portion. You can define a filter media
layer in the outside breast wall portion.