Traffic Import Tips and Tricks

These tips and tricks can help you when you import traffic data.

Creating FZP Files

FZP files can contain a huge variety of data fields, but Civil View uses only a small number of these fields. To avoid generating bloated FZP files, export only the essential fields that Civil View requires. This will improve the speed at which Civil View reads the FZP file. See Preparing FZP Files in VISSIM.

Importing FZP and SIM Files

Use the filtering controls on the Civil View Traffic Import Panels to narrow down the data you need. Don't import unnecessary animation and vehicle data. When you use only necessary data, importing and surface tracking perform better.

Applying Surface Tracking

Applying surface tracking to large numbers of vehicles can be time consuming. The number of faces in a parent surface has a direct effect on the amount of time required to perform the surface-tracking operation. To optimize the process of applying surface tracking in Civil View:

• Make sure that you assign surface tracking only to material IDs that represent the surface material of your highways. This allows Civil View to ignore faces on the surface where vehicles should not trave.
• If you are unable to identify specific material IDs on your parent surface, try physically dividing the surface into separate objects to help make sure that a minimum number of faces exist in any parent surface.
• When you import traffic data, use the Step Interval control to limit the number of animation keys generated per vehicle. Surface tracking must be assigned individually to every animation key, so halving the number of animation keys on each vehicle halves the amount of time required to apply surface tracking.