Tips for Working With Bridge Projections in Profile Views

Differences in station values in bridge labels and profile view labels

Where there is a slope in the InfraWorks bridge road profile, the stations and elevations labelled on the bridge projection in Civil 3D may be different than the values shown in a profile view label that is added to the same location.

For example, for a bridge pier, the station in the InfraWorks model is determined perpendicular to the road profile (shown as location 1 in the illustration below). The value at location 1 will be used in Civil 3D as the station value for the bridge label.

However, in Civil 3D profile view labels, the station is calculated straight up (shown as location 2 in the illustration above) and may not be perpendicular to the road profile where there is a slope in the InfraWorks model. If you add a profile view label at the same location as the pier label, the value at location 2 will be used as the station value in a profile view label and it may not match the station in the bridge projection label.

Bridge deck projection length

When the base alignment for the corridor is curved or composed of straights with angles between them, the projection of the bridge deck may be longer or shorter than the projection of the girders for the deck. The greater the curve or the sharper the angles are, the greater the difference will be between the deck and the girder projections.

This is because the girders may be comprised of several segments and each segment can be drawn at a different angle to more closely follow the alignment, whereas the deck (depending on the bridge complexity) may be a single object which does not have segments that can be drawn at different angles.

Bridge projection in multiple profile views

When you are projecting a bridge to multiple profile views, certain bridge components may extend beyond the range of stationing in a profile view.

Profile view style in split profile views

Split profile views will ignore the scale settings in the parent profile view style and will apply the scale settings in the style specified for the split profile view.

You can specify whether a profile view is split and specify the style for each view, on the Elevations tab of the Profile View Properties dialog box.

Selecting individual bridge components

If you want to select individual girders in a girder group or generic objects that are part of tunnels, you can set the PICKSTYLE system variable to 0. When the PICKSTYLE system variable is set to its default setting of 1, selecting a girder will select the entire girder group and selecting a tunnel will also select its associated generic objects.