Use the Add Breaklines dialog box to define features, such as retaining walls or curbs as breaklines.
By creating wall breaklines, you can more accurately represent the surface. For example, for a retaining wall, you can define the differences in elevation between the material on both sides of the wall in order to represent elevations correctly.
Define wall breaklines by selecting an existing polyline, spline, or grading feature line. The polyline is extended by creating new polyline segments and vertices parallel to the original polyline, but offset at an incremented distance to represent the differences in elevation between the material on either side of the wall:
There are two methods used to define wall breaklines:
- Define by object vertex (Individual). Select a polyline, or line, and select the offset side. For each polyline vertex, you select either the vertex elevation (Existing Vertex Elevation is the default) and the corresponding offset vertex elevation (the default is Existing Polyline Vertex) or the corresponding offset vertex elevation difference. If an elevation difference option is selected, the difference value is the default for each subsequent vertex.
- Define by object (All). Select a polyline, or line object, and select the offset side. Then, enter the difference elevation to be applied for all offset vertices.
To define walls or curbs as breaklines
- In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, expand the surface Definition collection, right-click
Breaklines, and click Add. - In the Add Breaklines dialog box, enter the breakline description in the Description field.
- From the Type list, select Wall.
- Optionally, if the object from which you are creating a breakline has curves, enter a value into the Mid-Ordinate Distance field or click
to digitize a distance in the drawing area. The Add Breaklines dialog box is closed. A message prompts you to select a polyline.
- In the drawing, select the object to define the breakline.
- Select the offset side for the wall breakline. This is the side for the new offset line that represents the elevation of material on the other side of the wall.
A message prompts you to specify the wall height with one value for all the points (Define By Object) or to specify values for individual points (Define By Vertex).
- Do one of the following:
- To define the wall breakline by object, specify All and enter the amount to add to elevation at each point.
- To define the wall breakline by object vertex, specify Individual at the prompt and enter the elevation or delta for each vertex.
The prompts provide two ways to define elevations for each offset point: as an elevation (Elevation) or as the elevation difference (Delta) between the control point and the offset point. Deltas may be either positive or negative values.
The breakline is created and added to the surface Breaklines collection in the Prospector tree.
