New Template Drop

Used to define what the cross sections of the roadway look like for that portion of the road based on user-defined station range.

You can access this tool from the following:

Ribbon: Corridors > Create

The New Template Drop tool defines what the cross sections of the roadway look like for that portion of the road based on user-defined station range. A project may comprise a single template drop or multiple template drops. Often, transitions are used between two template drops, rather than an abrupt change from one template to another.

Careful consideration should be given for the Drop Interval used for a corridor, although it can be changed at any time. It specifies the distance between each processing of the template (in master units). Generally, this value is equal to or less than (but still a multiple) of the desired interval for the final cross sections, since cross section stations should be coincident with processing stations. It is not necessary to set the interval so small that it encompasses all desired cross section stations, as stations with particular project interest can be added to the model with the use of the Key Station tool. If the model is to be used in construction, the smaller the interval, the more detailed the model, but will require more processing time.

A template drop description in the corridor creation tools assists in management of the model and downstream reporting. The user has the ability for any template drop to add a description at creation time, either on the panel or at the heads up prompt. The description is included in the corridor object dialog and is also accessible from the template drop properties. For existing projects, the user can edit the corridor object and add the template description as required.

Note that this is impacted by the Design Stages.

Minimum Transition Before Drop and Minimum Transition After Drop are inputs in the New Template Drop tool. If they are non-zero, then a transition drop is created at the beginning/end of the template drop with a length greater than or equal to the value entered. The actual length is determined by how far it is between the new drop and the drop before/after the new drop. If there isn't enough space to meet the minimum, then the previous/next drop is shortened to accommodate the transition. If there is no previous/next drop, then no transition drop is created.

The template is selected from the default template library defined by the configuration variable "Civil_Roadway_Template_Library".

After completing the prompts, the corridor is automatically processed and can be viewed in both 2D and 3D views. The corridor can be rendered, if desired.

Note: The range of the template drop can go beyond the valid range of the alignment. When this happens, the software can't compute the intersections of the ends of the template drop with the corridor boundary, so it defaults back to the "box."

Note: You can define a template drop to incorporate the entire Horizontal Alignment, however, the corridor will only be created over the length of the corridor defined. This is a template drop limit versus the vertical definition range.

The symbology is based on the feature definitions within the template. The Project Explorer is also updated with the corridor information, including template drops, components and features.