Site Modifiers - Batter slope with constant slope 1:2 towards existing site and automatically created a Grade Limit in this line?

[aage.langedrag]

How can I control the Batter slope from a Site Modifier, example Planar Pad so that it has a constant slope of 1:2 down towards existing terrain and automatically created a Grade Limit in this line? @Katarina Ollikainen @Tamsin Slatter @Tony Kostreski

Site Modifiers - Batter slope with constant slope.vwx

How can I determine the Batter slope individually on the different sides of a Planar pad? Example show a rectangular Planar pad I want to adjust constant Batter slop individually on each of the four sides. One side slope 1:2, next 1:4, next 10:1 (cuts in rock), last vertical. Is this possible? Which methods are recommended when the Planar pad has a slope on all its sides?

 

Can I set it so that a Fill batter automatically gets a 1:2 while a Cut batter gets a 10:1 if it cuts through rock? These are functions we must have control over when we work in transport projects together with road engineers. In Scandinavia, Landscape Architects and Road Engineers do a lot of terrain modeling since we do not have pure civil engineers who process site prep.

 

The important thing is that I must be able to lock the Batter slope to a constant slope and that a Grade Limits is automatically created where the filling/cutting stops against the surface of the existing terrain. This is a line that is difficult to calculate on our own and we have to get help from the software to calculate.

 

Can I use a Planar Pad with constant slope or a Hardscape with slope and automatically crop this to existing terrain? Or can I have the intersection generated and then create Grade Limits from this intersection? How do I do this? I have manually modeled this line in 3D where I see the intersection and this is both time-consuming and inaccurate.

 

Need all the help I can get to find the right way of working in Vectorworks.

Edited November 3, 2023 by aage.langedrag

[Eric Gilbey, PLA]

Hi Åge.

in the Landmark pull down menu is a command called Grade Limit from Pad. This allows you to set the batter slope. The reverse option, Pad from Grade Limit allows you to also set the slopes and it attempts to balance your cut and fill. You may want to refine the shape of the pad once it has been created.

[aage.langedrag]

Thanks Eric. @Eric Gilbey, PLA

I have tried this but have received many suggestions for Grade Limits, none of which are quite right. This left me very unsure whether this would work. Which settings should I use so that Batter slop is constant and exact 1:2?

Site Modifiers - Batter slope with constant slope - 2.vwx

To me it looks like this function only controls Max Slope and not exact Slope. As you can see in the pictures, none of the edges have been given a 1:2 slope.

 

As you can see in the picture, the Grade Limit moves quite a lot when I set Test Increment = 2.

What am I doing wrong?

[Scott Campbell]

Hello @aage.langedrag and @Eric Gilbey, PLA

 

I don’t believe “Create Grade Limits from Planar Pad” is going to get what you need, Åge (if nothing else, you're limited to the same slope in all directions and from all edges of the planar pad). As a matter of fact, I don’t think Vectorworks currently has the tools to do what you’re trying to do. It’s frustrating to be so near, and yet so far from a precise and simple tool to do what you are asking. The closest I can get uses basically methods that it looks like you have already tried out yourself. But I’ll sum up here what I find to be the best work-around I can find at the moment in Vectorworks 2024.

 

It’s possible to accurately model a solid which gives you any battered slope you want from the edge of a planar pad. In this example I’ve used 4 different slopes on four sides of a rectangular pad. One sees clearly where each battered slope intersects with the site model.

 

 

It would be lovely if we had a tool to automatically find this 3D shape that corresponds to the exact intersection between the solid and the site model surface. As far as I know, we don’t have this. Please correct me if I’m wrong, @Katarina Ollikainen, @Eric Gilbey, PLA, @Vlado or @Tony Kostreski. But it is possible to quickly draw a 2D polygon in Top view and convert it to a Grade Limits. It drapes itself on the site model surface.

 

 

The battered slopes look pretty even and good, but Vectorworks doesn’t get the corners quite right — at least not without some helpful proding.

 

 

Grade objects in each corner of the pad, can be snapped with the lower elevation at the Grade Limits object rather easily.

 

 

This results in proposed contours which are more or less what we’re looking for, don’t you agree?

 

 

I’m sorry that this is not the automatic, super-precise solution that it should be. But I hope you find it of some help, nevertheless.

 

 

I will ask around to find out if there’s something you and I are missing here, and most importantly: Just how we can influence the process to build this sort of automated slope control into Vectorworks of the future.

[Vlado]

@aage.langedrag this is actually a known wish and it is at the top of our list to add as a feature. I'n not sure which version just yet, but it's next. Stay tuned.

[aage.langedrag]

Thank you @Scott Campbellfor the very good explanation and well-described workaround until we have a better solution in place. Looking forward to this being a built-in solution in the program @Vlado.

I am attaching a new file that shows the solution to today's work. Hope this solution, which is currently a workaround, can be of help in finding better solutions. Feel free to give feedback on how I could make this even easier. I have tested several variants of finding the intersection line automatically as it is time-consuming to draw this manually in Top plan (3D).We are not going to deliver the 3D Site Model surface at this time, so now it was fastest to do it this way. Especially since heights will be adjusted, we can reuse Planar pads geometry and only adjust the Landscape Area that intersects with DTM Existing.

Site Modifiers - Batter slope -work-around _KOPI-2023-11-06-2254.vwx

[aage.langedrag]

Here is a new file that shows suggestions for workarounds that correspond to the solution that @Scott Campbell showed but here using Site Modifiers as geometry to find the intersection between new and existing DTM.

2023-11-05_Site Modifiers - Batter Slope constante v2023.vwx

[Malcolm Woodruff]

Thank you for this. I have been going mad trying to fit a specific slope around a pad because I could not imagine that something so basic could not be done! 30 or so years ago an Australian company, Creative Engineering, came up with a solution for this which I have not seen bettered since. Unfortunately, the firm is no longer around and their product HighRoad is no longer available for current operating systems.

The way they tackled the problem was to have a control line, say the edge of a pad, or the centre of a road. The control line was a 3D polyline with a chainage and you could specify a typical section at any point along the control line. For a pad this was done to one side of the control line, for a road, or path, sections could be specified each side of the control line. So that it was a simple manner to create a road with a crown using section lines each side of the control line.

Typical sections were drawn with a series of links to form the shape you want and might include kerbs, retaining walls, changes in slope etc. The final link needed to be attached to the ground and this was done by  clicking on the final link, which was usually a batter, and specifying that it should continue to the ground. It was possible to have  more than one section at a point eg different slopes for cuts and fills. So, the program would follow one set of links but if the ground was not encountered within the grade limits then it would follow the alternative path.

The program would then interpolate between specified sections along the control line. 

 

I would commend this method of site modification to VW.

 

As a matter of interest the program was a complete road design program that took in the original survey, produced plans, vertical profiles and cross sections, calculated quantities, gave setting out details, had a drive through video of the finished road and all fitted on one floppy disk!!

[Anders Blomberg]

Just chipping in here to say that this is exactly what I've been missing and asking for since I started using VW. There has been great additions to the software since I picked it up 2 years ago but this would beat them all by a mile if implemented properly. And as an extra input, we would need this to work for any graded surface, not just a horizontal flat surface/pad. Exact/configurable slopes above and below ground are vital to landscape modeling/design to a lot of us and is a major reason to why we still use other software unfortunately.

 

@Eric Gilbey, PLA as mentioned by Åke, the Grade Limit from Pad creates some unexpected/hard to predict results so I would suggest the tool gets pulled from the software. Just my thought 🙂