Offset Alignments, Elevations and Connected Alignments

Civil3D
1

Can I ask as of June 2024 what latest preferable workflow is for creating offset alignments from main alignment, creating offset profiles, and creating connected alignments between the offset alignments.

I know there are some nodes for this (thankyou @Anton_Huizinga ArkanceSystems) but they dont include for offset profiles to be created, there is a seperate layout profiles (again thanks) which I have tried BUT they obviously are not specifically for Offset Profiles and they are not dynamic Mode so they do not auto update with C3D Events such as changing the geometry or PVI’s of the main centreline alignment
(compared to offset alignments and offset profile created using GUI tools) so you can create a nice workflow that can create multiple corridor models etc, BUT you can have problems working in teams where design intent can be lost at a later stage due to the lack of dynamic mode event based updates!

Also Connected alignments at Juctions is a similar issue, I have sucseesfully created workflows that uses The ArkanceSystems nodes to automate junction design and creation but again these are static based and dont leverage the event based model of C3D which many senior managers in Teams prefer due to inherent risks of design intent being lost in further iterations of a design!!

This is a particular problems in a team working on a project where initial fasibility is produced using dynamo auotomation, but later other team members using GUI tools may need to work on designs and this can lead to QA issues as any design changes really require a rerun of dynamo scripts and not all designers will use dynamo, they will want ability to modify alignments in GUI and expect aut updating of offset alignments and profiles etc.

This is an open question, its good to garner feedback how others in the Industry are tackling these issues as of now?

Just to also note I have also been trying to use the c3d api function Profile.CreateOffsetProfileBySlope() in a python node, but it keeps crashing, i will post another thread with my files for that in a while.

Look forward to feedback.
cjm

2

UPDATE:
Had some help from @kovacsv (Many thanks) on my attempt to get the Profile.CreateOffsetProfileBySlope() in a python node
Apparently it works using the IronPython 2.7 engine but Not in the latest cpythin from our tests.
The good thing is that it appears to create the dynamic link between the alignments and profiles which is what we need!

Hi Autodesk Any ideas of how to get this working without having to install IronPythin on all users machines??

Regards,
cjm

3

I’m quite sure it works with CPython, you just have to check the syntax and structure.
When I created this script I used IronPython, for some reason. Maybe that was before the introduction of CPython, I don’t remember.

4

I’m trying different things, thought it was the try block so removed that, but it keeps crashing, and I cant get the IronPython option to use package to show up in node after installing.

5

Just to confirm the code works if you download Package IronPython - for me it was 2.7 - if using in civil 3d 2024 dynamo core 2.? make sure you look through versions it needs to be the 2.5 version as later versions will not work with c3d 2024 dynamo. This will obviously change using later versions of C3D and dynamo core 3 etc