The program begins by prompting for a New or Existing section
.SCT file to process. The Section file to process dialog appears,
allowing you to specify the file that you want to operate on. Use
the New option to create a new file. Use the Existing option to
edit the offsets and elevations for station/sections that you have
already created, or append new stations to a file. The program
defaults to a section file with the same name as the drawing or a
name that you specified using another section command. You also can
choose a 2nd existing .SCT file to reference. After specifying the
file name(s), the program displays any stations currently in the
file, in the Stations List of the Input-Edit Section File dialog
box.
Alternately, when sections are drawn in the drawing, you can double-click on a section polyline to launch Input-Edit Section File for the .SCT file associated with the section polyline.
If you specified a new file, the Stations List box will be blank. To edit and display the offset and elevation data at a station, you can double click on the station in the Stations List box, or input the station in the Station to Edit edit box at the bottom of the dialog. To add a station to a new file or existing file, you must enter the station in the Station to Edit edit box. Stations will present in accordance with the Section-Profile settings in Configure under the Settings pulldown menu (eg. 10+00, 1+000, 1000).
Edit:
Opens the Edit Station dialog which shows a graphic of the section
on top, a list of the offset-elevation points in the middle, and
the function buttons on the bottom. To add an offset point, type in
the offset, elevation and optional description in the spreadsheet.
Left offsets are entered as negative numbers. You can enter the
slope or ratio from the last point and the program will calculate
the elevation. To edit an offset point, highlight the point
from the list and then edit the values in the Offset, Elev and Desc
columns. The highlighted point will be marked by an X in the
graphic screen. The Sort button will sort the list of offsets
from lowest to highest, left to right. It is recommended that you
Sort offsets before doing the Tie command, so that the left-most
and right-most offsets appear first and last in the offset
list. The Up button will move the highlighted offset point up
in the list. Likewise the Down button moves the highlighted offset
point down in the list. Prev (F2) and Next (F3) buttons move
through the stations and allow you to review and edit stations in
forward or reverse order. The scroll bar can also be used to
quickly move through stations and then zero in with Prev (F2) or
Next (F3).
The section data can be edited directly in the spreadsheet or
graphically by picking the Edit Point button with the pencil icon.
To edit graphically, use the click-n-drag method. Start by picking
the Edit Point button and then pick the section point to edit in
the graphic preview and hold the mouse button down and then drag
the mouse to the new position and then release the mouse button.
The Edit Mode setting governs the click-n-drag operation. The Free
mode allows the section point to be moved anywhere. There Hold
Slope modes maintain the slope and moves the point along these
slopes. The Hold Offset allows changing the section point elevation
only. The Hold Elevation allows changing the point offset
only.
The Add Row button inserts an offset line above the currently highlighted row. The Remove Row button erases the highlighted offset and elevation from the list. After inputting or editing press the OK button to return to the Stations List dialog and keep any changes you have made. Select the Cancel button if you want to cancel changes made to the current station. Extend Pavement/Subgrade will allow you move a surface point and shift, in parallel, the associated subgrades and tie points. One application, shown below, is to extend a shoulder point and re-computer the TIE point, all in one clean operation:
Another application of Extend Pavement/Subgrade is to move the curb position and all associated subgrades. The "inside" curb point is at 12.00 units from centerline. If the pavement is extended from 12 to 15 at this station, use of this feature will extend the subgrades, maintain all slopes and re-compute the TIE point, as shown below:
A real-time report of offset-elevation-slope now displays in the
top of the graphic as you move the cursor across the section in the
graphic window. The screen defaults to zoom mode where
holding down the right-mouse button zooms in and out. You can
also switch to pan mode. There are buttons for zoom extents,
zoom in and zoom out. If your mouse has a scroll button, you
can hold it down to pan and scroll it to zoom in and out. You
can also set the Vertical Exaggeration ranging from 1X to 10X and
including "Fit". Show subgrades has the ability to tie a
subgrade into the surface. Grid Ticks Only just shows the
left and bottom axis lines of the grid with grid tick marks along
the axes. With Auto Zoom All turned off, you can hold the
same view position as you click Next and Previous and move through
the list of stations. The Check Offset field calculates an
elevation based on an entered offset.
Drive (Edit Station): This function scrolls through the sections at the rate of speed specified by the user in the Speed window. The Drive View options determine whether the sections are displayed using the full width of the graphic window or centered in the window. The combination of Full Grid Range and Auto Zoom All allows the sections to rise and fall with the centerline elevations, as if you were driving an actual road. With Auto Zoom All off, and Full Grid Range on, the grid itself moves up and down at the current position of the first section, as you drive. Focus View On Offset Range allows the user to set the left and right viewing limits of the sections. Section data beyond the specified limits is not displayed.
Elevation Field (Edit
Station): Equations (+, -, *, /) can be entered to calculate
or adjust an elevation. For instance, to subtract 1.25' from
elevation 1926.18, simply enter 1926.18-1.25 and press enter. The
new elevation will be calculated and displayed in the viewer
window.
Tie (Edit Station): The Tie button allows you to tie the left and right surface points of the 1st section file into the 2nd section file. It is used for classic outslope intersects from final grade to existing grade. The dialog layout includes an option to tie the section to a specified elevation, in addition to a surface (second section file). A left or right tie direction can also be selected. If a point has been tied in from SH for shoulder at offset -20 at 3:1, a new offset with the description "TIE" is created. If you try another outslope such as 4:1 from the same SH shoulder point, a new "TIE" point is created and the old TIE point is removed automatically.
Scale: Allows you to scale the station, offsets and/or elevations by the specified scale factor. This function can be used to convert between English and metric units.
Reduce: Allows you to remove offsets from a range of stations by removing vertices in the offsets that are virtually in a straight line. Using an offset cutoff, meaning no offset and elevation moves more than the entered amount (eg. 0.01), excessive numbers of vertices can be eliminated. The command is similar to Reduce Vertices when applied to the plan view.
Interpolate: Allows you to add or overwrite a station between two stations or projecting forward from two stations. You can choose to interpolate a single station or an interval of stations. Specify the two known stations in the Start Station and End Station edit boxes, as well as the interval if using the interval method. The program will do straight line, mathematical interpolations, adding offsets to the interpolated stations to match the totality of offsets in the starting and ending stations. However, if the offsets have descriptions, you can choose to interpolate by description and the program will interpolate by description (eg. EP at 12 on Station 1100 and EP at 15 at station 1150 would lead to EP at 12.6 at 1110). There is also an option to reference a profile, so if station 1100 and 1150 were on either side of a high point at 1125, the interpolated offsets would respect the profile as well as the starting and ending station. Use of this command is often critical to creating accurate digital terrain models of sites for machine control. Select the OK button to execute the function with the current settings or select the Cancel button to abort the process.
Rename Station: Allows you to change the value of a
station. In the dialog, select the existing station from the list
and enter in the new station value.Tie Station: Allows you to tie the outslopes
into the reference second section file. This routine first brings
up a dialog to specify the range of stations to process. It
includes a line to set the slope to tie with. The program will
start from the left most offset and use this slope to find the
intersection with the reference section file. Then the intersection
from the right most offset is calculated with this slope. These
intersection points are the tie points. The slope can be defined by
percent, ratio, continue the last slope, and vertical.
Add Subgrades: Adds subgrades to the sections with
specified depths and offsets. You can add multiple subgrades at a
time by filling in the spreadsheet. Each row of the spreadsheet is
for a separate subgrade. Each subgrade definition takes a
description, left and right offsets, depth and intersection method
of either straight up or at a specified slope. The subgrades are
added by referencing the existing surface elevation and dropping
down the specified depth. The center of the subgrade always drops
down vertically. The outside of the subgrade ties in by the
specified intersection method. The station range to add the
subgrades can be the same of all the subgrades or specified
separately for each subgrade.
Save: Saves the currently
loaded section file.
SaveAs: Allows you to save the currently loaded section file
as a different file.
Exit: Allows you to exit from the section editor and return
to the drawing editor. The program will warn you to save to a file
if you have made changes.
Pulldown Menu Location: Sections
Keyboard Command: scted
Prerequisite: None