5 Key Tips for Horizontal Alignments in OpenRoads Designer

Here are some key tips for OpenRoads Designer users when working with Horizontal Alignments. These are very useful for someone who comes from a Microstation background.

Use Smart Lines and Complex Chains

• Use the Microstation smart line and fillet tools. Do not use the horizontal geometry line and curve tools.
• Using the horizontal geometry tools cause a bunch of alignments and 3D elements to be drawn that you probably don’t want floating around the Project Explorer.
• Only use the horizontal geometry tools when you are sure you want a smart ORD element, which is more rare than you think.

Disable Persistent Snaps

• Persistent snaps often work against you. They are hard to keep up with.  Avoid them.
• Persistent snaps maintain things like intersection, perpendicular, and nearest snap relationships when one or more elements are moved. Sounds neat. But you have no control on what happens.
• Most people don’t know how to tell if a line has a persistent snap relationship so they’re in for a surprise when they move a line with one!

Simplify Geometry

• Always simplify alignments. They are easier to adjust.
• A simplified alignment lets you modify radii and tangents with easy to use pop-up dialogues.

Use Complex Redefine

• Major adjustments mess up alignment curves. Redraw the alignment and use complex redefine when big changes are needed.
• When you need to adjust an alignment and you screw up a curve so that it’s no longer tangent to the bearings on each side, you need to instead draw the new alignment with basic Microstation lines and fillets. Combine them as a complex chain. If your old alignment slightly overlaps the new, then you can use Complex Redefine to switch the alignment over to the new.
• It only works if the new alignment has a portion that overlaps the existing. If there are none, move the existing alignment to start at the new alignment and have a tangent portion follow along the new alignment. Then it will work.

Set Design Speed Standards

• Design speeds give you alerts when an element is breaking the design criteria for said speeds.
• These alerts appear as caution triangles and tell you if you have any kind of violation. They are incredible at providing instant feedback if your design can’t work.
• When an alignment has a design speed set, when creating other elements, ORD will use said design speed. Very handy!

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