Civil 3D 2018 New Tool - Offset Profiles

By Luke Howells

In a previous article when I was exploring the use of Civil 3D 2018’s Connected Alignments Tool, I briefly touched on Offset Profiles but what are they?

Simply, when creating an Offset Alignment, we can also create a Dynamic Vertical Profile for the alignment at a fixed grade. We no longer need to follow the gradient of the assembly set for that region or rely on manually adjusting feature lines to hit a vertical target. (The feature line tool has some nice new feature in C3D 2018).

This tool allows users to fully customise our Assembly’s and Corridors, introducing multiple dynamic gradients for such uses as property access’, property thresholds and mixed gradient lanes.

So how do they work?

We start as we usually do and create an Offset Alignment, complete the desired name, number of offsets, widths, then select the Create Offset Profile tab.

Turn the feature on or off by tick/unticking the top check box.

Select the desired Parental Vertical Profile.

Specify the desired gradient away from the Parental Profile.

Name the new Offset Profile (I highly recommend giving it your own recognisable naming convention).

Then Click OK.

The Offset Alignment and Offset Profile have now both been created.The Offset Alignment will automatically appear in the model space but to view the Offset Profile simply create a Surface Profile of the Offset Alignment and from here use the standard editing tool if you need to.