Copy Horizontal Alignments? Multiple Designs?

[dpenney]

Am I spinning in circles, or is there no easy way to do this:

Using Civil Design 2005, I want to do several design options for a road widening based on the same centerline alignment. I can find no way to have multiple designs in the same drawing, short of re-creating a carbon copy of my existing centerline, re-cutting profiles, reprocessing sections, etc.

Firstly, am I approaching multiple designs in the wrong manner here? How should I be handling different design options in one drawing, all based off a common centerline alignment?

Secondly, is there a way to copy a horizontal alignment and all attached profiles within the same drawing? There are common profiles and transition alignments between the two (or three, or four, for that matter) that seem a waste to recreate.

Many thanks.

[bruce.adams]

LDT May not be the optimum product for multiple designs and quick design changes. You may want look into civil 3d for a faster way for design changes. Having multiple designs in LDT for the same alignment does become labor intensive with a new profile and crossections for each. Civil 3D makes for quick design changes as the profiles, sections, and volumes are dynamic, and updated automatically. The learning curve is another story though.

To make a long story short, yes you may be spinning your wheels a bit. LDT is a great product and still very useful, but LDT is fast becoming obsolete due to the very reasons you posted about. Hence the need for the new product from Autodesk "Civil 3D".

Sorry, this may not be the news you where looking for.

[Ammon]

I agree that LDT is limited in many ways, but I really like the fact that a lot of my project data is stored separate from my drawing file. I tried using Civil 3D for a little while and haven't had a lot of time to fiddle with its intricacies, but I didn't see anywhere where I could keep my alignments, points, surfaces, etc. in a project file that won't be destroyed if my drawing is corrupted. Is there?

[dpenney]

Thanks for the input. At least I now know I'm not just missing something. Civil 3d is staring at me on my desktop and I'll be diving into it as soon as the summer construction season winds down. Thanks again.