Alignment properties

What it does

Besides geometry and stations, the project alignment carries design data indexed by station. Each property is a series of break points in the form station,value, one per line, and reading it is a step function: the value is that of the last break point whose station is less than or equal to the station asked for — the same logic as a spreadsheet lookup with approximate match.

VelocidadeDiretriz: 0,80
                    12000,60
                    18000,80

This group of commands covers the three sides of the subject:

The property names CapCad recognises are internal identifiers and are the same in every language: VelocidadeDiretriz (design speed), VelocidadeRegulamentada (regulated speed) with their increasing and decreasing variants, LarguraPista (carriageway width), VDM (average daily traffic), VelocidadeViaLfo, SNV (road identifier), plus rodovia.classe and TipoVia, which apply to the whole alignment rather than to a stretch.

Where the properties are stored. This command writes the properties on the selected drawing entity — not in the alignment's .capcad file. That is a different store from the one the Properties tab of the Alignment Manager uses, which writes into the file. The two do not talk to each other: stay on one of them for any given property.

Workflow

1. Run CAPCAD_ALIGNMENT_PROPERTIES. CapCad asks for the curve: Select the alignment:. Lines, polylines and arcs are accepted.
2. Choose the property in the Property box (2). The list shows the ones already applied to that entity first, then the ones available. To create a property that is not in the list, type the name and click Add/edit… (3) or press Enter.
3. Build the table: Add line (13) asks for a station and a value; clicking a cell of the grid opens that cell for editing; Del line (15) removes the selected row. The table is re-sorted by station after every change.
4. Or pick in the drawing: Clicar pontos para km (17) hides the form, you click as many points as you like (Esc ends) and CapCad asks for the value at each station found.
5. Check: open Tools ↕ (22), type a station in Test value (23) and read the Result (24).
6. Plotar Valores Eixos (7) draws the strips per value. Excel (12) exports the table.
7. Record (19) saves and keeps the form open; Exit (20) saves and closes. Closing with the X with pending edits asks whether you want to save first.
8. If the edited property is a point property, the command also offers to mark the points in the drawing (Show point properties as markers on the drawing?).

The editor form

Numbers 1 to 27 belong to the Eixo Properties editor and 28 to 36 to the DataTypes form; the numbering is unique on this page. The Property label, the red help text and the Metragem / Item / Values headers are not clickable and get no number.

The screenshots are the Portuguese renders of the forms; the control positions are identical in every language.

The editor as it opens: property VelocidadeDiretriz pre-selected, filter on Linear property, tools panel collapsed.

With Tools ↕ (22) clicked: the form grows and reveals the test box (23), the result (24) and the separator pair (25, 26).

With Free text mode (18) ticked: the grid and the Add/Del line buttons give way to a text box (27) where the series is edited as CSV.

Property and filter

Alignment and plotting

Value table

The DataTypes form

CAPCAD_ALIGNMENT_DATASET opens a browser of the published data types: what each DataType means and what its default value is. It pins the set to Eixo and disables the selector.

As the command opens it: source CapCloud:, set pinned to Eixo, list in blue and read-only.

With Custom (current alignment) ticked: the list turns black and the editing buttons are released.

This form is a browser of the published catalogue. Nothing you edit in it is written to the alignment: saving is not available in this version, and the command says so on the command line (DataTypes: gravação ainda não portada) when you close it with (33).

Speed query

CAPCAD_ALIGNMENT_SPEED_QUERY has no form. It enters a click loop (Esc or Enter ends it) and, for each point:

1. Projects the point on the active alignment, finding the station, the segment and the direction (increasing or decreasing, according to the side you clicked).
2. Reads the design speed from the alignment's VelocidadeDiretriz property.
3. Reads the regulated speed from the speed-limit sign blocks in the drawing: every block whose effective name is exactly R-19 is paired with its support, the support is projected on the alignment (up to 100 units away) and the sign's EXTRA attribute goes into a per-station table — one central table and two lateral ones, left and right. On an alignment of highway type the search runs through the physical segments; on the central segments the central table applies, and on the others the side you clicked chooses the left or the right table.
4. Shows a box with the station, the segment number, the direction and the two speeds.

Two things to know:

• The design speed is read with the station of the previous click, not the current one — so the first point always looks up station 0.
• A drawing with no speed-limit sign reports 0 (lida das R19s), not "not found".

The block name the query looks for is R-19. Outside a sign library that uses that name, step 3 finds nothing and only the design speed is answered.

How the options combine

The step reading

A property with three break points — 0,80, 40,60 and 90,80 — and what it returns. The orange points are the break points you typed; the blue ones are three queries: at station 20 the value is 80, at 55 it is 60, at 110 it is 80. The value changes exactly at the break station, and holds from there to the next break.

Plotar Valores Eixos

The same property plotted along the alignment with Plotar Valores Eixos (7): the alignment is cut at stations 40 and 90 and comes out as three strips, each matching the value in force on that stretch. Each strip keeps the alignment's length factor and gets the real station of its start point, so the chainage keeps matching.

Remembered between sessions

Nothing. Neither form saves user preferences: filters, check boxes and the tools panel go back to the factory state every time they open. What persists are the properties themselves, stored on the drawing entity.

Notes

• The properties live on the entity, not in the alignment file. The Properties tab of the Alignment Manager writes into the .capcad file; they are two different places.
• Automatic migration from the old format. If the entity still carries the properties in the old format, they are read that way and the command line warns Legacy CSV properties found — will be saved as JSON.; on the first save they move to the new format.
• The command's own prompts and warnings (Select the alignment:, Pick a point on the alignment, Legacy CSV properties found…) read the same in every language.
• Several captions stay Portuguese in every language: CapVideo, Del prop..., Plotar Valores Eixos, both Automático boxes, Excel, the Item and Metragem headers, Add line, Del line, Clicar pontos para km, the Eixo list label, the Gravado confirmation, and the window titles Eixo Properties and DataTypes. On the DataTypes form the same is true of Criar custom and Propriedades Eixo.... They are quoted above as the software shows them.
• Three editor controls are not used by this version: Click = zoom to km (16) and the tab / comma pair (25, 26).
• A value written on its own, with no station in front of it, is not recognised and reads as 0, with no error. Every value needs the station,value pair — even a single value, which is written 0,<value>.
• On the DataTypes form, the description of the selected item appears in box (34) on a single click.

See also

• Alignment Manager — the other route to property editing, stored in the alignment file.
• Alignment Tools — free chainage and the unifilar diagram.
• Draw and edit the alignment — draw the alignment, auxiliary alignments, identify a segment and clean the road.
• Station Navigator — the properties read back at a picked point.