Fix Traffic Signs

What it does

A CapCad sign is not just a block: it carries its own design data in attributes — station/km, X/Y, easting/northing, latitude/longitude, alignment name, code, dimensions, area, action — and its layer states its action (implant, keep, remove, substitute). That data is computed at insertion time, against the alignment and the coordinate system of that moment.

When something changes afterwards — the alignment is redrawn or re-imported, the project coordinate system is defined, a sign is dragged to its proper place, the design paradigm starts demanding a different station spelling — all of those attributes are lying. CAPCAD_SIGNS_FIX is the command that recomputes them. It sweeps a selection (or the whole drawing), separates out what is a sign, and for each sign:

1. Decides whether it is in scope, from the action read off the layer or the attribute, according to the Aplicar em placas em situação boxes.
2. Finds the sign's post through a five-step geometric ladder (insertion point within 1 unit, a fence over the block geometry, a hop along the leader line, a widened fence and, last, the assembly path). If none is found, the sign is an orphan.
3. Chooses the measuring point: the post's point (already corrected by the Position3 parameter and turned by the post's rotation), displaced along the post when it is a cantilever arm. With no post, the sign's own point — but only if you ticked Usar o ponto de inserção da placa (15); otherwise the sign is left untouched.
4. Rewrites the coordinates: PLACA_X, PLACA_Y, PLACA_ESTE, PLACA_NORTE, PLACA_LAT, PLACA_LON, LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, PLACA_LAT_LON and PLACA_EIXO.
5. Rewrites the station: PLACA_KM, PLACA_EST and KM, by stationing the point on the project alignment.
6. Rewrites dimensions and area: PLACA_DIM, PLACA_DIM_AREA and PLACA_AREA.
7. Rewrites the code and the layer: PLACA_COD from the block name, and the sign's layer (and optionally the post's) from the action.

The whole sign sweep happens in a single transaction, written out at the end in one go.

What the command does not do

• It moves nothing, rotates nothing and resizes nothing. It only writes attributes and changes layers. Rescaling signs already inserted is a separate button, under Ferramentas ▸ Escala ▸ Ajusta escala (42); rotation relative to the alignment is decided at insertion and by the sign-to-post fitting command, not here.
• It does not update a sign after a style change. The command writes values into attributes that already exist in the block: a missing tag is simply ignored. Changing the project style changes the sign's graphic definition and the set of attributes it should carry — that is the Styles Explorer's job (see Migrate the traffic-sign style). Run Fix Traffic Signs after the style migration, to fill the new attributes in — including ticking the area options if the dimensions came through empty.
• It does not invent a station without an alignment. With no alignment loaded in the project, the km block is skipped (rather than stamping "km 0+000" over real values) and the command says so on the command line.
• It does not invent latitude/longitude without a coordinate system. With no coordinate system defined in the project, the four geographic attributes are left as they were, and the command says so.

The two status labels

At the foot of the Corrigir tab sit two labels that read the project at the moment the form opens (and every time the command is called again): Eixo: (alignment) and Sistema de coordenadas: (coordinate system). Red = not defined; dark green = the alignment name and the system that were found. They are the quick diagnosis of why the station or the latitude/longitude will not be fixed. Once the run is over, the coordinate-system label is replaced by the result ("N corrigida(s), M órfã(s)." — N fixed, M orphaned).

The Estaca (station) box (5) follows the same facts: it is only enabled — and already ticked — when the project is urban or has an alignment. With neither, it appears disabled.

Workflow

1. Run CAPCAD_SIGNS_FIX (or type CV). The Vertical Tools form opens beside the drawing, on the Corrigir tab.
2. Check the two labels at the foot of the tab: if the alignment or the coordinate system is red, settle that first in the Project Manager — otherwise the station and the latitude/longitude will not be fixed.
3. Choose the scope: Selecionar (3) to pick in the drawing, or Desenho todo (4) to sweep the whole model space (paper space is never included).
4. Tick what you want fixed in the Corrigir frame (5 to 13), what to do with post-less signs (14 to 16), the area options (17 to 20) and the criteria (21 to 27).
5. On the opções tab, narrow the sweep to particular situations (32 to 37), choose the precision of the local coordinates (38) and decide whether marks (29) and ordinary blocks (30) join the same pass.
6. Go back to the Corrigir tab and click Ok (1). The form hides during the selection and comes back afterwards.
7. Read the report on the command line: how many signs were analysed, how many fixed, how many attributes written, how many in assemblies, how many orphaned — plus the warnings about a missing alignment and coordinate system.

The form

Numbers are the same in every screenshot of this page. The form has five tabs: Corrigir (fix), opções (options), Ferramentas (tools), Ações (actions) and Util.

This form shows Portuguese captions in every language, so the tables below quote the caption you will see on screen and give its English meaning beside it.

The "Corrigir" tab (1 to 27), in its opening state. The Estaca box (5) appears disabled because the sample drawing has no project with an alignment.

The "opções" tab (28 to 41).

The "Ferramentas" tab (42 to 63).

The "Ações" tab (64 to 77).

The "Util" tab (78 to 81).

Tab 1: Corrigir. Run and scope

Tab 1: Corrigir. The Corrigir frame

Tab 1: Corrigir. The Se suporte da placa não encontrado frame (when the sign's post is not found)

Tab 1: Corrigir. The Áreas frame

Tab 1: Corrigir. The Critérios frame

Conventional-sign dimensions are available only under the Brazilian country profile. Under any other profile the box writes nothing and the three area tags stay as they were. The recommended-dimension tables themselves, keyed by road type and by highway class, are on the Portuguese edition of this page.

Tab 2: opções

The Considerações text block, between 30 and 31, is informative and describes the pairing ladder: the sign's post is determined by proximity (tolerance = 1 unit), assemblies included, and the spatial information is taken from it.

Tab 3: Ferramentas

Button 42 uses the scale from the preferences; the Escala corrente: 1:1000 label above 43 is fixed text.

Tab 4: Ações

The three big buttons apply the action to a selection; the blue aliases beside them (IMP, COL / MAN, EXI / REM, RET) are the spellings CapCad recognises in layers and attributes, and the Atalhos teclado em azul label reminds you that those actions also have keyboard shortcuts.

Tab 5: Util

How the options combine

The tables below came from the command's own engine, run outside the CAD on a sample sign: measured point E 612345.678 / N 7654321.987, latitude −19.5, longitude −43.25, station 12345.60 m, block of 0.90 × 0.90, comma decimal separator.

Coordinates

Points to keep in mind:

• E= and N= never get a tag and always use the style's format — the precision chosen in 38 only reaches X= / Y=.
• PLACA_EIXO is always written, and always with the Eixo: prefix. The name is that of the sub-alignment the sign fell on; falling on none, it is the project alignment's name — or a plain - under one paradigm.
• With no coordinate system, the five geographic rows are simply not written: the old values stay.
• A geographic coordinate out of range (|value| > 181) becomes ? in place of the number.

Station / km

Some project paradigms replace the spelling entirely: instead of a station they write the kilometre with two decimals into all three tags, and they station with no distance limit — a sign more than 200 m from the alignment still receives a kilometre, which under the other paradigms it does not. The paradigms that do this are listed on the Portuguese edition of this page.

Dimensions and area

The last row is the rule that trips people up: each kind of sign answers to its own box. Conventional signs are only fixed by Critérios ▸ Área convencionais (23); laid-out signs, only by Áreas ▸ Área e dimensões placas não-convencionais (17). Ticking the wrong box changes nothing. Note too that the conventional sign writes the same string into all three tags, while the laid-out one composes WxH=area in the middle tag.

Layer per action

Related commands

CAPCAD_SIGN_TOOLS and CAPCAD_ACTION_PANEL

They are the same form, opened straight on the right tab: CAPCAD_SIGN_TOOLS opens on Ferramentas, CAPCAD_ACTION_PANEL on Ações. If the form is already open they only switch tab and bring it to the front — and re-evaluate the project state, so the Estaca box can become enabled if the project has gained an alignment since it was first opened.

CAPCAD_SIGN_BLOCK_FIX — fix ordinary blocks

Asks for a selection and fills the location attributes of CapCad blocks that are neither sign nor post (blocks named INFO are skipped, because the mark fix handles those):

• LATITUDE and LONGITUDE, projected from the insertion point through the project coordinate system;
• KM, stationed on the first element of the project alignment;
• LADO (side): E to the left of the alignment, D to the right, C on it.

With no alignment, KM and LADO are skipped; with no coordinate system, LATITUDE and LONGITUDE are skipped — the command warns in both cases and lists the blocks it changed. This is exactly what the Incluir blocos box (30) runs over the same selection. Available on AutoCAD, BricsCAD, GstarCAD and ZWCAD.

CAPCAD_SIGN_FILL — validate and publish a sign's dwg

Shortcut VA, ribbon Validar e Publicar dwg Placa. Despite the similar name, it has nothing to do with fixing signs already inserted: it validates the drawing of a sign being drawn for the library — it switches hatches from ByLayer to ByColor, finds or draws the frame according to the border policy, converts from millimetres to metres, repositions the insertion point and INSBASE, zooms to extents and saves in the 2010 format. It can validate only the current drawing or every open dwg, and lets you force a width and a height. -CAPCAD_SIGN_FILL does the same validation without opening the form, using the remembered parameters. The same form opens on its 3D page through CAPCAD_3D_SIGN_CHECK. Available on AutoCAD, BricsCAD, GstarCAD and ZWCAD.

Remembered between sessions

Nothing on the form. Every box returns to its default when it is opened again. The Estaca box (5) is the special case: its state is decided afresh from the project (urban or with an alignment) every time CAPCAD_SIGNS_FIX, CAPCAD_SIGN_TOOLS or CAPCAD_ACTION_PANEL is run — including with the form already open, which overwrites whatever you had ticked there.

What comes from outside the form and does persist: the scale used by Ajusta escala (42) is the user's sign-scale preference; the warning shown before it has a "do not show again" stored in the preferences.

Notes

• With the six situation boxes ticked, the Layers box sends the sign to layer SINA_VERT_. With the six Aplicar em placas em situação boxes (32 to 37) ticked — the default — the coordinate and station fixes are unaffected, but ticking Layers (11) sends the sign to layer SINA_VERT_ (the prefix alone). Before using the Layers box, untick at least one of the six situation boxes.
• Unticking a situation only excludes signs whose action attribute is spelled out in full. A sign on layer SINA_VERT_IMP is not excluded when you untick Implantar; only a sign whose attribute literally says IMPLANTAR is. This changes which signs a destructive pass touches: check the result before trusting the filter.
• The Personalizado box (36) never excludes anything, even unticked: a custom action always passes the filter.
• Running Fix Traffic Signs over a freshly inserted sign can change its E/N. At insertion, X/Y come from the post's point and E/N from the sign's point — two different points. Here all four come from the same measured point.
• What counts as a sign. A block with attributes, whose name is neither INFO nor DEF_TERMINAL_IMP, and which carries at least one of the tags SIGN_CODE, SENAL_COD, CODIGOPLACA, PLACA_COD or CODIGO. A block with the tag SUP_COD or POST_CODE is a post.
• Assemblies. A sign that only reaches its post through the assembly path is counted separately in the report ("N em conjunto"). A second hop within the assembly is not followed: where it would be needed, the sign is reported as an orphan instead of being paired by guesswork.
• Moving signs without losing the coordinates. When you move a sign, grab the junction point between sign and post. Moving the sign alone does not change the stored coordinates; moving the post does — and it is Fix Traffic Signs that recomputes them afterwards.
• After migrating the style. If the attributes the new style brings did not exist in the previous one, run this command to fill them, ticking the area options (17 and 23) if the dimensions came through empty.
• Three passes, three transactions. The marks (29) and the blocks (30) run first, over the whole selection and each in its own transaction, before the selection is narrowed to signs; the sign sweep is the third.
• Not available in this version: the ? labels (2, 18, 22, 24, 26, 70), Mostrar relatório (16), Código Composto (8), Modulação (9), Ação (10), Quantidade suporte (21), Material suporte (25), Linha indicativa placa-suporte (28), the geographic precision (39), Corrige atributos suporte (40, 41), the category and code filters on the Ferramentas tab (45 to 49, 51, 63), the attribute buttons (54 to 62), the custom action (67 to 69), the item boxes (71 to 74) and the whole Util tab (78 to 81).