Cross Sections

Navigation: <Root level>

Cross Sections

TPC can display any number of traverses as cross sections, just like the ones shown here. It’s fast and easy.

•Create a traverse for each cross section.

•From Drawings Manager, choose Tools | Insert New Drawing | Append to End and double click the Xsec.DRT template. You don’t have to use this predefined template, but it includes many of the settings that you will eventually use.

•Now select all the cross section traverses in the Traverses Manager and tag them.

Switching Between Plan and Profile View

TPC draws the cross sections both in Plan View and Profile View.

•To show a profile in the Drawing View, choose View | Profile Mode. You can also right click any blank part of the Drawing View and choose Profile View from the context menu.

•To return to plan view, choose View | Profile Mode again. A check mark next to this command indicates that Drawing View is displaying the Profile view.

Tagging Traverses

In Profile View, the Drawing View displays a cross section for each tagged traverses. To include a traverse, set its tag in the Traverses Manager. To exclude a traverse, un-tag it in the Traverses Manager or right click its profile line and choose Traverse Tools | Untag Traverse.

Cross Sections are drawn as Profiles

In profile view, TPC displays each cross section as a separate profile. Because of this association with profiles, cross section traverses need to be stationed. This is common practice for transects, but a departure from traditional cross sections.

The beginning station in the cross section is the smallest station value in its traverses and the ending station is the largest station value. Generally, you will station each cross section traverse so that the center point of the cross section is at station 0+00. You can do this easily in the Traverse View for each cross section by entering the center point elevation as a negative value for the first point in that cross section. For example, let’s assume that the station of the center point for a cross section is 0+68.45. Enter –0+68.45 as the station for the first point in that traverse and TPC will recompute the stations for all the points such that the center point of the cross section now has a station of 0+00. This cross section is now ready to be plotted with the others along a common vertical axis.

Miscellaneous Cross Section Settings

When you view cross sections, you can tell TPC what vertical scale ratio to use, how to label the stations, and more.

To edit these settings, right click a blank part of the drawing and choose Drawing Settings | Miscellaneous.

Individual Cross Section Settings

To edit the settings for all the cross sections at once, right click a blank spot on the drawing and choose Drawing Settings. Choose the settings you want and choose OK. TPC will redraw the cross sections with the selected settings.

To display each cross section with its own line type, color, symbols, labels, etc. right click any line or label associated with the cross section you want to edit, then choose Traverse Drawing Settings, select the options you want and choose OK. TPC will redraw the cross sections using each cross section’s own settings.

Viewing a Single Cross Section

To view a single cross section, open the Traverse View for that traverse, right click the Drawing View and choose Profile View.

Viewing Multiple Cross Section

To view multiple cross section, tag the traverses you want to include on the page. In the Drawing View, switch to profile mode.

TPC draws each cross section with it's own grid.

Separating Cross Sections Vertically

•Right click the Drawing View and choose Drawing Settings, Miscellaneous.

•Note the Vertical Ratio and Vertical Space settings.

When the Vertical Space value is other than zero, TPC labels each cross section with its own elevation and the Drawing View no longer tracks the elevation for you.

•Set the Vertical Space to 0.0 and return to the Drawing View and choose View | Zoom | Zoom Extents.

Now the elevation on the status bar and grid makes sense and can be used for analysis.

Drawing Certain Cross Sections Together

At times, you may want to draw two or more cross sections together. For example, you might want to draw a typical design cross section along with existing ground.

To do this, start the additional traverses with the letters DUP-.

For example, if you have the following two traverses in this sequence, TPC will draw them over the top of each other before advancing to the next cross section on the page.

•Original Ground 0+50

•DUP-Typical 0+50

Adding a Grid

To add a grid to the profile choose Insert | Grid.

To modify the grid, move the mouse over any of the grid labels, right click and choose Properties.

By default, the grid covers the extents of the cross sections (minimum station to maximum station and minimum elevation to maximum elevation) but you can extend the grid as needed in the grid dialog.

Adding Cross Section Lines to the Legend

Right click the line and choose Append to Legend. TPC will add the a legend item that includes a line of the same type as the cross section and a ? which you can edit with the description of the cross section.