Civil 3D 2010 - Intersections

One of the new features in Civil 3D 2010 is "... automated intersection design ...". I've played around with it a bit and have found it to be a good feature. The new feature automates most of the design process of modeling intersections that used to take about a half hour down to 2 to 3 minutes. I find that the byproducts of the intersection design tools are probably the most interesting, but I don't think I can discuss them due to the NDA.

It does take some time to set up the Create Intersection Command (I didn't really do this part), but once complete I was able to model an intersection in as little as 3 clicks. It works great if you work in areas that don't require you to design intersections using such things as the plane method. Since I work mainly in the Southern California market this is a big requirement so if you do also you'll need to go back and update the curb returns. The intersection tool models the curb return profiles by doing a straight grade from the BCR to the ECR, which means if you currently use this method with feature lines the intersection tool will be a significant upgrade since you won't have to go back and change the feature lines if the related centerline profiles are changed. The picture below shows an intersection created using the new tool.