Dynamite VSP Road Markings
Road Markings are a vital aspect of any highway visualisation providing the scene with context and scale.
However, the creation of road markings has traditionally been a complex process.
Dynamite VSP features unique parametric road marking objects which make innovative and automated use of opacity mapping to represent dashed marking lines and chevrons or hatched areas. This prevents the need to build the full 3D geometry of every marking block.
By default, road marking objects retain a permanent dependence on their associated parent shapes which in turn are generally derived from imported civil design strings. When a design change occurs, all associated road marking geometry is updated automatically.
All road marking objects created in Dynamite VSP are automatically assigned a small vertical offset above the parent shape object. This vertical offset causes road markings to always be slightly raised above any underlying ground surface. This prevents the ground surface from unintentionally obscuring the road marking geometry.
To avoid road markings from unintentionally casting a shadow onto underlying ground surface geometry, the shadow casting property for road marking objects is automatically disabled.
Linear Road Markings
Dynamite VSP features a powerful solution for the creation of linear road markings. These objects can be draped as continuous "ribbons" along shape objects with fully adjustable line widths and mark/gap lengths. Gaps in the road markings are managed automatically through the use of scaleable opacity maps. Road marking objects are automatically updated when updating or moving the parent shape.
The consistent use of string labelling conventions in your source engineering design data allows parametric road markings to be created instantly across the entire visualisation model. Road markings can subsequently be edited at any time, and are automatically renewed when their respective imported parent string is updated.
Road Marking Chevrons
Closed shapes (or imported boundary strings) may be used to form the basis of filled areas of road marking such as solid paint, or chevron markings. Mark and gap length parameters may be used to specify the width of the chevron markings and the gap between the chevrons. The angle of the chevrons may also be adjusted which is calculated in relation to the bearing of the first point in the closed parent shape.
Chevron road markings are fully parametric in Dynamite VSP which means that the chevron dimensions, angle and colour may be adjusted at any time. Updates the parent shape will also cause the chevrons to be updated automatically.
Road Marking Styles
Once a series of road marking types has been defined, the associated creation parameters may be saved to a text based Road Markings Style to provide an easy means of re-using the parameters at a later date. The syntax for road marking styles forms part of the command language for Dynamite VSP which allows commonly used settings to be stored in text based styles for later re-use.
Road Markings Styles may be defined interactively in the dedicated Road Markings Style Editor panel, or in any text editor or spreadsheet application.
Road Marking Symbols
Road marking symbols such as painted direction arrows and text may also be created in Dynamite VSP.
These road marking types are classed as road signs and are therefore created using the
Dynamite VSP Object Placement Style Editor.
Automatic surface tracking is usually applied to road marking symbols to ensure that these markings always sit perfectly onto the underlying road surface even when superelevation or varying crossfall is applied.