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Importing a Path Explorer feature into Location

Updated April 26, 2024


This article applies to:
  • RoadEng Civil
  • RoadEng Forestry
  • Softree Optimal

1. Open Location Module and press File I New File.
You will be prompted with a dialog similar to below.

Choose Topo File in Location dialog.PNG

Figure 1: Choose OG Surface.

2. Browse to select the Terrain file where your Path Explorer features are located at. Then press OK.

3. In the Initial Alignment(s) dialog press the Browse... button in Alignments section to select the topo file.

 Initial Alignment dialog.PNG

Figure 2: Initial Alignment(s) dialog.

4. Press the Select... button to choose the feature(s) to import.

Select feature by name.PNG

Figure 3: Select feature(s) by name dialog.

Note: Path Explorer features are always named: .XPATH_###K- 0, where ###K is the estimated cost associated to the construction of that alignment.

5. Select the cheapest alignment as shown above and press OK. Then press Next>> button.

6. In the initial cross section dialog press Done to finish the alignment importing.

You will have a result similar to below.

Result of PE feature importing.PNG

Figure 4: Path explorer feature imported into Location Module.

7. A similar process can be followed when adding path explorer results to an existing .dsnx

8. You can do it by right-clicking on your current alignment and selecting Add Horizontal... as shown below.

Add Horizontal.png

Figure 5: Add Horizontal... button.

9. Then, in the Add Horizontal Alignment(s) dialog, select Coordinate, Traverse, Terrain or LandXML file and hit OK. 

Add Horizontal alignments dialog.PNG

Figure 6: Add Horizontal Alignment(s) dialog.

10. From this point, you can continue following the steps shown above in Figure 2. Initial Alignment(s) dialog. (step 3.)

As a last suggestion, when evaluating the path explorer results in location, it is highly recommend quickly running the polyline to alignment with curves tool and a quick Vertical Optimization. Path explorer is really a front end tool meant to feed into these other tools for road design.