Organization

The sections of this guide are organized to follow, more or less, the typical workflow of the design engineer.

New Projects
Modeling
Results
Advanced Topics and Supporting Information

Conventions

This documentation uses a few special symbols and conventions.

Specific text you are to type in are shown in bold.
Menu selections are separated by a "greater than" symbol. File > Open means, select the Open command from the File menu.
Buttons that are to be pressed, such as the OK button commonly found in Windows applications, are indicated with square brackets. For example "[Cancel]" refers to the Cancel button.
Tips provide useful information to improve your results. Notes provide clarifying information. Notes and Tips have a shaded background

TIP: This is a tip. Now that you know what they look like, use the tips to become an expert user.

NOTE: This is a note. Pay attention, this is important information.

Common Input Parameters

Station, offset, bearing, and angle are common input parameters used throughout the user interface. These parameters can be input with simple decimal values or in common engineering format.

Notation

The following notation is used to describe the common engineering format.

Symbol	Description	Example
\|	Choose between pipe separated items	L\|R Choose "L" or "R"
[]	Items within square brackets are optional	[+\|-] Use "+" or "-" or omit
x	Lowercase letters are digits 0-9	dd mm ss.ss Angular measure as degree-minute-decimal seconds 45 22 34.22

Stations

Stations represent a position along an alignment. Stations can be input as a decimal number or as a number of full plus fractional chains.

Format	Examples
[+\|-]dddd.dd	233.32 -89.92
US Units [+\|-]dd+dd.dd	2+33.32 -0+89.92
SI Units [+\|-]dd+ddd.dd	2+343.32 -0+894.92

Offsets

Offsets represent a perpendicular distance measured from a reference line. Left and right orientation is based on the observer looking in the positive direction of the reference line. If the reference line is an alignment, left and right are based on the observer looking ahead on station.

Format	Examples
[+\|-]dddd.dd Values greater than zero are to the right of the reference line.	2343.32 -894.92
dddd.dd [L\|R]	2343.32 R 894.92 L

Angles

Angles represent a departure from a reference line.

Format	Examples
[+\|-]dddd.dd Clockwise angles are positive.	45.32 -22.92
dddd.dd [L\|R] Angles to the right are clockwise	45.32 L 22.92 R
[+\|-]dd [mm [ss.ss]]	45 45 16 45 16 25.32 -32 -32 56 -32 56 14.56
dd [mm [ss.ss]] [L\|R]	45 L 45 16 L 45 16 25.32 L 32 R 32 56 R 32 56 14.56 R

Bearings

Bearings represent the direction of a line in a Cartesian coordinate system.

Format	Examples
N\|S dddd.dd [E\|W]	N 34.23 E
N\|S dd [mm [ss.ss]] E\|W	S 34 W S 34 15 W S34 15 23.3 W