Under the Radar: Complex Tunnel Design in InfraWorks

KYLE GERKE: Welcome, everybody. This presentation will cover how to build a complex tunnel in InfraWorks, and it will help if you have an intermediate knowledge of Autodesk InfraWorks. A brief plug about HNTB, we provide architecture, civil engineering, program, and construction management across the United States. The Technology Solutions Center is the group that I'm a part of, and we deliver technology and data management solutions and services directly to our clients. And we have very many talented digital innovators on our team, and these are all the divisions that we have within the Technology Solutions Group.

A little bit about myself, this is my second year at Autodesk University and my first time speaking. I've been in the industry for nine years, and this is my third year with HNTB. I have experience in modeling multiple disciplines primarily on the vertical side and some project experience includes large scale water treatment plant, bridges, tunnels, and airports. And I'm skilled in a variety of Autodesk tools and applications, software integration, and BIM implementation on a variety of projects.

SCOTT LECHER: Hi, everyone. My name is Scott Lecher. This is my first year at Autodesk University. I've got roughly 20 years experience in the AEC industry, five of those with HNTB. My experience is primarily in civil engineering and highway design, surface modeling, and then also software development for automation and systems integration. Some of my skills relevant to our presentation today are Navisworks, InfraWorks, Civil 3D, and then also have gotten some experience with the Forge services as well.

KYLE GERKE: Our other presenter who's not joining us for the recording portion but who will be in person is a product manager for InfraWorks with Autodesk. For today's learning objectives, we'll kind of highlight these as we go through the presentation, but the last objective will actually be the in-person live demo of the product and highlight some of the new features that will be coming in the next dot one release. For the first learning objective, how to build complex tunnels.

SCOTT LECHER: So with InfraWorks and the tunnel modeling workflow, primarily we're talking about in context modeling of tunnels. So this is one of the primary benefits of InfraWorks, the ability to design in context. So this is using existing surfaces, aerial imagery, and GIS overlays to really give you a good feel for the surrounding environment of your project. This workflow allows for parametric modeling of multiple tunnel types.

The parametric components are developed and defined in Inventor, but we've got some examples here, some of the various tunnel types. So covering traditional cut and cover tunnel and accommodating multiple sections as well as detailed board tunnels with precast rings and then also managing submerged tunnels with detailed end portals. So a couple of initial examples of types of tunnels.

So let's dig into the workflow a little bit here. So as with most linear projects, the tunnel workflow typically starts with a horizontal and vertical alignment. And although the alignment geometry can be created and modified in InfraWorks, you can also utilize that-- utilize Civil 3D as your primary authoring environment, so some flexibility there. I mentioned that Inventor is utilized to generate parametric components, so that's what the smaller inset here is showing, one of these parts for a tunnel and in this case with a tunnel connection, a transverse connection within this particular section.

So these parts are defined in Inventor, and these various parameters are then exposed in the InfraWorks user interface. And then those allow you to vary the sections to accommodate any amount of complexity necessary for a particular tunnel design. So then we can see the end product view here with InfraWorks, and again we're designing in context. So you can see some of the aerial imagery in this location, and in particular the contour lines help provide a overview of the amount of extreme relief within this particular location. And then finally, this workflow utilizes Revit for the generation of documentation. So this is where you would generate plan views, elevation, sections, and schedules, and then Revit is also the modeling environment for Rebar as you can see in this screenshot.

KYLE GERKE: You might ask why use InfraWorks? Simply put, it transfers the geometry between Civil 3D and Revit into its native form. So the integration capabilities allow us to leverage the documentation software and store that federated model within InfraWorks. So the advantage is you get the speed of modeling in context with InfraWorks as the federated model. You also can have multiple alternate concepts within an overall work share model. The tunnel workflow takes advantage of using each software for what it's best at. So Inventor is to develop the parts that you bring into InfraWorks, and then Civil 3D and Revit are good at documenting, so it also integrates with that for the documentation side.

The idea is to have the federated design in InfraWorks and document outside. So part of the setup is to bring in those base files from Civil 3D. So you can bring in alignment, the terrain models that the tunnel design or the civil design team has been developing and then import those parametric parts and use InfraWorks to develop the design and bring that back into Revit. You also have the ability to, once you've done some of the design in Revit, you can actually bring that back into InfraWorks as a static model to help develop some of the visualizations as well.

So the purpose, the federated model provides many added benefits after the modeling, so better coordinated models during all stages of design. It's also viewable within the Autodesk Construction Cloud Viewer. Visualization benefits native to InfraWorks, so you're able to impress stakeholders with presentation graphics like some examples that we're seeing on screen.

You can export to advanced visualization applications like [? One Motion, ?] Lumion, and Beyond CAD and the webview navigation that I mentioned earlier using the Autodesk Construction Cloud. And also like I mentioned, just the advantages of InfraWorks, so the real time civil modeling capabilities of designing roadways, civil structure design, drainage, and the Model Builder that's also in InfraWorks and the data exchange capabilities and performance within InfraWorks.

SCOTT LECHER: So next we want to talk about some other options for tunnel modeling and design that don't involve the use of InfraWorks and Inventor. So the first of these is a connected workflow that was presented at Autodesk University in 2019. This process involves the setup of specific point codes in the Civil 3D subassemblies. CORRIDOR reporting is then used to generate an Excel sheet of northings and eastings coordinates by station. And then that data is consumed by Dynamo to generate linear endpoint geometry from the Excel data, and it's also used to create Revit geometry itself.

A second similar solution is referred to as the CivilConnection or the Linear Structures Workflow. This is available as a GitHub project, and the GitHub project contains the source code itself as well as the compiled Dynamo nodes. And again, this workflow also utilizes some of the information directly from the corridor. In this case, the CivilConnection uses the subassembly shapes, and it reads the shapes from the Civil 3D corridor and then with Dynamo utilizes that geometry to create lofted solid geometry in Revit. This workflow can also utilize an IFB based workflow or exchange process where the CORRIDOR solids are created in Civil 3D and then linked into Revit, again via IFB import-export functionality.

And then the third option is a newer solution. It's an open source data sharing. These are Speckle Connectors. As I mentioned, these are fairly new. They're used within the overall Speckle solution. And one of the unique components of Speckle is that it is based on sharing data at the object level, not at the file level. So if you read some of the product documentation and introductions, Speckle aims to be the Gits of AEC and uses workflows from software development such as branches and commits. And so the Speckle connectors are reading the binary data for multiple software packages such as Revit, AutoCAD, and Blender and Rhino, and then speckle serializes it to a neutral representation that can be exchanged via an API either in JSON format or stored in a database.

KYLE GERKE: For the next learning objective, we're going to go through the process of integration with Inventor, Civil 3D, and Revit. So this video, we'll kind of cover on the Inventor side. So within 2023, we have the ability to bring in a part or an assembly from Inventor. And on the screen, you can see that we have multiple parameters that control this part on the Inventor side, and within our parameters, within Inventor, we can control which ones are set to a key parameter which will then translate those parameters to be controlled on the InfraWorks side.

And the interoperability between Inventor in Revit has drastically improved. You can actually-- anything that's modeled in Revit, you can bring into Inventor and turn it into a part and tie parameters to that. So if you don't know Inventor as well, you just need to figure out how to work with the parameters, and you can actually translate Revit to Inventor.

This video highlights the InfraWorks side. At this point, in the top right, you can see the image. We've already set up the model builder that's brought in all of the buildings and terrain, and we're importing the InfraWorks-- or the Civil 3D alignment specifying which-- within that alignment file, what we actually want to bring over. And then you have to configure and tell it which alignment you want to bring. You have the option to adjust the settings within this menu here.

And then after you configure, you'll want to import that part that we created in Inventor. So you'll right click-- first, we're actually going to create that tunnel structure by selecting that component road that it brought in as that alignment. And then you have some options to adjust the grading, how that tunnel relates to the grade, and the different cross sections here. So within the category styles, we'll actually import that part that I was referencing and showing earlier and set it to the tunnel segment.

And then you'll notice after we set that within our options, we can then select that tunnel, and we have control of all of the parameters that were created on the Inventor side. The great thing is you can add true-false parameters to toggle on and off different objects. And in the next video, we'll start to show how you can actually associate objects through that alignment itself.

One other feature within this video, profile viewer. So within the profile view, you have the ability to control that vertical association. One thing to note, whenever you actually bring over that alignment, there are some translation issues depending on how complex that alignment is. So just by toggling that vertical up and down, that will correct your alignment, and then you can update any sort of station elevation associated.

Some of the additional tunnel features, the cross-section or slice geometry, editing. Right here we're showing it with all the other layers hidden and just showing the tunnel. You can have further control over those parameters, and you can duplicate the cross-section. You can tweak where each interface happens. If you need to start to toggle on [? walls ?] between different segments, this is where you would control that within the properties. And then this is also where you would add the generic object associated to that alignment, and you can import-- or input a offset for any of the vertices. This is just native parameters within InfraWorks.

And then after you've got everything added and associated to that alignment, whenever you go to publish the civil structure, which is shown up here on the top right, that is where everything associated to that tunnel will actually be included in that civil structures export. And what we're seeing here, you can actually create a spreadsheet whenever you go to-- for further control within just the data management. So if you have, on the Civil 3D side, if you've developed any sort of subassemblies where the parameters align with the Inventor parameters, you can actually copy that data over to basically replicate-- it wouldn't be a true dynamic link, but it would be a replication of a Civil 3D corridor.

So the final video shows the workflow for getting the documentation aspect. So once you've imported, you can start to create that dynamic Rebar, so if that tunnel updates, all of the-- that free form Rebar will also update. And then you can bring this, like I mentioned earlier, back into InfraWorks. You also have the ability to create schedules within Revit. You can also annotate, so cut sections through this, add dimensions that will also update dynamically once that tunnel-- if there's any updates on the InfraWorks side, it'll update in Revit.

Not shown on the documentation side are the Civil 3D abilities. There are currently limitations for showing the tunnel within a profile view or within a cross-section. So talking about limitations and lessons learned within the civil structures, so whenever you have brought that into Revit, you can not modify the structure geometry. So for example, cutting a void or joining to that, if you were to model a slab within Revit, you wouldn't be able to cut a void or join or align anything to that civil structure.

Also, category mapping, currently tunnels only transfer to Revit as generic models. You couldn't associate a tunnel wall to become a wall with this current release. Limited type perimeter control, so you're not able to assign, for example, a uniformat code or a keynote tag. Those type parameters will be locked down. You would have to control everything within a shared parameter.

And then also the station offset labels, currently we are limited to labeling, northing, and easting along the alignment itself. So anything that's offset of that alignment, you would have to do a manual dimension to get that label to appear or to get that dimension and add that to your sheets manually. Limitations, tunnels, within the InfraWorks side, so cross sections lost when switching tunnel segments. So in that video, I was showing the different parts that you could switch between, and right now those, if you don't update the part itself, you'll lose all of those cross-sections that were added manually. The learning curve, of course, the tunnel designer needs to be proficient with both InfraWorks and Inventor for this workflow to be efficient.

Understanding formulas, equations, assemblies within Inventor is definitely helpful. Placement of objects must be relative to an alignment, so you cannot place objects relative to the geometry or the parameters within the parts. It has to actually be associated to that alignment itself. Visibility of tunnel within the cross-section view. I did not show this, but within InfraWorks, whenever you go to the profile view, you also have the option to see the cross-section view at any specific point along the station. And at this time, the only features available are roads, topo, drainage, basically anything native to InfraWorks. And one of the last limitations we found, you cannot change material of the slice-based geometry. So the materials would need to be controlled within the shared parameters on the Revit side.

SCOTT LECHER: So next we want to talk about some lessons learned from our investigation on the non-InfraWorks and non-Inventor tunnel options. So both of the Dynamo-based options require a fair level of expertise with subassembly composer because you are configuring those custom point codes or the shape names that end up in the corridors. And because that naming convention is so critical to identifying the geometry within the Dynamo node, that takes some additional thought and some additional setup and some expertise with bringing together the subassemblies that make up your corridor.

There's also a lot of parts in terms of just the solid geometry of a typical tunnel that can be very difficult to model with the linear assembly-based tool. Things like a solid transverse wall or a horizontal bump out, say, at the edge of a tunnel for elevators or other equipment or also needing to model some openings in walls that are between adjacent tunnel sections.

So that sort of puts another challenge, so to speak, into utilizing some of these other toolings. Additionally, because at least the first two options that we had discussed, because they're based on Dynamo, they require programming skills or at least a programming mindset to be able to understand which nodes will accomplish which parts of the process in assembling your overall Dynamo graph and getting the inputs and outputs configured correctly and doing troubleshooting and debugging to get everything to work together to import the geometry from the Civil 3D data exports and then utilize that to build out the solid geometry in the correct manner.

And then lastly, these other options bypass some of those advantages of working in InfraWorks that we've talked about, namely the ability to work in context with InfraWorks. And again, we've talked about InfraWorks, and we've seen a lot of value in using that as the federated model platform for linear or for civil infrastructure projects. Again, it brings all of your project information together, the aerial imagery, your GIS data sets, and then the Civil 3D linear alignment data as well, and in particular, its graphic information for the Civil 3D data, and it's a native exchange. So it's not just text based passing of the data through Excel or through other means there.

And then lastly, with some of these tools, you're also missing out on the InfraWorks capability regarding developing multiple alternative concepts and having them all within the same InfraWorks data container. So if you're watching our recording, feel free to reach out to either of us with any questions or comments, and I appreciate your time and in sticking with us in the recording.

KYLE GERKE: Thank you.