The answers to these types of questions can differ, depending on the project. For road design, the government entity that accepts responsibility for the road is most likely calling the shots when it comes to design standards. That may be the state Department of Transportation (DOT), county planning commission, or even the community homeowners association. In other cases, you may be designing roads or other linear features on private property that is not governed by any official design standards. In this case, you will have to utilize your knowledge and experience to create the best design. Whether the design standards come from you or someone else, it’s helpful to have tools that ensure that your design meets the requirements that have been assigned to it.
Design criteria and check sets are two ways of telling Civil 3D what your design standards are and asking Civil 3D to tell you when you’ve violated those standards by displaying a warning symbol (see Figure 5.15). These two features are customizable, so you can use them to represent any standard or combination of standards that is necessary.
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| Figure 5.15 Tooltip relaying details about a design check set violation. |
Preloading Your Design Standards
If you work for a company that does projects in different jurisdictions that have different design requirements, it would be a good idea to talk with your CAD manager about separate templates, one for each jurisdiction. Not only can these templates establish graphical standards as discussed previously, but they also can be set up with preloaded design-criteria files and design check sets that represent applicable design standards. With this type of setup, you can simply choose the right template before starting your design and proceed with confidence that a warning symbol will pop up if you have not met a requirement of the county, state, or client for whom you’re designing.