Trimble Business Center

I'm still very new to this command and there are a couple things that I think I'm misunderstanding.

When creating a vertical design I was under the assumption that all 3D lines in it should be automatically locked, however I am having some that are not and I'm struggling to see what is different about them and ones that are auto locked.

Also, from reading the help file it seems like 3D lines that are unlocked should have their 3D info overridden if a rule is applied to them, but also says the all vertical info is removed? However the original vertical info seems to be used in both cases when I unlock a 3D line.  

TBC Help

"Lock/unlock a line so it is not/is subject to the vertical design rules applied to it by checking/unchecking the Locked box.
Note: If you add a line with existing vertical geometry to your vertical design, it is set to Locked by default. If you then unlock it, the model automatically computes the vertical and replaces the original (e.g., if no rules affect the line, any vertical values are empty or removed)."

It seems like it's better to start with a source 3D line to build off and have all other lines in 2D. I'm just trying to understand the function of the lock/unlock.

Thank you.

If you pick 10 lines of which 2 are 3D linestrings or alignments the 2x 3D lines will be locked in the vertical design. The assumption is that if a line is already 3d you likely do. Ot want to treat it as a 2D line and elevate it using the VD rules. If you unlock a 3D line you are basically telling the VD to ignore the 3D info and assume it is 2D - however the convert to 2d does not happen until you affect the 3d line with a VD rule. As soon as you apply a VD rule to an unlocked 3d line the line is converted to a 2d line and is now controlled by the VD rule.

I have never seen a 3D line  e treated as an unlocked line in the VD tool so would like to get a copy of the data where this is happening.

Hope this helps

Alan

Alan, I ended up forgoing VD in that circumstance, but I will absolutely see if I can reproduce it and upload it because that's definitely not the way it seemed to be working for me . Thank you