"Accelerator" Coming for Paving Feature Design
After spending so much time lately, in-and-out of ASE vertical design drawings, I've gained a heightened awareness of the need for this capability. I've thought about building this in the past, but never really got going heavy on development of an actual solution. Seemed like it'd be a great idea. But, the coding... The integration... OMG...
A Few Years Later...
After the need reared its ugly head again, it found me much better equipped to address this, packin' a few new coding skills and experience that has changed how I approach development challenges.
Current Status
I've done a small amount of development on this a while back, but nothing recently. However, I've been thinking about it frequently, imaging how I could weave that intelligence into the current architecture. I'm ready to bust a move on this now... Kinda anxious, actually. I know what a huge benefit this would be to designers.
The Impact
If you've spent enough time designing corridors & profiles via Paving Features in ASE Civil, then you understand all too well how cumbersome it feels being forced to specify the component before you can select an action and select the Marker(s). I'm sick of this drudgery, so I know you're probably way past that... i'm sorry.
User Interface
Not only does this command structure create too many "clicks" in the work-flow, it also expands the size of the ribbon area required to accommodate the array of buttons needed for each command action(3) and for each component(3-5). This equates to around 9-15 buttons for each Feature, multiplied by 7 Feature-types totals nearly 63-100+ buttons!
So imagine the same functionality, but instead, each Paving Feature type requires only 3 buttons.
Define
View
Remove
The user interface size could potentially shrink 80%! Of course less buttons to select from means you'll also find commands much faster.
Multi-Component Marker Selection
"...All that PLUS a bag 'o chips!..."
In addition to the user interface ergonomics improvements, wouldn't it be nice to select all the Features of a specific type, all at once for an entire alignment versus making 3-5 separate passes to accomplish the same thing?
I'm ready to make this happen. I'll try to keep any interested visitors in-the-loop.
Nick