At Autodesk AEC Media Day 2011 held in Waltham, Mass, this week, Jack Lashenik, vice president of American STRUCTUREPOINT, Inc., Indianapolis, IN profiled two transportation projects for which his company used Civil 3D and 3ds Max Design. American STRUCTUREPOINT has been in business for 44 years, and employs 300 people. They have a lot of experience working with Autodesk products.
One project was the Keystone Parkway, the first teardrop shaped interchange in the U.S. (or possibly the world) located in Carmel, Indiana. The affected area was a four mile, heavily traveled corridor. The city of Carmel and the mayor wanted to make it a visionary project for Carmel, so Carmel would take over the rights to the state highway to come up with solutions for six interchanges which were the worst in the county.
They came up with a teardrop elevated interchange roundabout. They used 3D Studio Max superimposed into actual aerial photogrammetry, in order to ensure the design makes sense and is accurate, and there are no questions as to right of way.
The teardrop interchange reduced commutes to 5-10 minutes from 40-45 minute commutes
Sustainability factors: the innovative design eliminated traffic signals, a groundwater recharge system, emissions diminished because there was no longer backup of traffic, not to mention conservation of land.
Iowa Speedway, Newton, Iowa. Paxton Waters Architecture designs racetracks around the world that are competitive for drivers. Rusty Wallis, former NASCAR driver, racing consultant, commentator was design consultant on the project.
“I want to feel the racetrack and I want to feel it in my gut when I go around the turn – that’s how I know it’s a successful track,” said Wallis.
The design was started in 2004 before the company had Civil 3D, and it was under construction when they decided to do it in Civil 3D to create a 3D model of the track because it was valuable for managing the information.
Most racetracks are designed flat, said Lashenik, and they tilted their track .2% so they could save tens of millions of dollars on earthwork. “It runs faster and the drivers know that, we probably wouldn’t do that again.”
Rusty Wallis loved the track and the project brought NASCAR to Iowa.
