2D to 3D road model interface

Purpose and goal

Today there are lots of road reinforcement job that was planned a few years ago, and where most of the available data is as traditional 2D drawings. This means that contractors must interpret and digitize the information to use new technologies such as machine control systems, active design and quantity calculations in CAD systems. The project has investigated the feasibility and potentialet to create an IT tool that helps entrepreneurs to create 3D design models by adding parameters from 2D documents and descriptions.

Results and expected effects

By using simple tools like Microsoft Excel as input form and link the information to a CAD tool, we have seen that it is possible that, for simple and normal roads, creating an IT tool to generate 3D models. The ability to link the parameters of the design to various CAD tools vary but can most likely be createed by plug-ins that solves this but an alternative solution in order to create this conversion without the need for a CAD platform as an intermediate step is to directly process and calculate the data in a cloud service.

Approach and implementation

The project has analyzed the availability of information for a traditional road projects and from that structured the information that must be managed in order to convert the traditional 2D drawings and descriptions to 3D models. This has been done at different levels in a few different road projects but with the same methodology and structure. Based on the input data, we have created parameters for 3D models created using a CAD tool as a intermediate step.