I began my discussion about Autodesk Vehicle Tracking in a previous article, where I told you how much I really liked its swept path design features, and I do. I have to say though that my favorite part of this software is the parking design module. I can’t even begin to tell you how many thousands of hours I’ve spent across my career doing striping layouts for parking lots. Of course, as any civil designer can tell you, those designs change dozens of times during the design process. For a lot of folks out there, that mean essentially starting over again each time, re-drafting hundreds of individual lines. The problem has always been that while certain programs, like Civil 3D or OpenRoads have some parking layout tools, they never worked well along curves, and they were also of limited use with changes.
They would do a quick job of layout, but every time the site changed, you’d have to start new layouts for each parking area.
With Vehicle Tracking, the parking elements are intelligent and can be easily modified using simple grip edits. For example, if you have parking going around a curve, you can simply draw your parking element as a linear parking arrangement that goes to each Point of Curvature/Tangency, then just drag the center of the element out to the proper radius using a grip that is already in place for just that purpose. Simply drag that grip to the midpoint of your curve and the spacing and layout of your stalls is adjusted based on the criteria you have set for parking stall sizing. Not only that, but Vehicle Tracking will also take handicap access requirements into account, placing the appropriate number and type of handicapped spots you need based on your design criteria. You can even choose to place stalls on just the left or right of your selection or on both sides, for layout in open parking areas.
When you get to those open areas, where you want to place multiple rows of parking with roads in between, Vehicle Tracking makes it even easier. It has a “Parallel Row” feature that lets you enter a specific road width and continuously place offsets of either double or single rows of stalls as needed. Once you’ve done a rough layout, the program includes tools for breaking your runs into multiple segments. That means you can quickly layout parking runs across a thousand feet of parking area, then come back after to add in access aisles. When you add an aisle, the program adjusts the ends to show the type of curb islands you have selected and adjusts the number of stalls for best fit. You can even toggle an element between left/right/both displays so that if you can drop a double sided layout right up against a curb in initial layout, then just switch it to display only one side in seconds, instead of spending time with the trim and extend commands.
Once you’ve completed the design, you can even generate parking reports, which will give you exact counts for all stall sizes and types. Best of all though, Autodesk Vehicle Tracking will also count and label the number of stalls you have, directly on your drawing. Not only that, but the labels are dynamic, meaning they update as the design changes. Gone are the countless hours of hand counting the number of parking spots and coming up with a different number each time you count! All-in-all, the parking design module of Vehicle Tracking makes it worth buying, even if you ignore the other parts of this package.
Next up: Roundabout Design in Vehicle Tracking.
