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Connecting a Lateral to a Main
Now, let’s extend the previous inspections so that it has some connection code in the inspection data at 25m (at 2 o’clock) and 32m (at 10 o’clock), and there are some gullies on each side of the central reserve plotted in the data, like this:
Extended observations.
Connection codes in the inspection and pre-plotted gullies on each carriageway.
At the point of making the connection observations (and these can be any junction or connection codes), the user is presented with this special field in the observation data entry window:
Observation data entry for connections and junctions.
This field allows us to enter the node ID of the point item that is upstream from the connection or junction, so in the first case of the junction at 2 o’clock it is most likely to be GY1000 and in the second case for the connection at 10 o’clock, it is likely to be GY2000.
In this field you can:
Select a point item that already exists in the data - you must type in the first two characters of the node before the list self-populates.
Enter the node ID of a new point item that currently does not exist in the data.
After you have done this, have a look in the node area of WinCan VX:
New nodes added by the software.
Notice that we now have 6 nodes, where before we started these additional steps, there were only 2 (CP1 and CP2). You will see that the gullies GY1000 and GY2000 have been created and also that the connector nodes CN_GY1000_CP1.1 and CN_GY2000_CP1.1 have also been created at the observation code coordinates.
Info - this only works as expected in the HADDMS typical naming convention of you have setup WinCan VX exactly as described in Setting Up WinCan VX for HADDMS.
All that remains to be done to complete the ‘dot-to-dot’ is to create laterals for the two gully legs. You can do this even if you cannot inspect them on this shift. You are simply creating the assets, not carrying out an inspection, because on this shift you cannot get to the central reservation.
Why create laterals and not sections? Refer back to Section & Lateral Differences where the differences between sections and laterals are described in detail, and the golden rule is that a lateral is any linear asset with a connector node at the downstream end.
So, after we create 2 laterals, the VX lateral list looks like this:
GY1000 → CN_GY1000_CP1.1
GY2000 → CN_GY2000_CP1.1
Laterals created.
Notice that the laterals have the required upstream and downstream node IDs but they do not have any inspection data. They can be inspected on the next shift when we have a lane 3 central reserve traffic management closure.
Be sure to set the pipe depth in the lateral header at the downstream end of these pipe to be blank or zero to avoid any unnecessary calculations as described in Being Smart with Z Values.
Look also now in WinCan Map and see that everything is drawn already:
WinCan Map plan with laterals added and connected.
How has this happened? Did you notice that t no point was there any nodes listed in the manhole panel on the right side? This is because at all times the items had geometry, whether they were plotted by the user or automatically by the software, so as soon as the laterals were created, the lines were drawn.
Hint - there is one final step to this process that ensures good quality data going forwards and prevents the laterals from becoming ‘disconnected’ from the section when the GIS data is imported. This is an essential step and is best done by the CCTV crew because they have the ‘eyes on site’, but can also be done during post processing… read on.
In the section observation grid view, you will see a ‘Lateral’ column with a grey button similar to the ones found in the photo and movie clip columns. These means that you can attach ‘something’ to this observation:
Lateral link flag location.
In this case, we can tie the lateral into the section at this observation code by double clicking on the grey button of the correct observation and selecting the lateral that is connected here, and the result looks like this:
Laterals linked.
The icon shows you that a lateral is tied in here and double clicking on this link will take you straight to that lateral in the other grid view, and there is also a button with an ‘up’ triangle arrow in the lateral grid view which will bring you back to the section that this lateral is linked to.
Advice - although this technique does not really appear to make a great difference to the data and the drainage network design, it’s power is that because the laterals and the section are now tied together, when we introduce the GIS data at a future point and in that data, the 2 gullies and the 2 catchpits now have new coordinates in 3 dimensions (so far, everything has had no Z value here), the shape geometry of the sections and laterals will be modified and the coordinates of the connector nodes will be replotted, so everything will stay tied together when the new positions are introduced.
If you do not make the lateral links, then the lateral pipes will become detached from the section when the new positions are brought in and it becomes very (unnecessarily) time consuming to re-attach them all.
There are some additional techniques for joining objects together using the snapping tools in WinCan Map, but these are more usually used by data processing teams, and will be described in Snapping Objects in WinCan Map.