Summary:
OpenRoads Designer currently does not allow administrators or users to turn off the centerline of a pipe without applying a workaround. This limitation forces administrators to rely on non‑ideal methods to prevent the pipe centerline from appearing in design files.
Impact:
This behavior limits control over how pipe features are displayed. Administrators cannot fully adhere to project drafting standards without using workarounds, which can lead to inconsistencies, confusion, or unintended plotting. These extra steps also increase setup time and reduce efficiency.
Existing Behavior:
Pipe features in OpenRoads Designer automatically display a centerline. The software does not provide a native option to disable this centerline in the feature definition or symbology settings. As a result, administrators must either:
Assign the pipe centerline to a non‑plot level, or
Change the level color so that it visually disappears in design views.
These methods are workarounds, not true control of the display behavior. These workarounds are not ideal because they are not clean workarounds and cause other issues.
Proposed Behavior:
Enable direct control over pipe centerline visibility at the feature definition or annotation level. For example:
Provide a toggle to turn the pipe centerline on or off.
Allow administrators to configure centerline visibility per feature without altering levels or colors.
Ensure the display setting applies consistently across all view types and sheet models.
This would eliminate the need for manual workarounds and improve drafting clarity.
Requested Enhancement:
Add a built‑in option within OpenRoads Designer to fully disable pipe centerline display without requiring users to move the element to a non‑plot level or hide it through color choices. This enhancement will support cleaner, standards‑compliant drawings and reduce unnecessary administrative overhead.
| Civil Product Used | OpenRoads Designer |
This functionality already exists.
In the plan or profile feature symbology for the center of a pipe, set the element template to none if you don't want to draw the center. If you use the training and examples workspace that ships with OpenRoads, and place a pipe using one of the feature definitions for a culvert, then you'll see that it does not draw a center line in plan:
This is because the Center Feature Symbology:
Has the Element Template set to None:
The same principle applies in profile as well.
Note that the Feature Definition points to Feature Symbologies for the Center in plan and profile, not Element Templates, because a Feature Symbology lets you choose an annotation group, so the Feature Definition knows how to annotate the pipe without needing to draw a graphic for its center.
These screen captures were taken using OpenRoads Designer 2024.