Once a Deck has been placed, “extra” components can be added via the Place Barrier tool such as a curb or sidewalk. These components are extruded along the bridge, utilizing templates to define their cross-section. The barrier templates are stored in the Barrier Template Library, like the deck templates. The Barriers Template Creation tool is used for creating and editing these templates. To access the Barriers Template dialog, in the Ribbon go to: OpenBridge Modeler > Utilities > Libraries > Barriers. This will launch the Template Creation dialog and allow you to copy, create, and modify templates to be used for other components for the deck.

FDOT and VDOT Barrier Templates are included with OBM and can be copied and modified, or templates can be created from scratch. For the sidewalk, creating it from scratch will most likely be necessary. The bridge templates all work the same and are very similar to the roadway templates. Constraints and variables can be used to increase control and flexibility to the template.

In the future, we will go over how to place the extra barriers, including a wearing surface. It is pretty much the same as placing any barrier. Thinking ahead when building the templates, creating variables and knowing the points of the templates is key.