Carlson Software Releases Precision 3D Topo 2020 and Precision 3D Hydro 2020

For Departments of Transportation, county highway offices and civil engineers, the new workflows for designing culverts, channel liners, storm sewers, and associated drainage structures produce work faster, more intuitively and with maximized automation.

The main addition to P3D Hydro 2020 is the inclusion of storm sewer design based on a library of 3D drainage grates and curb inlets. A new and unique “curb line snap” combined with the low point snap leads to fast inlet placement which is followed by hydraulic analysis that includes peak flow, gutter spread and bypass flow calculation. The spreadsheet editor borrowed from Carlson Hydrology allows for quick pipe sizing leading to final design.

P3D Hydro finds the watersheds automatically based on the digital terrain model (DTM) and cuts the watersheds against the land covers which appear as distinct textures with associated runoff coefficients. This leads to composite C-factors for each watershed, the ‘C’ in Q=CIA. The ‘I’ or rainfall intensity (in/hr in English units) is calculated by user-selected methods, often involving the longest flow line. The A is the area of the watershed (acres in English units). Peak Flow (Q) is calculated for each watershed in seconds. Alternately, Peak Flow can be calculated by the SCS method using the texture-associated CN values (Curve Numbers).

From there, the program offers complete storm sewer design capabilities with new 3D tools such as the curb snap feature which accurately places drainage structures in your road design, making design work more intuitive than in a purely 2D environment.