ARTES: an interactive highway design program

The geometrical definition of a highway alignment is the result of a compromise between two conflicting objectives: keeping within budget limits and providing the user with optimum safety, operating and aesthetic conditions. The interactive graphic console when used as a large computer system peripheral unit is a particularly well-adapted instrument, when properly programmed, to assist the designer in resolving this conflict. It presents him with the appropriate graphical displays representing his design choices and offers him the possibility of modifying these choices as the computer processing progresses. ARTES is such an interactive program. It displays the geometrical elements composing a highway alignment (horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, natural ground and highway cross sections), and displays composed elements such as perspective views and visibility diagrams. It prints out earthworks quantities, plots all graphical elements and enables the program user to modify the geometrical elements composing the alignment thus enabling him to study multiple alternatives affecting construction costs and user conditions.