Great post but be wary when using this method to construct slopes between adjacent roadways. Since you are only calculating from one roadway the slope point at the bottom of the ditch will not hinge and turn perpendicular to the other roadway for an accurate slope. This leads to the slopes actually being 4:1 on the primary road yet a little less on the secondary road due to the slopes all being perpendicular to primary rather than hinging and being perpendicular to both roads. Building a suface on your corridor and measuring contours will allow you to see the error graphically.
Future sounds good. Many interesting ideas, but I think the idea that it will go to help is to find a solution to faster execution of works in the field.
Developing software that can retrieve project data I think sounds good.
Design is moving fast enough, the execution is harder.
There might be several reasons why Autodesk did not get involved in mining and exploration business.
We can start guessing and looking for technical reasons yet we do have a feeling that it is purely a way of the Autodesk coverage of the given business segment. It is not impossible at all that there are already high level liaison going on and the executives of Autodesk are already trying to extend their business boundaries into mining.
Even if the case is that, it is going to be a very slow process - ie years.