Civil 3D Surface Creation

the purpose of this video is to provide a administration on the process of creating a civil 3d surface model as we get started the first thing we will need is the prospector view from the tool space if this needs to be turned on it can be accessed via the home ribbon tab and under the palettes we have tool space clicking on the tool space the view is enabled and if necessary if you do not see prospector as one of the tabs prospector may be turned on via the prospector tab here once the prospector view is shown we now see through tool space that we have access to the drawing and its surface contents looking here we find that there are no surfaces in this drawing as you begin to create a surface let's take note of what we have in this drawing called eg topo as i zoom extents I see would appear to be civil 3d points and in zooming in I do verify that they are in fact civil 3d points now we could say that these civil 3d points were imported from an ASCII point file in order to create a surface which will be built from points such points will need to be in a civil 3d point group looking under prospector and under point groups we can see that we already have a topo point group the topo point group looking at the list below contains all the points which we currently see in this drawing furthermore out of the topo point group a subgroup if you will has been created out of some points that represent a ridge this is the topo Ridge point group in this exercise we will be paying particular attention to creating a surface from points and from break lines here we can now begin creating the surface model first we need to create a surface by going to surfaces under prospector right-clicking and choosing create surface in the ensuing dialog box we're going to choose a tent surface which means that the surface will be built based upon triangulations of surface data points we will be specifying under name we can name the surface and here I'm going to call it eg topo you can also give your surfaces descriptions such as the date they were created and finally under style we find that when we build a civil 3d surface model we must choose a style which will constrain how the surface will appear and our drawing currently the surface style is set to a style which will show us contours that are at two foot and ten foot intervals and will apparently display as background contours such as contours for an existing grade surface should we want to change this we could simply click in this field and choosing the ellipsis button we have the Select surface style dialog here we are going to stay with the same surface style that has already been selected upon choosing okay looking under prospector again I now find that we have the eg topo surface which we just created now the creation process we just took is only to create the entry for a civil 3d surface called eg topo we do not have a plot surface at all nor have we defined any surface data to the eg topo surface so that's the next step upon creating a surface we need to provide surface data having expanded the view underneath the eg topo surface we see that under definition we can provide things such as boundaries break lines contours de m-files drawing objects edits point files and point groups to aid and defining our surface model again in this example we will be focusing on point groups and break lines going back to what has been previously stated with respect to the points that are in this drawing all the points already exists in the topo point group so what we find here is that in order to use civil 3d survey points in a surface definition such points need to be defined in a point group having built up the topo point group in order to define this point group to the surface eg topo we go back to surfaces and under the point groups of eg topo we can right click Choose ad and in the point group list select topo upon selecting ok we can now say that the eg topo surface has surface data hence the program automatically launches into building the surface model and we see that that surface model is now built based upon the application of the surface style that had been specified as you might recall the surface tile was 2 foot and 10 foot contours for background purposes in selecting the surface I can further verify that it is in fact a civil 3d surface by the fact that a texts sensitive ribbon now appears for a tin surface called eg topo as I clear my grips and deselect that surface that ribbon goes away going back to the last process which we did which was to define the point group topo to the eg topo surface we see now that there is an entry of a point group within point groups for the surface looking in the list below we verify here that it is in fact the topo point group if this point group selection was in error or should it no longer belong to the surface it can be simply removed from the point group definitions for the surface by right-clicking within the list and choosing delete here we have just seen how to create a surface and define a point group to it and build the surface next we're going to look at how to use break lines in a surface definition and as we get started I will first say that the break line that we will be creating for this surface will be the break line that represents the ridge points that have been surveyed for this topographic surface as previously mentioned from the topo point group the ridge points belonging within that group were extracted and created in what you could say is a sub point group this topo Ridge point group contains just the ridge points here given what I already have under point groups I can actually use point groups to isolate the topo ridge point group hence we see a series of points which represent shots on a ridge which I now want to create as a break line definition for the surface eg topo the reason why civil3d users might want to use break lines is in order to create surface definition which will more specifically constrain how surface triangulations will occur on a surface what this means is that using break lines surfaces can be built more accurately when defined grade breaks exist on a surface and have been surveyed it is usually a good idea to define them as break lines in order to define the ridge points as a break line to the surface we will actually go through the process of creating them as a feature line to create a feature line through these points I'm going to go to the create design panel under the home ribbon and under feature line I am going to choose create feature line here I'm going to simply take the defaults for the create feature lines dialog and as I hit OK this launches me into the process of now simply specifying points or vertices of this feature line which essentially in 3d polyline now in this case because I want to choose actual survey points to specify the vertices of the feature line I'm creating I can go to the civil3d transparent options and select the point object option in using this I can now simply select on the civil 3d point object and as I select on them note that the feature line command will prompt the user for the elevation of each vertex that it is about to set because I have used the point object transparent option the elevations of the points themselves are actually being read so I can simply hit return to accept such elevations so here I'm simply going to go through and pick this series of points to define this feature line which will ultimately become a brake line definition for the eg topo surface now to see the effects of what a brake line can do I'm going to change the eg topos surface display so that we can see how the triangulations have currently been calculated to do so I'm going to select the surface and with my right mouse button shortcut choose surface properties in choosing surface properties under information I can go to surface style and choose the appropriate style that I want to change the surface display to in this case I'm going to choose contours and triangles which will retain my contours that I'm currently looking at but also add in the triangles so that I can see the triangulations as they have been calculated after choosing ok I can now see the triangulations in addition to the contours so for this example again we are using feature lines to be defined as brake lines for the surface eg topo in order to create a more accurate surface model we can see that this is in fact necessary because looking at the triangulations I can see a ridge point here and a ridge point here and this being the case there should be a triangulation line which connects the two in order to model that Ridge and get the effect that the grades within this vicinity would be shooting away from this Ridge here since we have not yet defined the ridge as a brake line we can see that the triangulations are incorrect in that they are crossing the ridge note what happens out to these triangulations and the contours when we finally define the feature line built from the ridge as an eg topo brake line to define this feature line as an eg topo brake line again we do this through prospector under eg topo definition and brake lines with the right mouse button shortcut we can choose add here I'm going to simply name it Ridge and note that in defining brake lines weeding factors and supplementing factors to the brake line vertices can actually be added by not choosing either of these options I'm simply telling the program to use the feature line and its vertices as is upon choosing okay I can now choose the brake line and again note what the addition of this brake line information will do to the triangulations in this area as I hit enter the surface is dynamically rebuilt the ten lines in this vicinity are now forced through the Ridge and I see that the contours reflect the fact that off of the ridge grades are now falling to the north and to the south having demonstrated the changes to the ten lines I can now change the surface display back to simply contours again this is done by going to the surface properties and choosing the appropriate style to clean up the view of this topographic surface I'm now going to bring back all the points from the topo point group via my point group settings and so at last having started with points we have created a civil 3d surface model which has used these points via point groups and also via the addition of a surface brake line defined from a civil 3d feature line this concludes this video on how to simply create a civil 3d surface from the surface definition options of point groups and brake lines thank you

Channel: CAD Masters

Views: 497,862

Keywords: SURFACE, CREATION, topo, cad, civil, 3d, c3d, autodesk, autocad, cadd, design, tutorial, how, to, instruction, breakline

Id: wC40rdmDEMo

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 07 2011