Converting wireframe geometry into a Civil 3D solid model - Part 1

in this session we're going to use civil3d to convert wireframe geometry into a solid model such that it can be leveraged and infraworks this recording represents part one of a three part series on my screen I've got some three-dimensional wireframe geometry let's take a quick look I'm going to hold the shift key in the mouse wheel let me move the mouse forward to orbit this and then I'll roll the wheel forward to zoom in let's orbit a little bit more you can see that this geometry represents some stairs some retaining walls and some pad areas now since this geometry was created using wireframe it does not reflect any light we can prove that by opening the in canvas menu I can set this to conceptual and you can see that we can see right through this geometry let me flip that back to 2d wireframe the goal in the next couple sessions is to convert this geometry or at least some of it we won't have time to convert everything but we want to convert this into solids such that we can assign materials to it and then import the data into infraworks so in doing this we are going to use some AutoCAD the primitives will also use some simple 3d functionality and then I'll show you how we can assign materials I'll start by looking at AutoCAD functionality I'm gonna zoom in down here on the end and then I'm going to change the workspace I'll open the workspace menu and I'll choose 3d modeling this gives me access to the AutoCAD 3d functionality as soon as this comes up I'm going to close this palette on the right and I won't need that we are going to be working on the Home tab and I'll start by creating a simple primitive we're gonna create a box I can do that by launching the box command here on the left side of the ribbon now when we create a box we can do it in two three clicks I'll just click once twice defines a rectangle and then I can pull this up or down and click again to create a solid box I will then change my visual style to conceptual you can see how that box reflects light now I don't need this box anymore let me select it and before I delete it take a look at these grips if I click these triangles you can see how we could use these to change the shape of this box keep that in mind as we're creating primitives this would be a nice way to make some edits I'm going to press Delete to get rid of this shape and then I'll zoom in we'll pan it over I'm going to start by creating this retaining wall this has a box shape before I launch the command though I want to make sure that my drafting plane is aligned to one of these faces let's zoom in a little I'm going to use this command in the coordinates panel three-point UCS this allows me to align my UCS to it I do that by clicking three points I'll pick the origin point and then I'll pick a point that represents the x-axis and then I'll pick a point that represents the y-axis so I am now aligned to that plane I will then launch the box command and here's another trick we can create a box in only two clicks all I need is the opposite corners I'll grab the lower left corner and then the upper right corner there's my box we pan this over we'll create a box for this side I'm going to align my UCS let's go to three point and I'm just gonna look for a nice 90 degree angle here this one looks good I'll grab the origin x-axis y-axis will launch the box command and I'll go from the lower left to the upper right now in this case this retaining wall needs a piece removed so let's change the visual style I'm gonna flip this from conceptual to x-ray now we can see through it that makes things a little bit easier I'm going to zoom in and I'll define a UCS along this plane once again three points there's my origin right there my x-axis would be the end point here and then my y-axis instead of grabbing the end point I'm gonna shift right click and choose nearest and I'll just grab a point nearest to that line then I'm going to create a circle I'll draw a circle here at the origin let me pull that out and then as I orbit this you can see that circles much like a saw blade I want to use that to slice that solid let me come up and in the solid editing panel I'll launch the slice command I want to slice this solid enter I want to slice it using a planar object I want to use this object and then I'll press Enter because I want to keep both sides this gives me the opportunity to delete the side I don't need I will then grab this small piece and the circle and I'll press Delete there we go that looks good let's create the stairs I'm going to create a UCS that matches the plane at the top of the stairs let's do three point I'll go from the end point here there's my x-axis my y-axis will be back here and I suppose I've got a box shape here I could go with but let's look at another technique I'm going to launch the rectangle command I'll create a rectangle from the endpoint in this tread to the endpoint of the back corner so that rectangle represents the top plane I can then use the extrude command I'll select my rectangle and press Enter and I can pull this down to meet the of the stairs I'll press escape when finished now that I've got my first stair I can come up and launch the copy command and I'll select this stair and copy it from the endpoint of this tread to this one to this one to this one I'll press escape when finished currently each of my stair treads is an individual piece if I come up with a solid editing panel though I can launch the Union command and I can select each of these stairs and when I press ENTER it will join all of their volumes together let's orbit this around at this point my stairs are descending down into the ground he really doesn't matter if I was moving this into infraworks that wouldn't be a problem this would just penetrate the ground if I want I can trim this off or slice it let's do that I'm gonna zoom in and I'll create a UCS along this tread and point here endpoint here I'll grab one nearest to the edge on the stairs and then I'm going to create another circle let's create one down at this bottom edge and I'll pull this out and then we will slice will slice the stare volume enter I want to slice it using a planar object this object and then I want to keep both sides I can then select the entities I don't want and I'll press Delete finally let's change our visual style here to conceptual and as I orbit this around I can see that it's pretty good I've got some solid geometry now and that matches my line work fairly well to put my UCS back to the world coordinate system I'm going to type UCS enter enter I could then use the same modeling workflow on the remaining stairs and retaining walls to keep the length of the recording down I'm going to model one more set of stairs and then these retaining walls will run through it via fast-forward playback to create the other stairs I'm gonna use the same workflow as before I'll define a UCS on the top plane of each side and then I'll use the box command to create the overall solid shape I will then set my visual style to x-ray so I can see through the solid and I'll define a UCS on each one of the sloped planes I will then draw a circle and use that circle to slice the overall solid now this stair has additional smaller retaining walls behind it so I'm going to create some additional boxes that's what I'm doing here I'm defining my UCS at the top and generating a box on the left side I'm gonna make a UCS on the other side and will generate a box for the right to create my stairs I'm gonna generate a rectangle I will extrude that down to the bottom and then I will copy that from one tread to the other until I have all of my stairs I will then define a UCS at the top of the bottom stair I'll use that to create a circle and then I'm going to Union all of the stairs together and then I'll slice that overall solid using my circle and will delete that bottom piece all I have left is the remaining two retaining walls I'm going to define a UCS via the top plane then I'll generate a box same as before we're gonna do the same thing for the other side I'll generate my UCS I will then create my overall box and then I'll create my user-defined coordinate system to represent the plane that I want to use to cut by I will create a circle and then slice the top off the solid finally I will create one more box to connect these two retaining walls together and when I'm finished will return to normal speed playback now that this last wall is complete I'm going to set the UCS back to the world coordinate system I'll do that by typing UCS and I'll press enter enter let's back up now one thing you may see here the retaining walls that are on either side of this ramp extend down into the ground that's fine I really don't care that this penetrates the ground we won't see it when it gets into infraworks same thing right here you can see these retaining walls ended up being deeper than necessary but as I orbit this around you can see how those are in line and they'll be just fine once they get into infraworks now that we've seen how we can create more geometric shapes using autocad's solid modeling tools we're ready to look at how we can use civil3d to model these large pad areas and we'll do that in the next session would you like to explore other Autodesk infrastructure ideas and workflows if so please visit the civil immersion blog by scanning the QR code or by following the URL listed below

Channel: Jeff Bartels

Views: 32,774

Keywords: Bartels, akn_include, autodesk, civil 3d, wireframe, wire, 3D, solid, convert, model

Id: hRxPrUdaHZ4

Length: 8min 34sec (514 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2016