Define surfaces with data categories

00:06

In this video, we're going to talk about what makes a surface.

00:11

We're going to talk about the different data types that can be used to define the way a surface is built,

00:16

and then we're going to go ahead and add one of those data types to our surface so that we can start displaying our surface.

00:22

So what we're going to do is we're going to dropdown our surfaces section inside of the Toolspace under the Prospector tab.

00:29

We're going to dropdown our EG surface and then we're going to look at what the definitions of a surface will be.

00:36

Inside of these definitions, these are the different types of data that can be added to a surface to define how you're building your surface.

00:46

So the first item we have is boundaries.

00:48

Boundaries are basically setting an outer limit or an inner limit of a display area inside of your surface.

00:55

So an outer boundary will clip all the information outside of that boundary.

00:59

A inner or hide boundary will hide information inside of a surface.

01:03

There's a show boundary which will show information inside of a hide boundary.

01:07

And then you have a data clip boundary which will clip data out of the surface definitions.

01:13

Then you have breaklines.

01:15

Breaklines are additional lines like these lines that we have displayed from our survey import.

01:22

What they do is they define additional elevations that we're going to build our surface off of.

01:26

They kind of force triangulation.

01:29

So there's multiple types of breaklines.

01:32

We'll go over the different types of breaklines when we're adding them in, but there are destructive and non-destructive breaklines.

01:39

There are wall breaklines.

01:41

And if you look in here, you can choose "Add" and you can see the different types.

01:44

You can see standard, proximity which basically pulls information in, then you have your walls,

01:50

and then you can import breaklines from a file, and then you have non-destructive breaklines.

01:56

Then we have contours.

01:57

If you have a polyline or a feature line or something like that, that is set at a specific elevation,

02:02

and you know that line is a contour that has been defined or determined,

02:09

then what you can do is you can add those objects into your drawing as a specific contour.

02:15

And then you can use that line to dictate what the surface is going to look like.

02:20

If you have DEM files, you can import them into Civil 3D through the DEM file definition.

02:27

So you would just right click and "Add", and then you would find your DEM file and imported into the drawing.

02:34

Then you have drawing objects.

02:35

So if you have a polyline or a arc or a curve or a line, any kind of drawing object,

02:43

you can go ahead and right click "Add" and then select the type of drawing object that you want to add to your surface.

02:53

The next item you have is edits.

02:55

Edits are not a specific item that you can add in, but this is where if you perform a surface edit,

03:01

whether you're going to do line edits to a surface or point edits to a surface,

03:07

your edit log will be stored here, as well as you can raise and lower surfaces, minimize flat areas.

03:15

You can smooth your surface, so if it seems too angular or too jagged,

03:19

you can smooth that surface or simplify it by weeding out points from a drawing.

03:23

Or if you have multiple surfaces, you can paste them together to create a new surface,

03:29

that is based on other surfaces that have been brought into the drawing.

03:33

Then we have point files.

03:34

If you don't import point files into your drawing, but you want to base your surface off of a certain point file,

03:40

you can right click and "Add" and then choose the point file by hitting the "+" symbol locating it somewhere on your computer,

03:48

and then specifying the point file format, and importing that information in just to create one specific surface.

03:55

Then we have our point groups up in the Prospector tab.

03:58

You can take any of those point groups and tell Civil 3D to build a surface based off of those point groups.

04:04

And then below that you have queries for the types of entities that you have inside of your surface.

04:11

So if you want to ask Civil 3D about certain points that are made up of this surface, then you can do a point query.

04:18

If you want to do a figure survey query, you can ask Civil 3D about specific figures that are being used to create your surface.

04:27

So the first entity that we're going to go ahead and add to create the initial display of our surface is we're going to add a point group.

04:34

So we're going to right click on Point Groups, we're going to select "Add",

04:37

they're going to give us a list of the point groups available inside of this drawing.

04:41

We have created this GS point group.

04:44

It is specific ground shots that we want to add to the drawing.

04:49

If we use Topo survey, there might be entities that don't define a specific spot on the surface.

04:55

You might have a reflector list shot, and all of your points that were brought in as part of the survey are inside of Topo survey.

05:04

Same thing goes for all points.

05:05

We have those Calc points that we created at the beginning of this,

05:07

if you chose all points, it would include those Calc points and those Calc points we set at a zero elevation.

05:12

And so it wouldn't be a reflective image of what our actual surface looks like if we inserted those zero elevation points into our drawing.

05:22

So the first point group we want to add is GS, so we're going to click "OK".

05:26

And then if we REGEN, you'll see that the surface is now displayed with contours, as has been defined by our 2' and 10' (background) surface style.