Get the Most from Your Point Cloud: Automated Feature Extraction

JOHN SAYRE: Hello, My name is John Sayre, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Civil Infrastructure here at Autodesk. Today I'd like to present CES1793-- Getting the most from your Point Cloud: Automated Feature Extraction. I want to start off by thanking you for participating in this session, and I hope you find it informative. Let's take a bit of time to take a look at our Safe Harbor Statement.

So let's walk through an agenda for today. We will go through a quick history and timeline of the ReCap, Pro Improvements from 2023 to present. We will only go back to 2023 because that's when the ability to publish and view a Point Cloud in the cloud was introduced. So we won't go any further back than that.

We're also going to do a quick demo of linear feature extraction, just a quick recap. So if you took this session last year, we will be just doing a quick recap of what we showed you last year. Then we're going to do a demonstration of the 2024.1 and 2025 new features. Then we will demonstrate the workflows, creating existing conditions data from GIS data. And that will be information that we've extracted from these point clouds.

So that's kind of where we will stop. And once we get to that point, we will do a demonstration quickly on connecting and using the data that we published as GIS data. So everything that we bring in and grab from this point cloud or extract from this point cloud, we're going to bring it into Civil 3D. Then we're going to publish it so that everyone can use it in our organization, which is a huge, huge thing.

So once we do that, then again we'll connect to it and take a look at it in our design environment. And then we'll do a quick summary and wrap up. So it's a whole lot to go through. We've got a lot to go through, so let's jump right in to the history and timeline of some of the ReCap Pro Improvements.

So starting in ReCap Pro 2023, users were able to publish structured or unstructured ReCap projects to Autodesk Docs, Autodesk BIM 360 Docs, and Autodesk Drive. And they're able to view and mark up point clouds in 360 real views of these projects directly in the browser. So just to be clear, you can view point clouds that are collected with a scanner or point clouds that were collected by a drone in the ReCap browser in the cloud. One thing I'd like to point out to you is that you'll need the desktop connector installed to use the Publish feature that's inside of ReCap

So for best results, you need to be sure that you're using a version of the desktop connector that is 16.0 or higher. So for example, at this time of the recording, the latest version of the desktop connector was 16.9.1.2222. So just be sure that you have a version of the desktop connector that is 16.0 or higher.

In ReCap Pro 2023.1, it gave users the ability to automatically classify scanned data into ground and non-ground points. You can select one of the predefined level of detail options for processing the data for terrain and features. Or you can select Custom for additional options.

Also in 2023.1, you're able to display the point cloud in different colors, based on the classification itself. So you can see in the example, it makes it easy to distinguish the ground points from the unclassified points themselves. Having the ability to filter the points by classification allows anybody or the user to export only the points that you would like to use to build the surface.

So ReCap Pro unifies the project scans into one single file. And then that file can be utilized inside the design software of your choice for surface creation. In this case, it's Civil 3D. Using the classified point cloud to generate a surface inside of Civil 3D will ensure that you're only using the points you need to accurately represent the existing ground conditions of the project.

So moving on to 2024, that's where development extended to the classification management. And automatic ground classification to scans imported from all different types of raw scans was introduced. In 2024.1, actually in 2024, I'm sorry, the ReCap Viewer, users can extract geometries of linear features with the help of machine learning heuristic algorithms. So this is what we talked about last year in this session or in a session much like this, is you have the ability to actually pull those linear features from a point cloud itself inside of the cloud.

Moving on inside of a ReCap Pro 2024.1 ReCap now provides the ability to manually classify points. So you not only have automatic classification, but you now have the ability to manually classify points. This enables detailed classifications for visualization and surface cleanup after automatic ground classification. So you can run automatic ground classification, but then you can come back and actually manually classify things also.

They also introduce something called intelligent decimation. It provides a method to extract key points from a source classification and move them to a target classification. The extracted key points can then be exported and leveraged more efficiently by downstream applications.

They also, in 2024.1, introduced point feature extraction and feature extraction templates and schema libraries. So in ReCap Viewer, it now allows users to extract geometries of point features, like trees, lampposts, sewer manholes, anything that you need to actually set a point on top of so that you can capture that entity. Recap Viewer now also allows users to create, save, import, and export feature templates and schemas so that you can reuse them in other feature extraction sessions.

So it creates a JSON file that you can actually copy into another session of ReCap that you're trying to extract entities. And you have all of that information at a library. So you don't have to recreate things every time that you're extracting something.

ReCap Pro and in 2025, one of the new features there is the ability to use colorized support for Faro Focus Premium Scans. So ReCap now integrates the latest Faro Scene API to add support for importing Faro Premium scans with color. This is something that was asked for by customers.

In ReCap 2025, when using the scan to design workflows, you can extract 3D objects. So the ADA ramp is one of the objects that is given to you out of the box. So you can extract 3D features like ADA ramps, driveways, things of that nature. There are out-of-the-box templates. So you can definitely utilize those out-of-the-box templates. And you can create and save templates, just like you can with linear features, the same way with points and the same way with extracted 3D objects.

You also now, in ReCap 2025, can export features to a CSV file. This was something that was asked for by customers also, and the development team delivered. You also now have the ability in ReCap 2025 to highlight and hide scans. So being able to actually turn scans on and off actually helps, not only with just visually seeing what is there on your screen. Because sometimes it can get a little bit busy on the screen. And you can turn things on and off very quickly now in the ReCap viewer.

But it also aids in diagnosing and identifying bad scans. So you might have a bad scan that's laid on top of it. And you're wondering, which scan that is. You'll be able to see that in Project Explorer, and you can actually turn it on and off.

So the ReCap Viewer general enhancement that was updated is remembering user preferences. It doesn't seem like that big of an enhancement, but it really is. Now inside of the ReCap Viewer, the session actually remembers your preferences. So sometimes whenever you're inside the ReCap Viewer, you set things up for colorization, you set things up for point size, things of that nature. You get into another session, and it resets all of that.

Now, in 2025, it does not do that. It actually remembers your last session. And that's for that particular scan or that particular project. So if you've got it set it another way and another project, it's going to remember that also. So the bottom line is that it does remember those preferences. And you don't have to go back in, change your color, change your point size, all of that information every single time you open that project.

So you could have just done it, accidentally closed the project, and guess what? You would have to reset all that. So that's something that we don't want you to have to do. So the development team put that in there and made it to where you don't have to reset it every time. It remembers.

So let's get on with the show. And let's jump into the software and go through the features that I just described. So now we're here inside of Autodesk Docs. This is where we would have published our point cloud to. Inside of ReCap Pro-- and I'm not going to step back that far. But inside of ReCap Pro, you can simply publish your point cloud at any time.

So if you bring your scans in on your desktop, you put all the scans together. And then you publish that point cloud, it will go to Autodesk Docs. That's where you're going to navigate to most generally.

So inside, I've got a project that's built called AU 2024, crazily enough. And I've got a couple projects in there. We're going to start with this Road Rehab project. And it shows the rcp file here. This is what we're going to select to open up in our ReCap Viewer.

So it'll open on up. And what we're going to start off with is we're going to talk about how you can pull in your features. So this is again, what we showed in the class last year. But I wanted to just briefly recap it before we jump into selecting and adding points the same way that we do linear features.

So I'm going to go right here to this area, where there is a set-up curb. And I'm going to grab right here, my feature extraction. So if I want to start pulling linear features inside of this model, I just simply select feature extraction. Now, you do have the ability to save a template.

So we can actually start with the default template. And then I'll walk through how all of that works. And then we'll save that template. And then we can use it again later on if we want to.

You also have that ability to do it with points. You also can create a template with the 3D objects. So we're going to start here with the linear features.

So I'm just going to select that default template. And I'll pick and point an arrow this way. So you can see, this is a very nice point cloud. We can pull linear features from again, supported and unsupported point clouds or structured and unstructured point clouds. So that means this nice, super dense point cloud that we've got here, but we can also do it with a drone point cloud. And I believe I gave some examples of that last year.

So all I'm going to do is simply tell it where I want these points to go. Now if I select my Edit button real quick, I can add points. So I could select there or the highlighted, and it would add another one.

So don't think that you're just stuck with four points. You have more than you can pull. You can add as many as you want. If you don't want that point there, then you simply select it and hit the trashcan, and it goes away.

I'm going to get out of the Edit mode right now. And I'm going to move that red point to here. I'm going to try and pull the face of that curve. We'll go to the gutter.

I'm going to pull out here, it's got a gutter pan that's out here. You can see where you're actually lining up. Sometimes I like to show that you can actually see that white stripe. That right there is that white stripe.

So if I moved that to here, and you see that it sets on that white stripe. But for this particular instance, I'm just going to grab this gutter elevation. I could add a point. And then it would actually stick on that stripe.

Now, it's not going to follow that stripe. It's only going to follow that distance. Keep that in mind.

So we'll just leave this here. Now I want to tell this what these points are. So if I go to Edit and I select that point, I can add a tag. So I've got some tags that are already in here. If I don't see a tag that I want to use, then I can actually create it right here also.

So this should be-- what was it, back of curb? Let's see here. I can close this, just do a search. There we go, BOC, it read my mind.

So I could select BOC. And it's going to make all of those BOC points. Same thing here, if I grab that tag, and I'm going to say that this is top of curb, so TOP or top of curb. I can actually spell it out. Then I select top of curb.

Now, the reason that we're doing this is because whenever we export this out as a XML file, bring it into Civil 3D, it's going to create feature lines. Those feature lines, it's going to read those feature lines as what we name it. So whenever we're pulling linear feature-wise inside of the model, we're able to actually marry that up with what it shows in Civil 3D. It's going to also be a property that is there whenever we publish it to ArcGIS Online.

I'm going to grab this last tag or actually that tag. And I'm going to say that's bottom of curb. You could call it gutter, you could call it whatever you want. I'll do the same thing here. I don't have-- I've got a gutter.

We'll just create one. I want a gutter tag. I hit gutter, it creates a new tag.

So all of those features that it pulls, it will actually set that automatically. I'm going to move that up actually, just a little and hit Done.

I've got a couple options. I can start auto extraction. If I start auto extraction, it's going to go through here at a certain interval. That interval is set up by selecting linear extraction settings. And then I can tell it I want to walk through here a step interval one meter at a time.

So it's going to take a section every meter. I can move that out. I can make it shorter. I mean, it's crazy. You could drop this back to 1/10 of a meter, and it's going to cut a lot of cross sections. That's a little overkill, but you could do it.

If you want to change your cross-section depth. So what that means is how you are viewing it here in the cross-section view. So notice that if I move this up, see how thick that's getting? That means it's going to see less points better. That's the best way I to explain it.

This is a very dense point cloud. So you can see, I can move that up. And it's very, very thick.

Now I'll go back to 0.3, that's the default setting. Now, when would you use that setting? You would use it on maybe a drone point cloud. Because sometimes drone point clouds get a little bit thin in areas. And you could thicken that up and whenever it's auto extracting, it will not stop because it still sees enough point cloud to keep going.

So you can change these settings however you would like. I'm going to go ahead and select Start Extraction, and it's going to start auto extracting around this curve. Now you can see this 92%, 93%. So 75% was my baseline.

So I told it. I wanted it to have at least 75% accuracy or level of view in order to pull that linear feature at that point. So every time it takes a step, this is what it's seeing 90%, 95%, so on and so forth. I can continue to come around here until we get to this handicap ramp or this ADA ramp, and I can stop it.

Now if I don't stop it and it goes too far, I could go ahead and hit Start again. And it's going to stop. Now I can tell it, I want it to stop or ignore. And watch what it does. If I hit Ignore, it stops again.

Because what it's done is it's run out of point cloud up here that looks like what the curve is. So at this point, I could say stop to get-- I don't want this to drag over. So I just right click here on my screen or on that particular section and I say, I want to delete it. And it'll back it up.

I can look at my cross-section view and see that I need to do one more. So I'll delete that. That's where I want to stop my extraction. So when I'm done, I simply hit Done, and off I go.

You could do that. And I have. I've actually done that for this entire road. So I'm going to zoom back, and it's about a mile, mile and a 1/2 of road that's here. And I've actually extracted all of this curb. There's a wall, there's all kinds of things on top of this. There's barrier wall.

You can see if I zoom in here, you can see the barrier wall. It's right here. I've extracted all of that. I've extracted these paint stripes. And I'm going to show you that real quick, just because the way you actually do that is it's called manual extraction. But it's simple.

So I'm going to select feature extraction again. And I'm going to create-- I can actually use the default. And I'm going to just set it right here on this line. And I'm going to point it downstream. And I don't need all four of these points at this point.

So I'm going to edit. And I'm going to delete, delete and delete. Now I want to move that point back over on top of that stripe. So you could see, I could zoom in, and I can see if it's on the stripe or not.

Now, in order to capture that stripe manually, we simply hold our control button down on our keyboard and just click and it draws it. So I can do it again. Zoom back, I can come up, zoom over here, and simply select again and again and again. I think you get my drift.

So I've done that for all of these. But I've called them and tagged them with the names of what they are. Now, you see what happened here. I do want to point this out, that point is way up in the air.

So if I select that, and this point needs to come down. I can move that down then. I could do that also on back at the other points. So sometimes if it's starting to go down a hill or go up a hill, that point will move up and down above or below because it tries to stay at that initial elevation.

Every point you click, you can adjust that point down so that it pulls the true elevation of that. So with that, I would just hit Done. And now, so that's kind of a recap of what we talked about last year and being able to extract those entities, well, linear features.

So what we want to talk about next is we want to talk about points. We can actually extract points. So people say, well, when you say points, what do you mean? Well, we're going to actually set a point where say, maybe a sewer manhole is or a pole is or where a stop sign or something like. That is something that we would want to actually be represented as a point inside of Civil 3D.

That also is great GIS data. So when we publish that out, you can publish points, civil points to ArcGIS online, which is fantastic. So in order to extract a point inside of the ReCap Viewer, I have-- and you can see it right here. I have a manhole that's right here. I love to pull that manhole.

And we'll actually pull this pedestal right here for this crosswalk sign. So to do that, very simple. We just select Feature Extraction. And we're going to extract a point this time.

Now, we'll move this over and just have a quick conversation about all of these particular items that I've already created inside of, or that's already created inside of your catalog. So if I select my catalog, you can see that I've added a bunch of things. There's been a bunch of things. There are a bunch of pre-made point schemas that are there.

But you can create one very quickly. So I don't have, I don't believe-- well, I do have a manhole. In order to create a new one, you simply hit Add. You give it your name, you give it the color, you give it a feature code.

Now, this is huge. You give it a feature code. Because as surveyors in the field, if they were traditionally surveying this road or they were picking this manhole up traditionally with GPS, they would give it a code, a survey code for the manhole. That might SMH, that might be manhole, it depends.

It's different for every company. And sometimes it's different for every survey crew. But we can change that. So we could call it MH. SMH or MH is pretty standard.

So we'll say MH, sewer manhole. We want to give it a feature code of SMH, so that when Civil 3D sees that SMH code inside of what are called description keys, it automatically puts a symbol on top of that. It does that whenever you're creating field-to-finish line work. And it also does it whenever you're just importing points, just manually inside of Civil 3D from a CSV file.

If you've got this description key setup, it'll automatically play symbology on top of it. So fantastic. It's super time saver.

So this feature, code I would call it SMH also. You can give it a category, you can add custom properties. I could say, what condition is the manhole, and save it. And it would add that to the point, so on and so forth.

I could hit Save, and it saves that. Now, if I scroll down, you should be able to see it. SMH, it's right here.

So we could actually use that as our point. So I'll just pick it. And it says to click upon the point cloud to place points. So I could set it right here in the middle of this. And that's going to give me the top elevation.

Some folks like to do it at the rim, some outside. I don't know. It's personal preference. Bottom line is that's going to get the rim elevation of that manhole.

I can flip the plane. So see how I'm looking at it now? I'm standing on it looking down. If I want to look underneath it and look up to see through it, I can do that. And I could move this to where I think the center of the manhole is.

If I flip that back down, then I see that I'm off. And I can move it to the center. Once you've got that done, you simply hit Done. And that's that point.

Now it will start to add those up here under Features. And it'll add them under Point Features. We have one already that's here for linear features. And when we create a 3D object, we'll have it there also.

So let's add one more because I want to show you a little trick. I say it's a trick. So I'm going to grab that. Since we didn't save the template, I'm going to show you how we can save a template just for a point.

So I'm going to pick-- actually, I'm just going to go to point, and so linear features. If we would have actually created, we had that template, we could have saved it. To save the template once we were done, we have the option to do that. Then if we wanted to export it out as a JSON file for other people to use, then we just simply go to the three dots here and export the feature templates.

It's going to take them all. So if you had a whole palette of them, then it would take them all. So it should have showed you that just a little bit ago. I'll do that in the live class.

So I'm going to select Point again. And I'm going to drop down, and we're going to call this a traffic light. And I'm going to pick a point. I'm going to highlight this light right here. Or actually, it's a sign. It's a walk sign.

I'm going to pick outside of it. I don't want to pick on top of it. I want the ground elevation. So I'm going to pick right next to it.

And then in the Section view, I can see that pedestal. But I want it to pull the elevation of that point right there next to it. If I set the point on top here, it's not going to give you a correct elevation. So that's why you have the cross section view, and it will pull that point elevation where I picked. And then we can move it to the center, and it'll be the center of the light pole, but still have the elevation it needs from the edge.

So I just hit done. I'm off to the races. So we could set points like crazy down through here. And I did this in another model. I'm going to show you that here in just a little bit.

So now, let's talk about another new feature. And that's being able to grab 3D objects or extract 3D objects. In this case, we're going to extract an ADA ramp. So I'm just going to quickly run through and show you how to do that.

The ADA ramp is something that is standard out of the box. So I can actually select Feature Extraction. And I can go to 3D. And you can see that there is an ADA ramp that's there. I stretch this out a little bit more, can I do that? Yeah, I can pull that out a little bit more, but it doesn't give the actual complete name. It's an ADA corner ramp.

We can stretch and pull this thing all over the place. So that's what we're going to do. So I'm going to grab the ADA ramp, and I never get it in the right spot. Let me move this out of the way a little bit.

So I'm just going to place it and then rotate it around. You know what? That looks good right there. I know it's not on there, but we're going to grip edit the heck out of this thing.

So I'm going to grab that and move to that point, grab and move to here. That's going to be basically the platform from either side of the ramp. I'll grab and move this. I can see, and I can and I can move around while I'm doing this.

So I can actually rotate this around. And I can see how that drops off. If I can't see it, I can move it out of the way And. Then actually place it, maybe even a little tighter than what I would of if I just am eyeballing it.

I'll zoom back in, and we'll grab this and move it in. Now, I'm going to set the next line or the next point at the top of the ramp. So what I see is the top of the ramp, you can see the curve back here and it kind of drops off to nothing here. I'm just going to line that up and lay it right there.

Now, did I get it in the right spot? Well, the great thing about this is we can rotate it around, and we can see if we actually got it on the curb. Now, from this also, I can move this over a little bit. So it's going to pull a better feature, and then I can actually set it right there. I'm good to go.

Now, I'm going to actually grab and pick a point right there and drag another point up and set a point there and then tie that off. Now, that's going to draw two more feature lines. And then once I've grabbed those, I can actually move them. I can set another point and put it down the hill a little bit or down the slope just a little. But I think I'm going to actually just pull these back to right there.

Same thing on the other side. I can grab this, and I can move it back. Now that's going to overlap a little bit. That's OK. We can always edit the feature lines inside of Civil 3D.

And I'll simply grab that point and set another one here, and I'll connect it back. Now, I bet you we're not on the curb right there. So let's get over. And guess what? I was really close.

I'll just move it back and stick it on top. And then we'll move this over just a little, moving this point back. And I can see what I'm doing here in a zoom view. also. So if I'm working on it here, I can actually see if it looks like what I'm supposed to be seeing here.

So let's say we can drop this down. Here, we want to make sure we get that drop. We could add another line, if we wanted, from here to here. That way, it would get the curb If we wanted. We're just going to leave that at that.

I've had people come in and move this thing. Actually, no, I don't want to do that. Let's move this here and this here.

So, you could draw lines from point to point, point to point. You could cross. You can have as many as you want.

And honestly, if you're actually checking slopes on top of a handicap or ADA ramp, handicap ramp, whatever you want to call it, then you might want to add some additional points and lines so that you can get some additional slopes. Because you will be able to actually pull slopes and things of that nature from this. So we can check and see if it was built correctly from this point cloud.

Once that's done, I can hit. Done. And there it is. And it's going to show up under 3D features.

Now, let's go over here. I want to show you one more thing before we start looking at this inside of Civil 3D. So I've got an entrance right here. I've got another ADA ramp that's right there. But I think that if you can do one, you can do as many as you want. They're all the same. They may be shaped a little bit different, but you're able to capture them very quickly.

If I was wanting to see where this entrance was in the world and then get some feature lines as to how I was going to tie to it, maybe I'm going to tie to it here and add some additional parking, do something of that nature. Then I can do what's called feature extraction and extract another 3D object and just do a free form. right. So if I select Free Form, I can pick a point here, go across. You can set as many points as you want.

And remember, the more points that you set, the more accurate your linework is going to be. So if I pick the point, say here, here, here, I can start to go around this curb. I can zoom in, and I can stop and say, right here, I can go across. And I can start to extract here, here, here, and tie it down.

There is my entrance. That is going to come in as a feature line inside of Civil 3D. So I would be able to see exactly what that entrance is doing. And you could actually look at cross slopes in a surface from that.

It's almost like taking a piece of yarn and just dropping it on the ground, and it'll conform to that. But it's only going to conform wherever the points are. So when you pick the points, that's when it's going to pull elevation.

So once we're done with that, we can just hit Done. You can do a free form, linear feature extraction, or 3D object on anything. I mean, I could do it on that sign right there. I could pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, and I'd have the side of that sign.

We can do it on buildings. It's unlimited, what you can use it on. So instead of taking you through and showing you all of the different linear features that I could extract here in this particular project, I'm going to actually close the viewer. I'm going to go to a different project that I've already done a lot of work in. And you'll be able to see all of these linear features that we're going to push out to Civil 3D.

So it takes it just a second to come up. The more linework that's in there, it does take just a minute. So you just simply wait on it. You can already see-- you can see those points that I set through there. Those are light poles. I think I pulled some curb inlets, or not curb inlets, but area inlets, a few signs, things of that nature.

But what I did do is I actually grabbed all of these pavement lines. I actually moved in. And you can see I've extracted all of the pavement striping, going down through all the way to the end. Now, one of the new features was being able to toggle on and off a point cloud. I can simply do that here in my Project Explorer or my project browser.

I can just select that right there. And it goes off. OK, I think I called it Project Explorer. In the other one, it's project browser. So we can turn it right back on just as fast as we turn it off.

Now, this would take just a little bit to do. I actually extracted all of this barrier. I don't know if it's more of just a barrier to keep cars from going over past it. It could be a sound barrier. Down at this end, there's actually a big wall.

So I extracted through the wall. You could extract the entire wall if you wanted. It did take me a little bit longer because I didn't change-- I wanted it to be very, very accurate. So I didn't change the increment. Right. So it actually extracted a point-- well, however many points I had on that template, it extracted them all the way down through there every meter. So that's quite a few points.

Now, the reason that we want to bring this into Civil 3D is because if we bring the linear features into Civil 3D, we can have a very, very accurate and lightweight surface instead of having to generate a surface from the entire point cloud. That's one of the huge benefits of being able to pull this information. So in order to get all of this great data out of here, we can go to our features, and we can simply download them.

All of my point features, I'm going to select this button right here. And this is my download button. If I select that, I've got three different ways I can do it. I told you earlier, one of the new features in 2025 was the fact that you could create a CSV file. You could create a CSV file, you could create a LandXML file, and you could create a DXF file.

My file of choice is the LandXML. I like it a lot. That's what I'm going to choose. I'll just hit Export, and it pushes that file out.

Now, I'm going to do the same thing for the linear features. And I'll do the same thing for my 3D objects. Now, do I want to hog this data? Do I want to keep this data to myself? No.

So that's why we're going to bring it into Civil 3D, take a quick look at it, generate a surface. And then we're going to open it, or we're going to publish it to ArcGIS online. Because I guarantee you there's other people that could be utilizing this information and taking advantage of that information that you just extracted from that point cloud. There could be seven or eight people working on the same or different projects throughout this corridor.

So let's just jump into Civil 3D real quick. And I'm looking at Autodesk Docs here. So you can see that I'm looking at my projects in Autodesk Docs. And I've navigated out to a folder that, I'm just going to select, this Road Rehab clean and open it up.

The reason I called it that, it's just a blank drawing. But it has the coordinate system set to it. In this particular instance, you can see it's GA83-WF. You want to be sure that you do that. You want to set the coordinate system to what it is.

Then this also has my description keys. So remember I said when you bring points in, that if you have your description keys set up like LP, it's going to bring in and use a style of utility pole, it's going to put a utility pole symbol on there. Same thing with SMH, same thing with-- I've got a couple different ways, stormwater, manhole, so on and so forth, trees, great for picking up trees.

Sometimes if you want to do a tree survey, it'd be much easier to scan it with a drone and then just extract those trees from the drone. I mean, you could cover a lot more ground rather than trying to do it traditionally. So the symbology will come in.

Let's bring that information in. We're going to use LandXMLIN. I'm just going to type Land. It'll prompt me for XML in. And I'm going to grab the lines.

I'm going to grab the lines first, and I'll just simply hit Open. And it's going to bring them in. Now, there's quite a few of them. So it does take just a second to get those in the drawing.

So once they're in the drawing, we'll go ahead and bring in the 3D objects. And we will bring in the points. So now we're seeing our linear features inside of Civil 3D. So remember, I've named these. So I can grab one of the linear features that came in, and it's actually a feature line.

You can see it. And that one is a yellow paint stripe. So I can right click, go to Properties, and I can see all of the property set data that it added. Notice that one of those is that it's a yellow paint stripe.

You can name a number paint, stripes, so on and so forth. But this is all the attribution that is on top of that will be available inside of ArcGIS Online once we publish. We got to get the points in here though.

So what we're going to do is go to LandXMLIN again, and we're going to select the points and hit Open. And just select OK. Now the points came in. They're a little bit small. So I could make them a little bigger.

But if I zoom in, you can see that they used and set the symbology that I had set up in the description keys. Also, if I pick that point, right click and go to Properties, you can see that in the extended data, I do have attribution. This is a light pole. And the code was LP.

I can go in and fill out any of this attribution, I can add to it. And I'll show you that later on if we have time.

So I've got one more thing I want to bring in. We're going to go to LandXMLIN, and we're going to select the 3D objects. And hit OK. And that should bring in our free form entrance and our ADA ramps.

So I can grab-- you know what? Let's just do this. If I grab that and look at it in my object viewer, I can see that there is a little bit of slope. You got to zoom back just a little

Feature lines are a little finicky sometimes. But you can see that thing lays just like what we were looking at with the point cloud. So again, it pulled great information that we could actually generate a surface just for this and start to check things.

Now, inside of Civil 3D, I can create a surface very quickly. We'll just call this EG. And I'll hit OK. And I'm going to grab one of those feature lines. Right click and hit Select similar. And it's going to get my ADA ramp and everything. And I'm going to add to that surface, as a break line, all of those features, and it generates a surface.

Now, another new feature-- this is a little bit of a sidebar. Another new feature in Civil 3D is the fact that if you grab a surface, or actually if you want to edit a surface, not grab it, if you want to go to the definition, you go to Modify it with edit. So I want to delete lines. It automatically turns on your TIN lines.

So you don't have to go in and set your style to turn the TIN lines on. It does it for you automatically. So I can trim all of that off. I could get crazy and start to change things here inside of the surface itself. But I'm going to leave. I just wanted to chop that set of 10 lines off.

So I hit Enter. It will prompt you that if you want to maintain the current display with the TIN lines on, or do you want to revert to the original? I want to go back to not seeing them. I think that's one of the greatest features that I've ever done, so or ever created.