Create rail surfaces

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In this video, we will look at several different ways to create a surface in civil 3d.

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Those ways include creating a surface from contours using a shape file,

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using survey data and brake lines.

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We'll look at point clouds

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and land XML files.

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So to begin,

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I want to download some contour data from a

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county website to create a surface from contours.

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And in this area, we have access to some extensive GIS data

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in the mapping feature.

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I can actually download the contour data as a shape file and that's important.

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This data isn't available in imperial units,

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but we could easily convert that to metric. If we need to

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in civil 3d,

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we need to set our coordinate system in tools space under the settings tab,

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we right click on the file name and choose edit, drawing settings

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under the units and zone tab.

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We can set our coordinates and here we're in the Colorado Central zone in feet.

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Once we do that, it's best practice to save our file.

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So we'll navigate to our docs folder and name the file.

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Then a cloud icon will indicate that our file is now stored on the construction cloud

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to build a surface from a shape file.

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We need to select surface on the home

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ribbon tab and choose create surface from GIS data

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in the surface window. We can give the surface name and edit the display options.

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We'll go with most of the default settings for now.

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We have several different options for creating a surface from GIS.

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We can actually link directly to an ARC G

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server.

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In our case, we have a shape file that we've downloaded

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and that's been saved to doc. So we'll navigate to that file here.

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And now we can choose login.

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This will help us to verify our coordinate system for our shape file

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and our drawing. So we can see that those match the coordinates that we set up earlier

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under geospatial query. We'll keep most of the default settings here.

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This shape file actually came with an object data set.

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So without that, all of our contours would come in at a zero elevation.

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So in the contours field, we need to set that as our elevation,

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everything else is fine as it is.

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And so we'll select finish

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and then our surface builds.

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Now, if we don't see our surface immediately,

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we can double click on the mouse wheel and it will zoom to extends.

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So I can select the surface

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and I can actually edit the properties a couple

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different ways I can right click and choose surface properties

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and I can do the same thing by right clicking in the tool space

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or with the surface selected,

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I can go under the ribbon and select surface properties there.

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So we have a number of display options to show our contours.

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We can choose the edit style button

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and we can turn on or off triangles and contours

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and customize the colors.

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We can also choose several different display settings for our surface.

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We can also select the surface and right click and then choose object viewer.

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And this will allow us to inspect the surface in a 3d view.

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And for our final verification,

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we can turn on our aerial mapping

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and inspect our contour locations.

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Next, we want to create a surface using survey points

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and we'll set that up, we'll set that file up the same way

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with the coordinate system.

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And in this case, we are in Georgia state plane coordinates,

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we can right click on surfaces in the tool space window

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and create a new surface and give it a name.

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And now under the definitions, we want to add a point group.

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So we'll pick the add point file and navigate to our Docs folder.

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Now,

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this point file is a CS V and it's

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important to understand the format that our data is in

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since we have several different format options to

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choose from when we're importing this data.

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And in this case, the points are set up with a point name,

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Northing Easter and elevation

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and then the surface will automatically triangulate.

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Now, since we didn't choose any weeding options, it

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included some of our monument points and we have

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some longer triangles that we really don't want.

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So to clean up our surface first,

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we need to display both the contours and the triangles.

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So when the surface is selected, we can go to edit surface

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in the drop down, we want to pick delete lines.

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And with the selection tool,

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we can draw areas that cross triangles and we can delete them.

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And when we review the contours,

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we can see some of the triangulation didn't process exactly the

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way that we want with some of the survey data.

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And we have a couple different options here, but we want to access some poly lines

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so that we can add those as brake lines to our surface.

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And in this case, we have some brake lines that were created from

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the survey file

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and we have some of these brake lines that are identified as

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edge of ballast edge of roadway or even some water channel lines.

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And once we've added those brake lines

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to our surface, we can see that, that cleans up those triangles very nicely.

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This is the same workflow we would use if we wanted to add surface elements from ac

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ad file as well, we can select from points lines, blocks

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and several other survey features.

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All right. Now let's create a surface from point cloud data.

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We'll set our file up the same way, set the coordinate system.

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Again, this one is Colorado Central in metric,

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save the file.

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And now we'll go to the insert tab on the top ribbon

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and include a point cloud

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in the file.

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We have a recap file stored in docs that we can choose.

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Once we do that the point cloud will display.

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But if we were to choose two D view,

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we'd only see the outline and not the details of the point cloud.

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We can inspect the point cloud in a 3d view as well.

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Now, to create the surface,

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we'll pick in the surface menu to create surface from point cloud.

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And in the window, we can name the surface and set the style

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in the same window, we can control the details of the point cloud.

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We can see how close our points are together.

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We can actually change our point density

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and that will have a direct impact on the size of our surface.

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So if we space our points, the size will actually decrease. And

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there are a few styles that we can choose from.

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When it comes to point

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filtering, we can use a planar average

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that tends to give us a little bit less accuracy.

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No filter will take in every point and this is fine

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if we don't have a lot of vegetation or building data

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in our area or rigging interpolation will give us a best fit.

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And that's the one that we'll choose

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when we select, OK,

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the surface will actually generate in the background,

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the frequency and the number of the points in the

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cloud will actually determine how long this takes to create.

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And oftentimes once the file has created,

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it will also create an M MS file for the surface.

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And that helps to reduce the size of the C

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AD file.

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So inspecting the surface contours,

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we can see the shapes are consistent with a point cloud surface

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and it contains a lot of those details.

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The last surface method that we'll use will be to import a land XML file.

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This is ideal when we have a file from another platform

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or if we need to convert a surface from metric to imperial units

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or vice versa.

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So we'll set up the file in the same way the coordinate system save the file

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and to create the surface, we'll go to the insert tab

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and select land XML.

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So we'll navigate to our land XML file

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and the window will show the units and the file details. Keep in mind

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this file will come in based on our project coordinate system

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and the units that are in our C AD file.

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So we'll select OK.

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And the surface will import into the file

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and we can control the display settings

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in the surface properties

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and we can view it with the object viewer as well.

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And one important note as well importing dem files is a very similar workflow

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to the L XML file.

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There are several other ways that we could create surfaces

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and you can test those out and try those and they'll work in a very similar way.