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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Learn several different ways to create a rail surface in Civil 3D.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
8 min.
Transcript
00:03
In this video, we will look at several different ways to create a surface in civil 3d.
00:09
Those ways include creating a surface from contours using a shape file,
00:14
using survey data and brake lines.
00:17
We'll look at point clouds
00:19
and land XML files.
00:22
So to begin,
00:23
I want to download some contour data from a
00:25
county website to create a surface from contours.
00:29
And in this area, we have access to some extensive GIS data
00:34
in the mapping feature.
00:35
I can actually download the contour data as a shape file and that's important.
00:39
This data isn't available in imperial units,
00:42
but we could easily convert that to metric. If we need to
00:46
in civil 3d,
00:47
we need to set our coordinate system in tools space under the settings tab,
00:52
we right click on the file name and choose edit, drawing settings
00:56
under the units and zone tab.
00:58
We can set our coordinates and here we're in the Colorado Central zone in feet.
01:03
Once we do that, it's best practice to save our file.
01:07
So we'll navigate to our docs folder and name the file.
01:12
Then a cloud icon will indicate that our file is now stored on the construction cloud
01:18
to build a surface from a shape file.
01:21
We need to select surface on the home
01:24
ribbon tab and choose create surface from GIS data
01:28
in the surface window. We can give the surface name and edit the display options.
01:32
We'll go with most of the default settings for now.
01:35
We have several different options for creating a surface from GIS.
01:39
We can actually link directly to an ARC G
01:42
server.
01:43
In our case, we have a shape file that we've downloaded
01:46
and that's been saved to doc. So we'll navigate to that file here.
01:51
And now we can choose login.
01:53
This will help us to verify our coordinate system for our shape file
01:58
and our drawing. So we can see that those match the coordinates that we set up earlier
02:03
under geospatial query. We'll keep most of the default settings here.
02:07
This shape file actually came with an object data set.
02:11
So without that, all of our contours would come in at a zero elevation.
02:16
So in the contours field, we need to set that as our elevation,
02:20
everything else is fine as it is.
02:22
And so we'll select finish
02:23
and then our surface builds.
02:25
Now, if we don't see our surface immediately,
02:28
we can double click on the mouse wheel and it will zoom to extends.
02:32
So I can select the surface
02:34
and I can actually edit the properties a couple
02:36
different ways I can right click and choose surface properties
02:40
and I can do the same thing by right clicking in the tool space
02:43
or with the surface selected,
02:45
I can go under the ribbon and select surface properties there.
02:48
So we have a number of display options to show our contours.
02:53
We can choose the edit style button
02:55
and we can turn on or off triangles and contours
02:59
and customize the colors.
03:01
We can also choose several different display settings for our surface.
03:06
We can also select the surface and right click and then choose object viewer.
03:12
And this will allow us to inspect the surface in a 3d view.
03:18
And for our final verification,
03:20
we can turn on our aerial mapping
03:22
and inspect our contour locations.
03:26
Next, we want to create a surface using survey points
03:30
and we'll set that up, we'll set that file up the same way
03:33
with the coordinate system.
03:34
And in this case, we are in Georgia state plane coordinates,
03:38
we can right click on surfaces in the tool space window
03:42
and create a new surface and give it a name.
03:45
And now under the definitions, we want to add a point group.
03:50
So we'll pick the add point file and navigate to our Docs folder.
03:55
Now,
03:56
this point file is a CS V and it's
03:58
important to understand the format that our data is in
04:01
since we have several different format options to
04:04
choose from when we're importing this data.
04:07
And in this case, the points are set up with a point name,
04:10
Northing Easter and elevation
04:13
and then the surface will automatically triangulate.
04:16
Now, since we didn't choose any weeding options, it
04:18
included some of our monument points and we have
04:21
some longer triangles that we really don't want.
04:24
So to clean up our surface first,
04:26
we need to display both the contours and the triangles.
04:30
So when the surface is selected, we can go to edit surface
04:35
in the drop down, we want to pick delete lines.
04:39
And with the selection tool,
04:40
we can draw areas that cross triangles and we can delete them.
04:45
And when we review the contours,
04:46
we can see some of the triangulation didn't process exactly the
04:49
way that we want with some of the survey data.
04:52
And we have a couple different options here, but we want to access some poly lines
04:57
so that we can add those as brake lines to our surface.
05:00
And in this case, we have some brake lines that were created from
05:04
the survey file
05:05
and we have some of these brake lines that are identified as
05:08
edge of ballast edge of roadway or even some water channel lines.
05:12
And once we've added those brake lines
05:15
to our surface, we can see that, that cleans up those triangles very nicely.
05:19
This is the same workflow we would use if we wanted to add surface elements from ac
05:23
ad file as well, we can select from points lines, blocks
05:28
and several other survey features.
05:31
All right. Now let's create a surface from point cloud data.
05:35
We'll set our file up the same way, set the coordinate system.
05:39
Again, this one is Colorado Central in metric,
05:42
save the file.
05:44
And now we'll go to the insert tab on the top ribbon
05:47
and include a point cloud
05:49
in the file.
05:50
We have a recap file stored in docs that we can choose.
05:54
Once we do that the point cloud will display.
05:56
But if we were to choose two D view,
05:58
we'd only see the outline and not the details of the point cloud.
06:02
We can inspect the point cloud in a 3d view as well.
06:06
Now, to create the surface,
06:07
we'll pick in the surface menu to create surface from point cloud.
06:12
And in the window, we can name the surface and set the style
06:16
in the same window, we can control the details of the point cloud.
06:19
We can see how close our points are together.
06:22
We can actually change our point density
06:25
and that will have a direct impact on the size of our surface.
06:28
So if we space our points, the size will actually decrease. And
06:32
there are a few styles that we can choose from.
06:34
When it comes to point
06:35
filtering, we can use a planar average
06:38
that tends to give us a little bit less accuracy.
06:40
No filter will take in every point and this is fine
06:43
if we don't have a lot of vegetation or building data
06:47
in our area or rigging interpolation will give us a best fit.
06:51
And that's the one that we'll choose
06:53
when we select, OK,
06:55
the surface will actually generate in the background,
06:58
the frequency and the number of the points in the
06:60
cloud will actually determine how long this takes to create.
07:04
And oftentimes once the file has created,
07:07
it will also create an M MS file for the surface.
07:10
And that helps to reduce the size of the C
07:13
AD file.
07:14
So inspecting the surface contours,
07:16
we can see the shapes are consistent with a point cloud surface
07:20
and it contains a lot of those details.
07:23
The last surface method that we'll use will be to import a land XML file.
07:29
This is ideal when we have a file from another platform
07:32
or if we need to convert a surface from metric to imperial units
07:36
or vice versa.
07:37
So we'll set up the file in the same way the coordinate system save the file
07:42
and to create the surface, we'll go to the insert tab
07:45
and select land XML.
07:48
So we'll navigate to our land XML file
07:51
and the window will show the units and the file details. Keep in mind
07:56
this file will come in based on our project coordinate system
07:60
and the units that are in our C AD file.
08:03
So we'll select OK.
08:04
And the surface will import into the file
08:07
and we can control the display settings
08:10
in the surface properties
08:12
and we can view it with the object viewer as well.
08:17
And one important note as well importing dem files is a very similar workflow
08:22
to the L XML file.
08:24
There are several other ways that we could create surfaces
08:28
and you can test those out and try those and they'll work in a very similar way.
Video transcript
00:03
In this video, we will look at several different ways to create a surface in civil 3d.
00:09
Those ways include creating a surface from contours using a shape file,
00:14
using survey data and brake lines.
00:17
We'll look at point clouds
00:19
and land XML files.
00:22
So to begin,
00:23
I want to download some contour data from a
00:25
county website to create a surface from contours.
00:29
And in this area, we have access to some extensive GIS data
00:34
in the mapping feature.
00:35
I can actually download the contour data as a shape file and that's important.
00:39
This data isn't available in imperial units,
00:42
but we could easily convert that to metric. If we need to
00:46
in civil 3d,
00:47
we need to set our coordinate system in tools space under the settings tab,
00:52
we right click on the file name and choose edit, drawing settings
00:56
under the units and zone tab.
00:58
We can set our coordinates and here we're in the Colorado Central zone in feet.
01:03
Once we do that, it's best practice to save our file.
01:07
So we'll navigate to our docs folder and name the file.
01:12
Then a cloud icon will indicate that our file is now stored on the construction cloud
01:18
to build a surface from a shape file.
01:21
We need to select surface on the home
01:24
ribbon tab and choose create surface from GIS data
01:28
in the surface window. We can give the surface name and edit the display options.
01:32
We'll go with most of the default settings for now.
01:35
We have several different options for creating a surface from GIS.
01:39
We can actually link directly to an ARC G
01:42
server.
01:43
In our case, we have a shape file that we've downloaded
01:46
and that's been saved to doc. So we'll navigate to that file here.
01:51
And now we can choose login.
01:53
This will help us to verify our coordinate system for our shape file
01:58
and our drawing. So we can see that those match the coordinates that we set up earlier
02:03
under geospatial query. We'll keep most of the default settings here.
02:07
This shape file actually came with an object data set.
02:11
So without that, all of our contours would come in at a zero elevation.
02:16
So in the contours field, we need to set that as our elevation,
02:20
everything else is fine as it is.
02:22
And so we'll select finish
02:23
and then our surface builds.
02:25
Now, if we don't see our surface immediately,
02:28
we can double click on the mouse wheel and it will zoom to extends.
02:32
So I can select the surface
02:34
and I can actually edit the properties a couple
02:36
different ways I can right click and choose surface properties
02:40
and I can do the same thing by right clicking in the tool space
02:43
or with the surface selected,
02:45
I can go under the ribbon and select surface properties there.
02:48
So we have a number of display options to show our contours.
02:53
We can choose the edit style button
02:55
and we can turn on or off triangles and contours
02:59
and customize the colors.
03:01
We can also choose several different display settings for our surface.
03:06
We can also select the surface and right click and then choose object viewer.
03:12
And this will allow us to inspect the surface in a 3d view.
03:18
And for our final verification,
03:20
we can turn on our aerial mapping
03:22
and inspect our contour locations.
03:26
Next, we want to create a surface using survey points
03:30
and we'll set that up, we'll set that file up the same way
03:33
with the coordinate system.
03:34
And in this case, we are in Georgia state plane coordinates,
03:38
we can right click on surfaces in the tool space window
03:42
and create a new surface and give it a name.
03:45
And now under the definitions, we want to add a point group.
03:50
So we'll pick the add point file and navigate to our Docs folder.
03:55
Now,
03:56
this point file is a CS V and it's
03:58
important to understand the format that our data is in
04:01
since we have several different format options to
04:04
choose from when we're importing this data.
04:07
And in this case, the points are set up with a point name,
04:10
Northing Easter and elevation
04:13
and then the surface will automatically triangulate.
04:16
Now, since we didn't choose any weeding options, it
04:18
included some of our monument points and we have
04:21
some longer triangles that we really don't want.
04:24
So to clean up our surface first,
04:26
we need to display both the contours and the triangles.
04:30
So when the surface is selected, we can go to edit surface
04:35
in the drop down, we want to pick delete lines.
04:39
And with the selection tool,
04:40
we can draw areas that cross triangles and we can delete them.
04:45
And when we review the contours,
04:46
we can see some of the triangulation didn't process exactly the
04:49
way that we want with some of the survey data.
04:52
And we have a couple different options here, but we want to access some poly lines
04:57
so that we can add those as brake lines to our surface.
05:00
And in this case, we have some brake lines that were created from
05:04
the survey file
05:05
and we have some of these brake lines that are identified as
05:08
edge of ballast edge of roadway or even some water channel lines.
05:12
And once we've added those brake lines
05:15
to our surface, we can see that, that cleans up those triangles very nicely.
05:19
This is the same workflow we would use if we wanted to add surface elements from ac
05:23
ad file as well, we can select from points lines, blocks
05:28
and several other survey features.
05:31
All right. Now let's create a surface from point cloud data.
05:35
We'll set our file up the same way, set the coordinate system.
05:39
Again, this one is Colorado Central in metric,
05:42
save the file.
05:44
And now we'll go to the insert tab on the top ribbon
05:47
and include a point cloud
05:49
in the file.
05:50
We have a recap file stored in docs that we can choose.
05:54
Once we do that the point cloud will display.
05:56
But if we were to choose two D view,
05:58
we'd only see the outline and not the details of the point cloud.
06:02
We can inspect the point cloud in a 3d view as well.
06:06
Now, to create the surface,
06:07
we'll pick in the surface menu to create surface from point cloud.
06:12
And in the window, we can name the surface and set the style
06:16
in the same window, we can control the details of the point cloud.
06:19
We can see how close our points are together.
06:22
We can actually change our point density
06:25
and that will have a direct impact on the size of our surface.
06:28
So if we space our points, the size will actually decrease. And
06:32
there are a few styles that we can choose from.
06:34
When it comes to point
06:35
filtering, we can use a planar average
06:38
that tends to give us a little bit less accuracy.
06:40
No filter will take in every point and this is fine
06:43
if we don't have a lot of vegetation or building data
06:47
in our area or rigging interpolation will give us a best fit.
06:51
And that's the one that we'll choose
06:53
when we select, OK,
06:55
the surface will actually generate in the background,
06:58
the frequency and the number of the points in the
06:60
cloud will actually determine how long this takes to create.
07:04
And oftentimes once the file has created,
07:07
it will also create an M MS file for the surface.
07:10
And that helps to reduce the size of the C
07:13
AD file.
07:14
So inspecting the surface contours,
07:16
we can see the shapes are consistent with a point cloud surface
07:20
and it contains a lot of those details.
07:23
The last surface method that we'll use will be to import a land XML file.
07:29
This is ideal when we have a file from another platform
07:32
or if we need to convert a surface from metric to imperial units
07:36
or vice versa.
07:37
So we'll set up the file in the same way the coordinate system save the file
07:42
and to create the surface, we'll go to the insert tab
07:45
and select land XML.
07:48
So we'll navigate to our land XML file
07:51
and the window will show the units and the file details. Keep in mind
07:56
this file will come in based on our project coordinate system
07:60
and the units that are in our C AD file.
08:03
So we'll select OK.
08:04
And the surface will import into the file
08:07
and we can control the display settings
08:10
in the surface properties
08:12
and we can view it with the object viewer as well.
08:17
And one important note as well importing dem files is a very similar workflow
08:22
to the L XML file.
08:24
There are several other ways that we could create surfaces
08:28
and you can test those out and try those and they'll work in a very similar way.
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