Building Surfaces from Corridors? Read this!

[Anonymous]

If you do any subdivision work, you've already run into the fact that
Corridor surfaces do not link up to the C3D surfaces that they export.
Here's a work around that will allow you to include a corridor surface as
part of your proposed surface, and have it update as needed.

1. Create your corridor and generate a surface as you'd like it.
2. Export that out to a C3D surface.
3. DO NOT edit this surface. You want this to be the exact surface that was
exported. You'll notice this surface is built by nothing but a series of
"Add Point..." edits, so don't even go looking for the breaklines.
4. Export the C3D surface to an XML file. Don't export anything BUT the
surface! Call it Corridor.XML for simplicity.
5. Delete the corridor's C3D surface.
6. Go to General and Import LandXML and import Corridor.XML into a new
surface.
7. Rename the imported surface, i.e. PG. Notice that PG is made of an Import
XML operation and a snapshot. That's it!
8. Add to that surface using breaklines, feature lines, points, pastes, etc.
9. Build your surface. You now have a surface built from corridor, points,
pads, etc.
10. If your corridor changes, simply reexport the corridor's surface to
C3D, and reexport that surface to the XML file. Rename the XML file that's
there, and use the same name. It's important!
11. Rebuild your PG surface. Because the first step in the build operation
of the PG surface is to import the Corridor.XML file, you will now have an
updated corridor underneath it all, and your points, pads, breaklines,
borders etc will all still be in place, in the correct build order.

Thanks a TON to the Desker that helped me out on this. I don't want to name
him since he'll be hammered with e-mails for more help.

Hope this helps some of you, and I hope to see you in Orlando at AU.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

NNNNNICE!

sm
--

Scott McEachron
The D.C. CADD Company - Dallas


"James Wedding" wrote in message
news:4924617@discussion.autodesk.com...
If you do any subdivision work, you've already run into the fact that
Corridor surfaces do not link up to the C3D surfaces that they export.
Here's a work around that will allow you to include a corridor surface as
part of your proposed surface, and have it update as needed.

1. Create your corridor and generate a surface as you'd like it.
2. Export that out to a C3D surface.
3. DO NOT edit this surface. You want this to be the exact surface that was
exported. You'll notice this surface is built by nothing but a series of
"Add Point..." edits, so don't even go looking for the breaklines.
4. Export the C3D surface to an XML file. Don't export anything BUT the
surface! Call it Corridor.XML for simplicity.
5. Delete the corridor's C3D surface.
6. Go to General and Import LandXML and import Corridor.XML into a new
surface.
7. Rename the imported surface, i.e. PG. Notice that PG is made of an Import
XML operation and a snapshot. That's it!
8. Add to that surface using breaklines, feature lines, points, pastes, etc.
9. Build your surface. You now have a surface built from corridor, points,
pads, etc.
10. If your corridor changes, simply reexport the corridor's surface to
C3D, and reexport that surface to the XML file. Rename the XML file that's
there, and use the same name. It's important!
11. Rebuild your PG surface. Because the first step in the build operation
of the PG surface is to import the Corridor.XML file, you will now have an
updated corridor underneath it all, and your points, pads, breaklines,
borders etc will all still be in place, in the correct build order.

Thanks a TON to the Desker that helped me out on this. I don't want to name
him since he'll be hammered with e-mails for more help.

Hope this helps some of you, and I hope to see you in Orlando at AU.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

Once again above & beyond. Great stuff James. All we do is subdivision/site
plans. This is a huge work around.

John

"James Wedding" wrote in message
news:4924617@discussion.autodesk.com...
If you do any subdivision work, you've already run into the fact that
Corridor surfaces do not link up to the C3D surfaces that they export.
Here's a work around that will allow you to include a corridor surface as
part of your proposed surface, and have it update as needed.

1. Create your corridor and generate a surface as you'd like it.
2. Export that out to a C3D surface.
3. DO NOT edit this surface. You want this to be the exact surface that was
exported. You'll notice this surface is built by nothing but a series of
"Add Point..." edits, so don't even go looking for the breaklines.
4. Export the C3D surface to an XML file. Don't export anything BUT the
surface! Call it Corridor.XML for simplicity.
5. Delete the corridor's C3D surface.
6. Go to General and Import LandXML and import Corridor.XML into a new
surface.
7. Rename the imported surface, i.e. PG. Notice that PG is made of an Import
XML operation and a snapshot. That's it!
8. Add to that surface using breaklines, feature lines, points, pastes, etc.
9. Build your surface. You now have a surface built from corridor, points,
pads, etc.
10. If your corridor changes, simply reexport the corridor's surface to
C3D, and reexport that surface to the XML file. Rename the XML file that's
there, and use the same name. It's important!
11. Rebuild your PG surface. Because the first step in the build operation
of the PG surface is to import the Corridor.XML file, you will now have an
updated corridor underneath it all, and your points, pads, breaklines,
borders etc will all still be in place, in the correct build order.

Thanks a TON to the Desker that helped me out on this. I don't want to name
him since he'll be hammered with e-mails for more help.

Hope this helps some of you, and I hope to see you in Orlando at AU.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

James,

You da man!

-Rob

"James Wedding" wrote in message
news:4924617@discussion.autodesk.com...
If you do any subdivision work, you've already run into the fact that
Corridor surfaces do not link up to the C3D surfaces that they export.
Here's a work around that will allow you to include a corridor surface as
part of your proposed surface, and have it update as needed.

1. Create your corridor and generate a surface as you'd like it.
2. Export that out to a C3D surface.
3. DO NOT edit this surface. You want this to be the exact surface that was
exported. You'll notice this surface is built by nothing but a series of
"Add Point..." edits, so don't even go looking for the breaklines.
4. Export the C3D surface to an XML file. Don't export anything BUT the
surface! Call it Corridor.XML for simplicity.
5. Delete the corridor's C3D surface.
6. Go to General and Import LandXML and import Corridor.XML into a new
surface.
7. Rename the imported surface, i.e. PG. Notice that PG is made of an Import
XML operation and a snapshot. That's it!
8. Add to that surface using breaklines, feature lines, points, pastes, etc.
9. Build your surface. You now have a surface built from corridor, points,
pads, etc.
10. If your corridor changes, simply reexport the corridor's surface to
C3D, and reexport that surface to the XML file. Rename the XML file that's
there, and use the same name. It's important!
11. Rebuild your PG surface. Because the first step in the build operation
of the PG surface is to import the Corridor.XML file, you will now have an
updated corridor underneath it all, and your points, pads, breaklines,
borders etc will all still be in place, in the correct build order.

Thanks a TON to the Desker that helped me out on this. I don't want to name
him since he'll be hammered with e-mails for more help.

Hope this helps some of you, and I hope to see you in Orlando at AU.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

Not really, and we both know who is. Maybe I'll pull the mask off the old
Lone Ranger at AU this year.

ANYWAY! For anyone reading this, there is ONE more step. You need to update
the snapshot if you change the XML file! From the Help:
When a surface snapshot exists and the surface is rebuilt, the build process
starts at the snapshot and proceeds sequentially through subsequent surface
operations. Therefore, if a surface operation, such as an import of an
external data file, exists prior to the snapshot operation, the surface
build process does not attempt to find and open the external data file since
all of the external file point data is contained in the surface snapshot
operation.

SO... if you want to reimport the XML, you need to redo the Snapshot that
was created as part of the LandXML import. You can remove the snapshot, but
that means the XML file will be reread every time the surface is rebuilt,
adding to the network traffic and processing time.

Hope that helps even more.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

Hi James,
I have been looking for some answers for the issue you have addressed and was overjoyed to read your method. However, it has still not solved my problem. I still cannot get the two surfaces populated in order to use them for quantity takeoff. The surface from the corridor export option works fine with the simple takeoff module in surfaces/utilities but not with the quantity takeoff module. any comments/ideas?
thanks
kerbad

[Anonymous]

Nope. I believe you're out of luck if you want to go that way. You might be
able to export the different strata as different surfaces, but what a whip
that would be.

--
James Wedding, P.E.
Technology Manager &
Associate
Jones & Boyd, Inc.
Dallas, TX
XP/2 on P4-3.4/1G
LDT 2006 & C3D2006/SP1

[Anonymous]

James,

I assume by the date on these postings that you were using Civil 3D 2006. I am using Civil 3D 2007, and when I create a surface from a corridor model and look in the newly created surface definition, it shows a single note indicating that the surface was created from a corridor model. It doesn't show a series of "add points" as in the 2006 version. My questions are: (1) Has Autodesk addressed the issue of having to export the surface to xml and then import it back in?
(2) Will I lose the rebuild order by not exporting to xml?

[Civil3DReminders_com]

Its been fixed, because now the corridor surface is added to the list of surfaces and is available to be pasted into another surface. The corridor surface updates automatically into the other surface eliminating the need to do what was described.