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Irregular grading issues - Please Help!!!

14 REPLIES 14
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Message 1 of 15
Postmaster_G
2517 Views, 14 Replies

Irregular grading issues - Please Help!!!

So I have a site that I would like to grade from a perimeter up to determined elevation.

The base line is based on and existing surface and my design for the site.

The drawing I have attached shows this base line.

I would like to grade from this line up to an elevation of 190 at a 3:1 maximum slope (maintain 3:1 if possible).

 

**I have taken this line and made it a feature line and tried to grade from it. I have been able to grade it up to about 170 (using the grade to elevation criteria), then it starts to show issues (see image 1).

GRADING ISSUES 1.JPG

 

**This grading also seems jagged and irregular (see image 2), how can I stop this from happening?

GRADING ISSUES 2.JPG

 

**Another thing that seems to happen is that I get holes in my grading (see image 3), can I stop this from happening?

GRADING ISSUES 3.JPG

 

Does anyone have any idea of the best way to grade this!?!

Your help will be GREATLY appreaciated!

 

Thanks

-G-

-Meow
14 REPLIES 14
Message 2 of 15
Neilw_05
in reply to: Postmaster_G

You are going to have those issues if you rely on the grading objects alone. I suggest you use the outline of the top of the grading as a guide and draw a featureline that is a close fit but use curves to smooth it out. Then build a surface using the bottom and top featurelines but not the grading. The resuting surface will not have exact 3:1 slopes due to your smoothing the top. You can adjust the featurelines as needed to get the slopes within acceptable tolerances.

 

You'll likely still have some rough contours. You can draw splines and add them as contours to the surface to smooth those areas out.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 3 of 15
Neilw_05
in reply to: Postmaster_G

With regard to the problems shown in image 3, it appears the grading is having difficulties finding a solution for a 3:1 slope in that area. You'll need to decide how to resolve that (i.e. steeper slope, wall, etc). Also you might improve the grading by removing some vertices along the existing ground baseline that are causing steep slopes along the perimeter.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 4 of 15
Postmaster_G
in reply to: Postmaster_G

I will take your advice into consideration... I started to do what you said, then it crashed lol.

 

I graded to 168 (baseline peak at 164.5) and took that feature line, smoothed it etc and made a surface between the two and that seemed to work out ok, but then like I said it crashed.  I can be less steep, just not more steep. The eastern side of the line where it ramps up is where a wall is going to be. They chose to not wrap it around the corner though it seems like it would have been a good idea to keep that in the design.

 

I was hopeful that there was something simple that I was leaving out.

 

More ideas from anyone would be great... the more the better Smiley Happy

-Meow
Message 5 of 15
Neilw_05
in reply to: Postmaster_G

I don't recommend using a featureline that was created from the grading as there could be anomalies in it (overlaps, etc.). That may be causing the crashing problem. Instead draw a fresh new featureline.

 

Also try deleting the grading after you are done with it and see if that stops the crashing.

 

Lastly, look for steep slopes along the elevations of the base perimeter featureline. Steep slopes can cause rough triangulation. Rather than use a featureline for the base, consider making an alignment, sample the EG surface and design a profile that is a close fit, but smooth it with vertical curves and/or flatten the sharp grade breaks. Then generate a featureline from the alignment and profile to use for your surface.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 6 of 15
Postmaster_G
in reply to: Neilw_05

So here is what I have done to grade a mound from an irregular baseline:

 

1. Create the existing surface.

2. Draw the perimeter line.

3. Create a feature line from this and set the elevation to the existing surface

4. Adjust the elevations for drainage and to match my perimeter details.

5. Select the feature line and from the main modify tab choose the feature line fillet.

6. I set the radius at 10 meters and then chose "all".

7. I set the radius at 2 meters and then manually hit all the points that weren't picked up.

8. Since the topography varies along the line, I graded to an elevation just above the high point of my line at a 3:1 .

9. This created the grading as shown above except the NE corner did not have any holes in it, but the top feature line was still jagged. I extracted these contours for use later...

10. I explode this top feature line, then draw a new line (on the inside to avoid overly steep slopes) to clean up the edges. Set this line to the elevation used previously.

11. Create a feature line from this line but allow it to keep its own elevation.

12. Create an infill grading between the two lines. This worked pretty well, but in the NE corner, the grading ended up very flat, I wanted a nice corner so...

13. Take the lines extracted earlier and trim them so they can be used to fill in only the bad areas.

14. Add these lines to the surface as breaklines.

15. Grade from the top feature line to the desired top elevation.

16. A fairly good looking surface was created from this.

 

The only issue with this is that when I wanted to slightly adjust the toe of slope I couldn't just move the bottom featureline as the top one was not dynamic to this.

 

Looks ok though.  Thank you

 

-Meow
Message 7 of 15
Neilw_05
in reply to: Postmaster_G

Of course this workflow will not be dynamic as you've noted. If you need to adjust the baseline, again use the grading object as a guide to adjust the top featureline.

Neil Wilson (a.k.a. neilw)
AEC Collection/C3D 2024, LDT 2004, Power Civil v8i SS1
WIN 10 64 PRO

http://www.sec-landmgt.com
Message 8 of 15
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Postmaster_G

( haven't a chance to look at your drawing, but would suggest approaching theis like the irregular building pad tutorial.

You need to normalize the base line: offset a distance at 3:1 >> edit the offset to get rid of the jigs and jags with the filet command. leave the offeset in the same site and ad an infill the grade the offset to your final elevation
Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 9 of 15
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: Postmaster_G

Your criterior simply does not work with the geometry to avoid overlaps in the projection even upon some normalizing. Retaing wall would help

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 10 of 15
jmayo-EE
in reply to: Joe-Bouza

Gradings also work best projecting outward.

John Mayo

EESignature

Message 11 of 15
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: jmayo-EE

Excellent point. define the pad at 190 and grade to toe
Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 12 of 15
g_k50
in reply to: Postmaster_G

I like to create points at a slope/grade elevation, then add the points to the surface and regen.

Message 13 of 15
Postmaster_G
in reply to: g_k50

Thank you all for your advice!

 


@g_k50 wrote:

I like to create points at a slope/grade elevation, then add the points to the surface and regen.


I'm not sure what you mean

-Meow
Message 14 of 15
g_k50
in reply to: Postmaster_G

Instead of using polylines I create points that have an elevation and a X, Y position.  When creating points you can select the method of creation to be along a direction and a distance, the new point will be created at a certain elevation from the start point depending on how far away it is from the start point and the grade/slope desired.  The new points that are created in this manner can be added to the surface definition to fill in the contours without the problem of overlap and crunching found from using a grading object.  It's old school way of doing it, doing it by hand sort of.

Message 15 of 15
g_k50
in reply to: Postmaster_G

createpoints at the command line

sixth icon from the left drop down menu

 

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