Surface Label, avarage elevation

[martin_sabel]

Hi!

I have a problem when I placing elevation labels on an existing ground surface.

My ground surfaces is based on a laser scanning so I have a high point density. This allows elevations may vary up to 3-5 dm on a smaller area.

So I was wondering if anyone knows any way to place elevation labels that show the average elevations of a circle .... with, say, 2,5 m radius?

I work in Autocad Civil 3D 2012

[Nik-D]

can you not simplify your surface?

[rendarin]

Well you could change the precision. If I understand correctly, by dm you mean decimeter?
Instead of having the label show "165.26", change it to something with lower precision like "~165"

Or you could just use contours.

[AllenJessup]

I don't know of any way to create a Label Style that would average the elevations within a certain radius. I thought you might be able to create multiple copies of the surface with a circular boundary for your region and take the mean. But I don't see any way to include that in an Expression. So even that would have to be done manually.

Allen Jessup

[martin_sabel]

Tried it but it made little difference. Though it might require that I simplify even more. But then the problem is that I lose information. I just want to label itself to "simplify" the area around it.
If I change precision takes it does not include the nearby elevations.

But it feels like it is not possible ...

I will go on simplifying and smooth the surface and hope for the best

[AllenJessup]

Coming from a Surveying perspective. I'd say: If you need more accurate data then you need more accurate data. Not to massage the data that you have until it looks like more accurate data. I understand that sometimes you're told to work with what you're got. But that often leads to having to explain why there actually are differences in your design vs. what's actually out there.

Allen

[mathewkol]

What are you designing and how many points show up within that 2.5m radius before and after your "simplification"?  The reaon I ask is that for every Civil project I've worked on that was scanned, I've thrown out most of the scan data so that it's actually usable in Civil 3D.  In fact, 2.5m is about the spacing I try to weed the data down to, depending on the terrain it could be 10m or 1m.  I know we've paid for all those points, but it's not the quantity, it's the quality and placement of those points.  If a survey crew did the survey, you'd have a fraction of the data and the project wouuld still get done accurately.

Dana Probert wrote an article about large data sets and she speaks to this point (no pun intended) on page 8.  

That said, I don't know what kind of project you're working on, which is why I asked earlier.  Maybe you do need 100 points within that 2.5m radius, but I have a feeling you don't.