Surfaces - Boundaries vs Deleting Lines

[Steenix]

After adding countless "hide" boundaries to the outer edges of my surface where I don't want to see triangles, I finally discovered the "delete lines" surface edit. I absolutely love it, but I don't want to just rush forth and only use that command from now on before doing a bit of research.

I haven't found anything that suggests using one method over the other - has anyone experienced otherwise? This just seems too good to be true.

Thanks in advance,

Austin

[johngordon6189]

why not generate a closed polyline that crosses all the lines that you don't want to see and make that a boundary? That would save you the time of having to add multiple boundaries or performing a lot of extra edits to the surface. John

[neilyj666 · Accepted solution]

If you are talking about the triangles that span across concave area at the outer boundary of the surface then deleting lines is the way to go. There are other techniques for other situations as well e.g adding a hide boundary and then adding show boundaries. In your situation I'd delete the extraneous lines until the outer boundary was correct and then I would extract that boundary. Then go into the surface definition and delete all the edits that deleted lines. Then add the surface boundary back as an outer boundary. This keeps the surface definition clean.

[sboon]

Why not just use an outer boundary?  That's what they're for.

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

[neilyj666]

 This can be a speedy technique in certain circumstances - as I mentioned there are a few techniques that work.

Additionally the max triangle constraint can also work but with mixed results sometimes.

[jmayo-EE]

"This keeps the surface definition clean."

I agree with Neil. A large number of surface edits are cumbersome to manage in a surface definition. Most of them will be outdated at some point (red warning icon in surface definition, order of operations list), remain in the surface & be still computed with every rebuild...even if there is no data to perform the edit. 

[jmayo-EE]

There is also the max triangle method but that can leave holes in a surface. Show the surface borders in the style to see if interior holes get created.

http://www.civil4d.com/2010/01/max-triangle-length-to-make-srf-bndy/

[mathewkol]

And don't forget the new max angle setting. It works pretty well in many situations.

[Steenix]

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@neilyj666 wrote:
If you are talking about the triangles that span across concave area at the outer boundary of the surface then deleting lines is the way to go. There are other techniques for other situations as well e.g adding a hide boundary and then adding show boundaries. In your situation I'd delete the extraneous lines until the outer boundary was correct and then I would extract that boundary. Then go into the surface definition and delete all the edits that deleted lines. Then add the surface boundary back as an outer boundary. This keeps the surface definition clean.

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This is a fantastic idea! I can't believe I'd never thought of it.

Thank you everyone for all your input, I really appreciate it. You guys are great!

[Steenix]

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@jmayo wrote:

There is also the max triangle method but that can leave holes in a surface. Show the surface borders in the style to see if interior holes get created.

http://www.civil4d.com/2010/01/max-triangle-length-to-make-srf-bndy/

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I very briefly tried using max triangle length edits, but I am working on a rather large surface for a subdevelopment so it ended up creating some nasty holes. Thanks for the tip, though!

[wendyloui]

I delete lines when I have just a few.  It's a little quicker and I don't have to worry about some deleting my boundary line, especially if there are only a few areas that are a problem.  If I use one boundary line for the outer boundary I make sure that I use "non-distructive breaklines" and I try to be careful about the layer that the boundary is on.  I make sure that I'm using the "outer" boundary type.  I use "hide" boundaries for interior areas where I don't want contours or elevation data to show up.

Wendy

[Joe-Bouza]

I use a solid display style and play with the number till Im close ( usually is good enough) sometimes Ill extract that boundary, tweak it and add it back for the final

[jmayo-EE]

While we're on the topic, if u get holes in the surface, extract the boundaries and add all of the interior 3d plines as show boundaries for a very quick fix.

[neilyj666]

This is a great tip

[jmayo-EE]

Thanks Neil. HTH