Finished Grade Contours

[wvu9494]

Once a finished grade surface is created is there a way to manually alter the contours?

[acoursen]

If you mean by adding more data, yes.   If you mean grip editing than no, unless you explode the surface a couple of times. This has been an on going debate for a while.  I'm in the camp where you add the sufficient information (such as feature lines or points) to adjust your contours to the desired requirements. 

[idmadcadder]

But exploding is so much easier!  Oh wait...that's why those guys don't work here anymore.

[Joe-Bouza]

Well in a way there kind-a-is away to grip edith contours:

once the surface is build you can extract the contours from the surface, add them back into the surface as contour data or feature lines and then you can push and pull as desired.

Joe

[acoursen]

Whose Edith Contours and does she mind getting gripped?

In the end your solution would seem to increase the overhead of a drawing unnecessarily.  Why not selectively, where needed, add feature lines that can be pushed and pulled as desired?

[wvu9494]

how do you extract contours?  Did civil 3d take away the ability to label 3d polylines or creat contours from 3d polylines?

[omc-usnr]

Ummm - yes & no.

You can create a SURFACE frome 3d polylines, and the surface is represented by the contours generated in that surface.  The 3d polylines are nothing but data in the surface now.

You can still lable them manually, they can still reside in your drawing, but they have nothing to do with the SURFACE unless you use them as part of the data set.

I think one thing people tend to forget - contours have ALWAYS been a representation of what a surface looks like, and have ALWAYS been a "best guess".  Accuracy has always depended on the underlying data (points), even if you are trying to draw them to +/-0.1'.  The SURFACE should always contro the contours, not the other way around.

Reid

[wvu9494]

You can pretty much do anything manually, but it seems to me that Civil 3D took away the ability to label 3D polylines and create contours from 3D polylines.  Looks like it is all done within the surface now.

I kinda disagree that the surface and not the contours represents the design.  Your contours that you manually draw to start off with are the basis of your design.  The surface is a representation of that and your model for calculations.  Your original contours and the surface should go hand in hand in representing your design.

[idmadcadder]

I agree.  Adding data whether it be points, feature lines, breaklines...this is the most accurate way to update your surface.  That's one thing I like about C3D, it keeps you honest.  I've worked with plenty of designers and engineers that always want to cheat the system by manually editing the contours to make them look right.  That might have worked back in the day when the grading contractor just looked at the plans.  But in this day and age when we send our surfaces to them to use in their equipment, it has to be dead on.  I believe this is a trend that will continue.

[omc-usnr]

You sound like my old boss.

Contours are only a representation of reality, and have always been just that.  The surface is what is "real".  In design, you can use "hand drawn" contours to help create "reality" in the form of a computer model or manually plotted points that a surveyor can use to stake out what you want, but the surface (reality) is what the guys in the field with the equipment are going to build.  If you go back out and resurvey the finished as-constructed project, will it exactly match your design?  Depends on what materials were used and the quality of the machines & crew doing the work.

reality?  "you measure it with a micrometer, and we cut it with a chainsaw".  (Quote from a field crew supervisor I used to work with.

[Sinc]

---

@Joe-Bouza wrote:

Well in a way there kind-a-is away to grip edith contours:

once the surface is build you can extract the contours from the surface, add them back into the surface as contour data or feature lines and then you can push and pull as desired.

Joe

---

Just keep in mind that, if you do this, you are adding data to your surface definition.  In other words, you are probably creating grade breaks when you do this, and may create other unwanted artifacts in your surface if you use this procedure unwisely.  The artifacts may not be apparent in contours, but may affect you if you use the surface for other things.

[wvu9494]

But, your contours, points, etc are your design.  When you sit down and design a site those are your tools.  A surface represents this design.

[Sinc]

---

@wvu9494 wrote:

I kinda disagree that the surface and not the contours represents the design.  Your contours that you manually draw to start off with are the basis of your design.  The surface is a representation of that and your model for calculations.  Your original contours and the surface should go hand in hand in representing your design.

---

You may want to change your process.  There isn't any real reason to start a design with hand-drawn contours, except force of habit.

[wvu9494]

Why would I want to change my proccess?  This is, and always has been the easist way to design a site.  You need to put concepts on paper and then translate them to your design software.  You should try it, might save you some time and you will get better accuracy

[idmadcadder]

I disagree.  We haven't manually drawn contours on paper since we transitioned over to C3D a few years ago.  There is no point, once you got that hand calculated data into C3D you would realize you wasted your time because seeing something on paper is a lot different then being in the model and working.  You can sit there and think, and draw, and erase, then you can get into your drawing and try and add all your data to create your surface to make your contours look like they did when you drew them on paper...or if your one of those users that still scans your concept and xrefs it in and traces over the contours to create the surface...ouch.  Getting the proper workflow is the key, but there should be no need to draw them by hand first anymore.

On a side note we had a guy here who would redline a grading plan that we created in C3D.  He would manually set all the spot elevations.  You could imagine the mess that creates if you created your surface out of manually calculated spot elevations.  I would love to see a grading plan that went out the door years ago and was created using spot elevations and contours that were hand calculated.  If you took that data and put it into C3D I could only imagine the mess it would look like, it would look nothing like the fancy presentation that the hand calculated data created.  And I'm sure the earthwork would be way off which brings up another great point, using the proper data to create your surface not only creates a tighter more accurate surface, but also gives you a lot more accurate data with regards to earthwork.

[Sinc]

---

@wvu9494 wrote:

Why would I want to change my proccess?  This is, and always has been the easist way to design a site.  You need to put concepts on paper and then translate them to your design software.  You should try it, might save you some time and you will get better accuracy

---

I HAVE tried it.  We used to have an old-school Engineer who did exactly what you're saying, and would draw something on paper and then hand that to someone to translate into Civil 3D.

The operable term here is that we "used to have" an Engineer who worked this way.  He'd still have a job if he had learned Civil 3D.

We find it much faster and easier to create better designs by simply using the software, and forgetting about starting on paper.  Not only is it much easier to try lots of options, it's easier to balance site quantities, and all in all works much better.

[wvu9494]

What industry do you guys work in to make comments like "we USED TO have an engineer that put stuff on paper to be translated into AutoCad"?  That is an insane and compeltely laughable comment.  I hope you are kidding.  Yes Civil 3D is a very powerful tool , but to get an effective design there is nothing better then having a 22x34 print in front of you of the survey with your site plan to sketch by hand a concept design of the site to be refined once you get to autocad.

No, if you are designing a subdivision you will not design road grades and profiles by hand anymore.  But there are many instances that nothing beats sketching out a design concept first.  Industry wide this is still done and redlines are given to designers.

[idmadcadder]

With this awesome economy there are downsizing.  If you had to pick between someone that could do the whole design in the computer, or someone that did it on paper but not in the computer...you'd have to pick which person "used to be here".  There is a perk to that "used to be here" guy, he can now get free training on Civil 3D from a few different sources.  Although if he doesn't, then when the economy flips, he still won't be anywhere.

[idmadcadder]

Found this link that Dana had posted a while back.  This may apply to this situation.  Rethinking your Approach: Clay Model vs Stone Sculpture

[jmayo-EE]

I don't agree with that either. I have done the redlined plans for a number of years.

It is much faster for me to take the 2d buildings, drives, etc, convert to FL & assign critical elevations. Level FL slopes where needed & then look at the contours produced. I place walls where contours bunch, use a pline or two if I need to fill & flip some triangles. If the contours do not look good I add a few plines for effect. I don't have to add the plines to smooth the contours very often. Flipping triangles can do wonders to smooth contours to. A simple 1ac residential lot for a subdivision or small commercial lot can take 10-15 minutes to complete with 5 to ten feature lines depending on the level of detail required.

John Mayo, PE