Everytime I go through the trouble of making a dynamic surface I get griped at because my contours look like crap, so my boss redraws everything and uses Carlson since his contours are nice and straignt. I attached a few screenshots of the two compared with each other. I have tried smoothing using the NNI the contours smoothed.jpg actually added 13,000+ more points. The only way I've been able to get my conours to look as good as his is to use polylines and add them to my surface as contours. This just defeats the purpose of a dynamic surface though. Is there any way I can decrease the vertices of the contours so the wil straighten up, or tell them to only hold to breaklines?
It's an age old problem. I typically do as you do, add some hand drawn contours to smooth the rough areas. I think it's a better solution than smoothing the surface which adds more processing overhead. If the design changes you have to remove the contours to see where the unaltered new contours lie, then adjust their position and re-add. In case you weren't aware, we can now use splines as contour data so that simplifies the process of drawing and moving contours.
There is no way to adjust the number of vertices on contours that are part of a surface. The only control you have is to adjust the interval of interpolated vertices on brealines when you add them to a surface.
How does Carlson do it? Does he have to draw contours?
I took a closer look at your screen capture and something doesn't look right in your C3D contours. I don't understand why they are bowed like that vs. the straight Carlson contours. I'm also surprised to see how dense your TIN is. Do you typically apply a supplementing interval that dense on your breaklines or did you do that in your efforts to correct the contours?
I'll need your data to troubleshoot the problem. If you can clip out a portion of your model and post it I'll evaluate it.
neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Apparently he draws his contours by hand because he thinks Carlson's contours are too crooked also. So I'm not as aggravitated at the software as much as I was then. I do the supplements sometimes to help straighten the contours. I did it that time just to show that I was using that feature. I will just keep on keeping on adding the polylines and splines for my contours then.
Your last post clears things up a lot. I was going to ask it the tin lines looked the same in Carlson as they did in your screen shot.
I have found that adding additional points many times causes the contours to bow and/or get jagged. This is situational and in some cases adding points helps. For roadways though I find fewer points arranged in sections perpendicular to the alignment produces the best results.
If he is hand drawing his contours in Carlson then what is he gaining be re-doing everything?
Typically I only see jagged contours in cases where there are large spans/areas between breaklines. From your screen capture it seems there should not be that problem. I am especially puzzled about that bowing effect.
I do think it is due to the high density of TIN lines you have. What happens if you reduce the supplement factor on your breaklines to maybe 5'?
Joe Bouza
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You definately have a dense TIN. how did the feature lines get defined?
I would start with sparse data and intensify as things evolve (I would hold off adding elevation points). you can always remove from surface def ans re add with suplimenting changes until you fine the right balance.
Joe Bouza
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Why are the contours from the two different products not intersecting at the same place on the breakline below. Does the Carlson model include this as breakline data?
It would be relevant in your exercise to compare the Carlson triangulation.
The Carlson Tin isn't the same as the Civil Tin I should have got a copy of the tin also not just a few contours, but I didn't. I was adding supplemental points to try and get straighter contours. I usually start with no supplemental points and add breaklines in a few at a time in case I need to make changes. The contours only slightly straighten without the supplemental points, sometimes they straighten up with more though.
Adding more points and triangles typically won't make contours straighter, it will make them have more bumps as a new vertex is added to the contour at every triangle edge.
I would suggest looking at the two TIN files and figure out what is different there.
Peter Funk
Autodesk, Inc.
Who ever drew the "straight" Carlson contours ignored the breakline in the area I circled, and has now created a Bust in the grading.
This breakline may be a Top or Toe of some type of pad for instance.
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