Recreating a Profile

[dlopes]

Hello,

I work at a construction company assiting and layout and survey. I'm fairly new to Civil 3D as our main surveyor uses

Carlson, but he's thinking about moving to Civil 3D so i'm kind of trying to learn it so then I can teach him.

Anyways, we get CAD files for jobs. Most times the DWG's do not contain points with elevations or the proposed TIN.

We have to essentially recreate the job in order to get layout points with elevations. Sometimes we are lucky and

get the Cross Sections DWG and the Profile DWG. My question is how do I recreate the profile in my model file.

Is there a away I can import it and retrace it? I've tried the create profile from file and it doesn't seem to work.

Does anyone else do this or essentially know how I can recreate the design profile?

Thanks

[KirkNoonan]

So when you get the dwg files, the AECC objects have been exploded? It would seem to me that the design firm should be happy to give you C3D or XML data if you asked. There is much less room for error there. In order to re-create the profile, you will first need to re-create the alignment with the same stationing as the design. If you copied the profile from the design plan into a new draing and moved ti so that the station and elevation values of the prifile view matched the X-Y coordinates in the drawing, then you could list the vertices of the profile out of the provided drawing into a file and create a new profile in your stakeout drawing based on your alignment from that file.

If you are grading lots or rough grade earthworks, this will probably be accurate enough. Anything else, I would be very careful, as there is a lot of room for error.

Kirk

[dlopes]

Yes the AECC has been exploded. Unfortunatly for this specific job the engineering firm is out of business, but in the future I will try that.

I usually do recreate the alignment, but how to I go about recreating the design profile without having an existing surface?

[KirkNoonan]

You will have to use the create profile from file to create the profile using the coordinate file that yuo get from the method that I described. There are other methods, but this is quickest for me.

[jmayo-EE]

Assuming you have linework for the profile, Take the linework for the alignment and convert it to an alignment. Draw a profile view, edit the elevation range to match the profile sent to you. Create a layout profile in that view tracing over the linework sent to you. To get 3d objects in plan, build a simple corridor with a marked point assembly. Extract the centerline feature line from the corridor or from the profile style and use Feature lines to recreate OR recreate the cross section provided and model the full corridor. There is also a free util from Autodesk labs that take simple cross sections and make a surface.

[dlopes]

Thanks that does sound doable, do you happen to know the name of the autodesk lab plugin?

[jmayo-EE]

xsect2surf.exe I gotta tell you Google isn't finding it too easily...

[dlopes]

ah yes i've actually seen it, only downside is it only works with 2012/13 which we have but if we upgrade that will be lost