Simple Lidar Surface Clipping

[GreeneSWCD]

I've been downloading whole tiles from OSIP for lidar surfaces.  I've been using the grid files, and they work great.  But, I don't really need an entire tile while working in my drawing, and I'd like to clip just my area of interest out of the tile.  What is the fastest way to do this? These whole tiles are data hogs, and I fear they are slowing me down.  Any info would be great. 

I used to have a computer at my old job that wouldn't slow at all using this stuff, so I haven't had a reason to learn how to do this until now when i'm forced to work on a laptop. 

Thanks.

[rkmcswain]

Are you creating a C3D surface from the lidar data?
If so, I use "Create Cropped Surface" to do this.

[GreeneSWCD]

I am creating surfaces from the lidar data. How exactly do you go about doing that? I'm in 2010.

[GreeneSWCD]

I just cropped it using boundary under the surface definition. It looks great. But, now it saves sooooo slowly. Are the two processes linked? Is there a better way of doing this? maybe "create cropped surface" is better? If so, I need more info. Thanks.

[rkmcswain]

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@GreeneSWCD wrote:
I just cropped it using boundary under the surface definition. It looks great. 

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That just applies a "hide" boundary, and doesn't actually crop the surface.

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@GreeneSWCD wrote:
Is there a better way of doing this? maybe "create cropped surface" is better? If so, I need more info. Thanks.

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The command name is AECCCREATECROPSURFACE
-or-

Ribbon>Modify>Surface>Surface Tools>Create Cropped Surface

[antoniovinci]

If you are in a hurry, upload somewhere the .LAS file + the .DXF clipping boundary, so that I could crop it by means of my opensource toolbox (una tantum...)

[GreeneSWCD]

Man, thanks for the offer! But I'm not in a hurry, per say, and this is something I could use in just about all my jobs of this type.

[GreeneSWCD]

Is that aeccreatecropsurface command found in 2010?  I don't have it under "surface tools." 

Also, when I just type that command in, and then go to select my surface, the DEM surface doesn't appear in the list of surfaces that I can crop.  I have two other surfaces in the project, and both of those do show up in the list though, so I know the command is working.  It's just not working on the surface that I want it too. 

I created this surface by using: surface/create surface from DEM 

The data I used is from an .ADF file, not a .LAS file.  I don't know if this matters? 

[jon_b]

You should be able to create a cropped surface with a data clip boundary as per the link below that will only read in the data you need.  If you add a snapshot to the surface afterwards it won't need to re-read the source files when you open the file again but it will make the drawing's size larger.

http://docs.autodesk.com/CIVIL/2010/ENU/AutoCAD%20Civil%202010%20User%20Documentation/index.html?url...

[tdegois · Accepted solution]

If you know/have your boundary outline already, create a blank surface, then add the boundary as a data clip first before adding the lidar data. This is so that when importing the lidar data, it will only read whats inside the boundary.