Surface Consolidation

[csevers]

I created a surface by combining two other surfaces. How can I remove the surfaces I created the new surface from out of my drawing without losing my new surface. Thanks.

[sirjoelsph]

Just to confirm what you're looking for - You had 2 surfaces in your drawing to start with (1 and 2) and pasted those into another surface (3) and you now want to delete surfaces 1 and 2?  Doing so will ruin surface 3 if you ever rebuilt it.

You could take a snapshot of surface 3 and it will remember its current condition but would no longer be dynamic or editable.  You could also export surface 3 to LandXML, delete all of your surfaces, and then import the LandXML for a fresh surface.  LandXML will probably give you the best results.

[csevers]

Yeah I want to get rid of the original surfaces to cut down the size of my file. I had to merge two surfaces together to craete a larger surface for my project. I have a bunch of other sheets referencing the 3rd surface so I don't want to craete a new one and lose the dynamic links.

[sirjoelsph]

As long as your sheets are only referencing the 3rd surface, the file size of the sheets themselves will not be affected by getting rid of the 1st and 2nd surfaces.  You would be able to cut down the size of the file with the 3 surfaces in them, but not by a considerable amount.

A better way to cut down the file size is to simplify the data that is being displayed by each surface.  Edit your styles so that the bare minimum number of components are visible (don't just freeze the layers, turn off the visibility in the styles, in all 3 view directions).  The simpler the style, the less data that is actually stored in the drawing.

[Joe-Bouza]

Snap shot is a Best practices recommendation

[BrianHailey]

---

@sirjoelsph wrote:

The simpler the style, the less data that is actually stored in the drawing.

---

This isn't necessarily true. Changing the style of the surface only changes the display of the surface, not any data in the file.

However, if proxygraphics are turned on in the drawing, when you save the drawing, an "image" of the civil 3d objects are also saved. The more complex the display of the objects, the larger the "proxy graphic" is.

[sirjoelsph]

Thanks Brian, that's exactly what I was trying to get at.  Thanks for pointing out that it is ProxyGraphics controlling that.

[KirkNoonan]

You might also try setting the 'Copy deleted dependent objects' in the definition to YES. It works with all of the other objects that can be used to define a surface