volume from surfaces

[acherry]

i'm jumping into 3d late in life...playing with volumes. i've created surfaces from aerial surveys and have saved the surfaces as separate files. i would now like to run volumes of the two as they represent the same quarry site from different years. it appears (?) i need to have both surfaces listed in prospector to run volumes. each separate file has its own surface listed. question...how do i get (import?) the second surface drawing into one of the files so i have both listed and can run volumes? i see where i can create a surface from importing a .tin file...but i don't see how to export the surface as a .tin file. hoping one of you jockeys can provide assistance. thanks in advance!

[sboon]

Both surfaces have to be in the same drawing in order to be able to do volumes.  In your case the surfaces were created in separate drawings.  Civil 3d has a tool called a data shortcut (also known as a DRef) which is similar to an XRef but specifically for Civil 3d data.  There is a series of tutorials available to show you how to set up and use them.

http://docs.autodesk.com/CIV3D/2012/ENU/filesCTU/GUID-68AC7599-F635-4391-9F9A-6E9EF96F9ED-102.htm

[neilyj666]

As might be expected there are multitudinous ways to achieve the same thing in Civil 3D - the route you take depends on what you want to do with the data etc.

Whilst data shortcuts are useful in many situations (and remain dynamic to the originals) they do need to be set up correctly and if this is just a one off calculation, then exporting via XML and importing the XML may be simpler.

You can also extract the 3D triangles from one drawing and copy/paste them into the other drawing and then build a surface from these triangles.

I'm not sure that C3D supports the export of .TIN files (may be wrong) but in short data shortcuts retain the dynamic data links whillst the other methods do not.

[acherry]

Thanks for your response. I'll view the tutorials.

[acherry]

Thank you! the simple solution WAS to export the surface as an .xml file and then to import it into the 2012 surface. This 3d stuff is pretty cool. Now I'm off to corridors. Thanks again!