Creating contours and breaklines

[invent_CADgal]

Okay, I am relatively new to Land Development Desktop. I'm trained in mechanical but working in civil drafting. I'm working with release 2 by the way.

I'm trying to teach myself how to make contours on a plan since we can't teach ourselves this stuff on company time even though we need it to do our jobs... I think it has something to do with breaklines but I'm not sure. I don't know how to create breaklines or contours at all. Any advice or path to follow would be extraordinary right now as I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure this out with no program or book in front of me. I've read other postings here but I couldn't figure out what exactly I was looking for, seeing as I'm working with LDD R2.
Could someone please explain what breaklines do, how to make them, and how to make contours?
Thanks so much in advance

[Anonymous]

First let me say your boss is an a$$. How can he expect you to do a job
without the proper training. I would really like not to answer this to
hopefully force the instruction to happen, but I know what you're going
through and it probably wouldn't happen anyway. Ok, there's my rant...on to
the problem.

You should be able to use the online help files for clarification of any of
the following items. Try the tutorials for how to create a surface. This
should tell you a bunch about breaklines too. I think they had tutorials
back in R2.

First you need to have a surface (TIN, or DTM) built. To do this you need
3D data in the form of:
a) survey points
b) 3d lines / polylines
c) existing contours
and many others

Breaklines are applied to a surface to tell the software where there are
physical breaks in the grade of the ground. The top or bottom edge of an
embankment would be an example. Another would be the centreline of a road.
Breaklines aren't related to contours, but they sure affect how they look if
they aren't applied to the surface properly.
Breaklines can be 2d or 3d. If you use 2d polylines connected from point to
point, this creates a Proximity Breakline. Land Desktop gets the proper
elevation from the point data. 3D breaklines, or Standard Breaklines are
created using 3dpolylines or 3d lines. They do not have to be connected
with points. Land Desktop gets the proper elevations from the vertecies of
each segment.

Once the surface has been created, click the Surfaces (or Terrain - I can't
remember...it's been a while sonce R2) and Import Contours.

That's about all I can say. Without either formal training or some serious
tutorial time, Land Desktop iss not the easiest software for someone to just
pick up. Especially if they aren't starting with a Civil background.

Good Luck,
Matt

[Anonymous]

Just to add to what Matt said.

You can imagine the purpose of breaklines being to prevent the software from
calculating elevations between points that are separated by a break in
grade. Imagine you have a point on an embankment adjacent to a road. Unless
you have a bottom of bank or an edge of pavement breakline. The software
might interpolate between the tree and a gas valve on the far side of the
road.

Also as Matt said. You can have many different sources for your Z data. In
my work the most common are: 3D points from survey work in the field and
breaklines created between those points for Existing surfaces; proposed
surfaces I do completely from 3D Polylines that I define as Breaklines.

If you have to devote your own time to learning this. Try to do some of the
tutorials during lunch.

BTW I agree with Matt's assessment of your boss. No OTJ training and still
using R3. Either he isn't a very good businessman or he's very greedy.

Allen

"Matt Kolberg" wrote in message
news:5423708@discussion.autodesk.com...
First let me say your boss is an a$$. How can he expect you to do a job
without the proper training. I would really like not to answer this to
hopefully force the instruction to happen, but I know what you're going
through and it probably wouldn't happen anyway. Ok, there's my rant...on to
the problem.

You should be able to use the online help files for clarification of any of
the following items. Try the tutorials for how to create a surface. This
should tell you a bunch about breaklines too. I think they had tutorials
back in R2.

First you need to have a surface (TIN, or DTM) built. To do this you need
3D data in the form of:
a) survey points
b) 3d lines / polylines
c) existing contours
and many others

Breaklines are applied to a surface to tell the software where there are
physical breaks in the grade of the ground. The top or bottom edge of an
embankment would be an example. Another would be the centreline of a road.
Breaklines aren't related to contours, but they sure affect how they look if
they aren't applied to the surface properly.
Breaklines can be 2d or 3d. If you use 2d polylines connected from point to
point, this creates a Proximity Breakline. Land Desktop gets the proper
elevation from the point data. 3D breaklines, or Standard Breaklines are
created using 3dpolylines or 3d lines. They do not have to be connected
with points. Land Desktop gets the proper elevations from the vertecies of
each segment.

Once the surface has been created, click the Surfaces (or Terrain - I can't
remember...it's been a while sonce R2) and Import Contours.

That's about all I can say. Without either formal training or some serious
tutorial time, Land Desktop iss not the easiest software for someone to just
pick up. Especially if they aren't starting with a Civil background.

Good Luck,
Matt

[annw2]

Or he could be very broke. I worked at a place once where a client stiffed the smallfirm for $1,000,000 of fees. They were climbing out of bankruptcy & fines for back payments of taxes exceeded computer budget.