topic Re: Coverage - Backfill in InfraWorks Forum

Coverage - Backfill

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 17:37:12 GMT

I have imported part of a C3D file to help shape the InfraWorks model. We are placing a water tank up here within the hillside.

The plan is to eventually backfill the site within the blue circle and bury part of the water tank. Any ideas on how I can manipulate the terrain

to basically keep the road and water tank position in place while using coverages or something else to bury it?

The marketing team is freaking out over the size of the cut, but that's why we are placing the blue circle overlay lines to communicate the area to be backfilled. I guess they are trying to avoid those extra comments of "now that's a big cut in the hill" if you know what I mean.

I don't think this is doable as I have tried several different things, but thought I would throw this out to the community just in case someone has done this type of thing before.

Thoughts?

Re: Coverage - Backfill

JasonArtley — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:43:41 GMT

That is quite the cut indeed! I haven't encountered anything that drastic, but I believe it is possible to smooth it out a bit. Try placing a circular land area under the tank. You can manipulate the grading of the land area to reduce side slopes, which should smooth out the cut. You could try adding a custom barrier/retaining wall as well.

Re: Coverage - Backfill

Karsten.Saenger — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 07:44:29 GMT

Hi @Anonymous

it is actually not possible to add additional terrain on top of the water tank. A surface/terrain is always considered to be the top "layer" where other features are placed on.

I can imagine that it is possible to create a 3D solid representation of the part of terrain that is supposed to cover the tank and import it as 3D model.

Generally the same workflow is used to import results from the Civil 3D Geotechnical Module to display underground layers, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVeTEvGPWhI

Regards,

Karsten.

Re: Coverage - Backfill

elliott.rosenfeld — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 15:59:08 GMT

Another option for a workaround would be to sketch a building (or import a SHP footprint) in the cut area, and assign terrain materials to the building's roof. You could also increase building facade detail to high and apply terrain materials to all of the building's facades, or individual faces, including using a transparent facade style if you'd like. This is actually an interesting trick that can also be used for quick flood plain simulations, as well as roughly simulation an animated waterfall as well.

Thanks!

In the image below, I applied the water shader style to the building's roof, and one facade face, so that it appears as if the water is flowing off a waterfall.

Re: Coverage - Backfill

elliott.rosenfeld — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 15:27:38 GMT

I did a little bit of experimenting, and didn't find a perfect solution, but here are a few tricks that may help.

1) Draw or import a coverage and shape terrain to create your cut, then change Smooth Radius value for the coverage to .5 meters in the Stack, to reduce the side slope extent. Then import your civil3D water tank into the model. (you can see I sketched a building to approximate the water tank.)

2) Sketch a building around the cut and bring the roof up to the top of the cut (this will look better if your underlying terrain is flat.) Change the roof material to a terrain or land area material that represents your backfill.

3)You can see from the side view that my backfill building object is draped to the top of my initial building. However, I don't think you will have that issue using an object from Civil instead. Hope this helps!

4) If I use a city furniture water tank object and then create a building with a terrain material for its facades and roof material, this looks a little better for your scenario.. kinda..