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Import Civil 3D surface without draping existing aerial

7 REPLIES 7
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Message 1 of 8
tmullins
1106 Views, 7 Replies

Import Civil 3D surface without draping existing aerial

I have a Civil 3D surface of a levee. I can import that into Infraworks but it is recognized as terrain, so it is merged into the existing terrain (DEM) that I am using so the existing aerials are being draped over the Civil 3D surface as well. I don't want that to happen. My Civil 3D surface is proposed, new, not existing. Why should it be merged into the exiting ground?

 

I have tried bringing it in as an .imx file and LandXML, with the same results. I don't want this to happen.

 

The effect I want is like what used to happen when exporting to Google Earth. I want to see a grass covered levee (from my Civil 3D surface) over my existing ground with the aerial image underneath (the aerial obviously not visible in those areas).

 

This seems like it should be pretty simple but I'm missing something apparently. Please tell me this is possible!

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
tcorey
in reply to: tmullins

That's the way InfraWorks handles terrains.

 

What you can do is import your terrain and then draw a Land Coverage over it. You can apply a style to the land coverage to get the look you want and as long as you don't edit its vertices it will drape over your design surface (and OG if you draw it out that far.)

 

Best regards,

 

Tim



Tim Corey
MicroCAD Training and Consulting, Inc.
Redding, CA
Autodesk Gold Reseller

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. -- Kurt Vonnegut
Message 3 of 8
BrianHailey
in reply to: tmullins

I suppose you can convert the Civil 3D surface to a solid and then import that as city furniture. Haven't tried it but it might work. I wouldn't do that for a complex surface though.

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 4 of 8
tmullins
in reply to: BrianHailey

Thanks for the responses. I'll give one of them a shot soon.

 

Am I just looking at this the wrong way or does this not seem like something that should be a very simple and often used task? Everything we design in C3D is not a corridor that can be imported. We use various surfaces for design features actually way more than corridors. Shouldn't we be able to simply import a C3D surface and have it display? That just seems to me like a very basic and often used task that I assumed that InfraWorks without any doubt would be able to do, without first converting it to this, then converting to that....how about "import surface" hey look, there it is!

 

I'm too simple I guess.

Message 5 of 8
neilyj666
in reply to: tmullins

Have a kudo for this...!!!

Based on Tim's suggestion above, my workflow is to extract the boundaries of the proposed surfaces I want to show and export as sdf then import to IW as land coverages; this way ensures only the area of interest is identified - it works very well but with several additional steps that really shouldn't be necessary but are to get the look I want

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 6 of 8
tcorey
in reply to: neilyj666

Yes, it would be nice if you could apply a style to any imported surfaces, allowing differentiation. Alas, not at this time.



Tim Corey
MicroCAD Training and Consulting, Inc.
Redding, CA
Autodesk Gold Reseller

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. -- Kurt Vonnegut
Message 7 of 8
neilyj666
in reply to: tcorey

Let's hope that one is at the top of the development list....and not just for the 360 version....Smiley Happy

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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AEC Collection 2024 UKIE (mainly Civil 3D UKIE and IW)
Win 11 Pro x64, 1Tb Primary SSD, 1Tb Secondary SSD
64Gb RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.2GHz
NVIDIA RTX A5000 16Gb, Dual 27" Monitor, Dell Inspiron 7760
Message 8 of 8
bcarriere
in reply to: neilyj666

Neil, can you share the additional steps you took?

I have been tasked to do this same thing this weekend, and I have to present on Monday. I have to build a living wall for shoreline stabilization.

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