Issues with adding contours to a surface

[thomas.looney]

Hi, I am having issues with adding the contours when defining a surface. The program has frozen multiple times, even tried downloading civil 3D over again. I have tried doing exploding and joining which i think was reccommended in an other post. Any help would be much appreciated. I have attached a screenshot of the issue and the drawing. Thanks

[hippe013]

It appears that you are using splines for contours and adding those as contour data. Try converting the splines to regular polylines. It also appears that you are adding / supplementing data upon adding the contour data. Is this the case? Your surface has a massive triangle count. I don't think that you need this many and may be the reason for the crashing.

[thomas.looney]

To be honest I have tried changing the splines to polylines and is still crashing! Im not sure how you mean by adding data I dont think I am. I just want to create a surface to define the contours and be able to proceed with my project. I am unaware of the issue and am looking to get it resolved asap! Thanks for your reply

[hippe013]

Are you just looking to have a surface created using the blue and the gray contours? 

[thomas.looney]

Just the blue contours, the grey lines are powerlines and boundaries etc I do not need to define them as contours!

[hippe013]

In trying to re-build your surface there are a couple things that I am noticing. It appears that the drawing is intended to be in meters. Is this correct? The distance from one contour to the next is 1000 units. So are you really using millimeters as the unit? If so, when adding the contours as data is it possible that it is supplementing too much data? And also, the style will think that it should draw a contour at every 2 meters, but in reality it is drawing a contour at every 2 millimeters. Yeah, my computer is crying too!

[hippe013]

Successful build of your surface. Notice the surface style.

[thomas.looney]

yes i was told to have it in millimetres and then scale 1:1000 when applying to sheets at a later stage! I understand about the contours and maybe applying too much data! If you think changing measurements to matres would benefit the drawing work with it please! This would be such a relief to get past this! Thanks very much for your help it is much appreciated if you were able to create a surface! 

[thomas.looney]

Would you be able to email me the file with the completed surface? please and thanks! @hippe013 

[hippe013]

I understand that if you were told to leave it in millimeters and then scale to sheets later then that is what you have to do. Although I would highly recommend not doing that, and I personally would have had a hard time with following that order. As far as Civil 3D is concerned you have a thousand meters between contours and is trying draw all of those contours.  And furthermore when you add the contours and you use the default, you are supplementing data every 100mm with a mid-ordinate distance of 1mm. 

I have attached a LandXML file of your surface. I cranked up the supplementing factor to reduce data. You will need to verify the accuracy and also trim out the triangles that you don't want. I hope that this helps.

[thomas.looney]

Thanks very much @hippe013 . I should have no problem in converting this document back into civil 3D and continuing work on it should i?

[hippe013]

Super easy to import landxml. You can delete your surface in your drawing and then import the landxml that I sent you. Make sure to set your surface style contour interval to 1000m / 5000m or greater, prior to import. 

[thomas.looney]

I have imported your landXML but as seen in the photo I was hoping you would be able to define the contours also aswell as creating a surface if that would be possible? Do you think you would be able to do this for me? Im not able to proceed to label the contours or do a slope analysis with the model you have sent me! Any help would be great

[hippe013]

What you are seeing are the break-lines that get imported with the surface. You need to set your surface style to show the contours. Put those breaklines (contours) on its own layer and freeze that. Then edit your surface style to show contours. Make sure that the contour interval is set to what I told you earlier prior to displaying the contours. I assure you, what I sent you is a full working Civil 3D Surface.

[thomas.looney]

Okay thanks any more issues I will get back to you! thanks very much for your help

[hippe013]

[hippe013]

Feel free to mark this as a solution found if all of your issues have been resolved.

regards,

[thomas.looney]

Just a query, when i click on one contour line shouldnt all contours highlight together as one?

[hippe013]

Yes! 
Freeze all individual contours. Place the surface object on its own layer. Have the surface display it’s contours using the surface style. When you select one contour it will select the entire surface as a whole. 

[thomas.looney]

Im sorry can you go into more detail maybe in how can i do this. Placing the surface object on its own layer? i dont understand...some pictures and description would be great help! Im very new to all this apologies. Thanks for your patience!