Answer day - 3d polyline linetype

[steven.wheatley]

Hello,

I'm a Landscape Architect and I have a series of 3DFaces provided by the project civil engineer - these elements represent footpaths, roads, cycleways etc. These elements are sloping on various grades as one would expect.

I'd like to generate a 3D Polyline that forms a boundary around all the 3DFaces that form a section of road or footpath. I isolate the 3DFaces that I want and then I can manually use the 3DPOLY command to visit each external vertex and snap to the vertex.  This is quite time consuming, especially as the engineer may tweak the roads/cycle paths and I need to re-capture the boundaries.

Is there a caommand that can do this automatically? I've tried LINEWORKSHRINKWRAP but that doesn't seem to retain all the correct Z values for the external verticesto form the extents of the 3DFaces

In the attached images:

(a) Original 3DFACES = brown
(b) Manual trace using 3DPOLY = magenta
(c) LINEWORKSHRINKWRAP result = yellow

Finally, the reason I need these 3D boundaries (as a 3DPolyline) is because I link the result CAD in Revit and run a Dynamo script to create Floor elements.

I'm using Civil3D 2017.

Many thanks for reading this!

[lim.wendy · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

Would it work if you create a Civil3D surface from the 3D faces and then you can extract the border/boundary using the extract objects from surface feature?

[steven.wheatley]

Hello!  Thanks for your reply.   I think that might work.   Please can you give me a couple of hints to creating a new surface from the 3DFaces? And then what is the command to Extract the Objects?  We have a Civil3D licence but I don't really use it - I use Revit and AutoCad mainly.  Thank you.

[lim.wendy · Accepted solution]

Hey,

See the following video: 

[steven.wheatley]

Hello!  Thanks for the screencast.  It seems to do what I need - it's midnight now so I'll try it out tomorrow.

[BushW]

Hi @steven.wheatley

I just wanted to inform you that I’ve just accepted your reply to your post as a solution with the understanding that this a solution to your issue.

If @lim.wendy answer did not work as a solution, please reply to this message so, that I can unmark the solution, and we can continue the conversation. 

However, I wanted to point out that if the opportunity arises again, you can also click on the ‘Accept as Solution’ button if/when relevant so, that others can more easily benefit from the information. 

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns I am here to help!

[neilyj666]

@steven.wheatley rather than selecting the 3d faces to define your road/planting etc etc which is pretty tedious, select them all and use a simple polyline(s) as an Outer/Show/Hide Boundaries to trim to the desired shape.

I'd also mention that the Line work shrink wrap will only work on 3d Faces after they have been flattened to 2D (and optionally MAPCLEANed to remove the duplicate lines/vertices).

[steven.wheatley]

Hi Wendell,

Thanks for the kudos points.  Sorry for the delay, work and family commitments mean that I've only got around to looking at @lim.wendy 's video (thank you Lim).  Unfortunately either I'm not doing it right or something isn't working as I'd expect.   Firstly, the TIN misses out some of the 3DFaces that I selected and includes additional spurious triangles.  Then when I try to extract objects, only Triangles are available.  I've made a screencast below showing my steps.   Any other thoughts?

Kind regards

Steve

[steven.wheatley]

Hi there,

Thanks for your suggestion - I'm not sure I fully follow what you mean.  I isolate the 3Dfaces layers I'm interested in and then do a rectangle/marquee select around them so that's pretty straightforward.  I'm not sure what you mean by the "use a simple polyline(s) as an Outer/Show/Hide Boundaries to trim to the desired shape">  Please explain as it sounds promising!

Kind regards

Steve

[lim.wendy]

Hi Steve,

Can you post your dwg?

[neilyj666]

@steven.wheatley as you appear to have the 3D faces on relevant layers (e.g.FOOTWAY) then this is a good start but as suggested by @lim.wendy can you post the dwg?

[neilyj666]

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@steven.wheatley wrote:

Hi Wendell,

Thanks for the kudos points.  Sorry for the delay, work and family commitments mean that I've only got around to looking at @lim.wendy 's video (thank you Lim).  Unfortunately either I'm not doing it right or something isn't working as I'd expect.   Firstly, the TIN misses out some of the 3DFaces that I selected and includes additional spurious triangles.  Then when I try to extract objects, only Triangles are available.  I've made a screencast below showing my steps.   Any other thoughts?

---

@steven.wheatley ...you will need to have the Surface Border visible in your Surface Style before you can extract it.

[steven.wheatley]

Hi @lim.wendy @neilyj666  thanks for additional comments.  I have set the surface style and I can now see and extract the boundary, thank you.  The only remaining issue is that the TIN has introduced additional triangles, as mentioned previously.   I have uploaded the DWG.   

Many thanks

Steve

[steven.wheatley]

Hello Wendy.  Did you manage to have another look at the spurious surface result (ie 3dfaces not included and other in-fill triangles added) - I uploaded the DWG.

Kind regards

Steven

[BushW]

Hello @steven.wheatley

Not sure why you ended up with 3dface not included, and additional triangles added. When you created your surface, did you check Maintain edges from objects when you selected the 3Dfaces? I didn't see that happen in the video. By selecting that it should help with the edges. In addition, there might be some editing of the surface to get it the way you would like. Are your familiar with editing surfaces?

Please select the ‘Accept as Solution’ button if my post solves your issue or answers your question so, other Community members may benefit.

[steven.wheatley]

Hello,

many thanks for your suggestion - sorry for delay in replying - it's been half-term school holidays and I've been off.   So, I checked the "Maintain edges from objects" and I still get the same weird result.   

[BushW]

Hello @steven.wheatley

No worries. I'm currently reviewing the drawing, and I'm not sure why it's not maintaining the edges when you build the surface. I will have to get back with you on that but, what you can do is edit your surface by removing those additional triangles lines. Go to your Surface=>Definition=>Edits=>Rt. Click Delete Line. Hope this helps!

Best Regards,

Wendell