Contour Lines Crossing and Bleeding Out of Surface Boundary

[jregier2KUWA]

Hello all,

I'm a beginner Civil 3D user, and am trying to learn how to generate contours. I've managed to create a surface and generate contour lines, but I have multiple problem areas - all of which are at high and low spots. Contour lines are crossing each other as shown and even sticking out of my surface's boundary, as shown in the images below. 

Any advice? 

[LucasHicks]

If you can post the dwg file I'm sure someone on here will have a answer in not time.

[jregier2KUWA]

Thanks, the file is attached here.

[Pointdump]

Hi Josh,
Thanks for posting your drawing.
You've got 2 Surfaces, "Contour map" and "Gravel". My first thought was both surfaces were displaying, one overlapping the other. I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around which point groups are used to define which surface. Do you want to paste the Gravel Surface onto the Contour Map Surface? What big picture result are you looking for?

Dave

[jregier2KUWA]

Dave, 

Thanks for taking a look at it. I created the gravel point group after creating my contour point group, because I thought it would allow me to filter my points so I could see only the gravel boundary shots. I just didn't want to hunt them all down by hand.

That didn't really work though, and I left the gravel group alone because I didn't think it would interfere with my other point groups. I'm really rather new to using points in C3D, so my apologies if my explanation further confuses - I didn't (and don't) fully understand what I was doing. xD

[Pointdump]

Josh,
Some recommendations on surface creation:
Use your EP, Ditch, TOP, and TOE points to create 3D Polylines or Feature Lines. Those get added to your surface first as Breaklines. Then add ground shots. That will involve some sorting of points. Also, if your "WALL" shots are not at ground, you'll want to exclude them.
I'm attaching my favorite PDF about surface creation. Gold.
Dave

[Pointdump · Accepted solution]

Josh,
I had some time, so I separated your points into Point Groups to make things easier. Then I made Feature Lines from TOP, TOE, EP, DITCH, CL_DITCH, and DR_GRAV points. I added the Feature Lines first to an Existing Ground surface, then the G Points. Here's some screen shots and drawing is attached.
Dave

[jregier2KUWA]

Thank you so much! I took a look at the pdf you attached, and had just started experimenting with breaklines. Can you explain what the breakline settings that you show in your screenshot are doing?

[Pointdump]

Josh,
Those Breakline Settings are recommended in the PDF. For an explanation of each, in that dialogue box, lower right, hit the Help button.
Dave

[ChrisRS]

It looks like @Pointdump has things well in hand.

I did take a quick look and did not see crossing contours.

Two Three general observations.

1. You have depression contours displayed. The tics are quite long. This can be visually confusing.
2. You have contour smoothing on. This does not change the model, but it can display crossing contours.
3. Assigning different surface styles, having different contour colors, to each surface will be clearer.

Good Luck.

[lim.wendy]

Hi @jregier2KUWA,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for posting. It looks like @Pointdump  provided you detailed with steps and explanations, so for now I am going to mark this as "Solved." This won't prevent other folks from commenting on this question though in the event other ideas come up!

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