Creating surface from solid triangles

[Anonymous]

Hello

I have received a large drawing that consists of solid triangles that represent land surface. I want to create a surface from these solids but I don't know how. 

I have tried exploding the solids so that I could get some other objects for defining but exploding doesn't work. I tried creating a block out of the solids and then defining the surface by drawing objects but doesn't work. I can use Civil 3d 2017 and 2018.

Any idea how to do this? Thanks!

[dbinkney]

Try this out:

http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/qaID.asp?tip=6339

to convert a 3D solid to 3D faces, use this sequence of commands: MassElementConvert, EXPLODE, EXPLODE.

[codee]

Explode them all to 3D polylines. Then turn them into "feature lines" and add them to your surface.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, but I get "no graphical information found" when I try this. And exploding doesn't do anything.

[dbinkney]

any chance you can post the drawing? 

[TerryDotson]

If the PROPs dialog shows Solid that means a 2dSolid, which can only have one elevation (likely zero).  If there isn't more in your drawing you might have a flat TIN, and I can't imagine anything more useless.  As mentioned, post your drawing.

[TerryDotson]

On further thought, when you LIST one, does it include "Extrusion direction relative to UCS", if so it's actually a technically correct representation, just one with limited ways of use.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. The triangles do have elevation.

I attached a sample of my drawing to this post. Hope it comes out right. It is done in 2018 version. 

[TerryDotson]

Attached drawing has the 2dSolids converted to 3dFaces, which you can feed to Civil3Ds Surface creation.  It was 2dSolids with an extrusion direction as I expected.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but I don't understand how can I extrude all these 2d solids to their elevation. For extrude command I need to specify the height which is different for all of them. 

[TerryDotson]

Here's what to do to create a surface.

1. Open the Faces18.dwg supplied.
2. In the ToolSpace, right click Surfaces > Create Surface
3. Optionally change the name to something like EG
4. Click OK to create the empty surface
5. Expand the surfaces tree, down to EG > Definition
6. Right click Drawing Objects > Add
7. Object Type > 3dFaces
8. Recommend turning on "Maintain edges from objects", OK.
9. Type All to select all the 3dFaces, wait (for 51638).
10. Close the panel about duplicate points.

You now have a Civil3D surface to work with.

[Anonymous]

The dwg I provided was just a small portion of my drawing. I need still need to convert those 2d solids 3d faces in my actual drawing which is very large. It seems you managed to do that with "extrude"-command but I can't figure out how. Could you please specify how this was done?

[TerryDotson]

Okay, try this overview procedure.

1. You will need a tool to convert all 2dSolids to 3dFaces, this Sol2Face tool may do it (not what I used).
2. Convert all your 2dSolids to 3dFaces (it's not extruding).
3. Follow the procedure above to make a Civil3D TinSurface.

Then (I think) you want a 3dSolid for some reason, in that case use the AeccExportSurfaceToSolid command in Civil3D.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I didn't manage to do it with Sol2face. However, "region" command enabled me to explode the 2d solids to lines which I could use as breaklines for the surface definiton.

Thanks everyone for helping me.

[aabdelkader903XPX6Z]

This method worked great for me, but I encountered one issue. The 3D solids were extracted from a complex corridor, and when converting them to a surface, the resulting surface is distorted because it connects the upper and lower layers of the corridor into one surface. I only need the top layer. How can I achieve that?