Editing a TIN Surface

[Anonymous]

I have taken over a job and there is a TIN Surface I need to edit. Problem I am having is I don't see any points or breaklines the surface was made from. I have placed block references on my page where I want to add new points to the surface to modify it. Hopefully this makes sense.

I have attached the Civil3D file the surfaces are in.

Thanks,

Jason

[rkmcswain]

Which surface?
Both surfaces contains a variety of data from which the surface was created.

[Anonymous]

Ok, let me explain in a little more detail. Sorry if it is a bit long-winded.

I have one dwg file that has my surfaces in it. That is the file I attached in my previous post. The other dwg file is where all my sheets are that I am presenting in my drawing package. One of these sheets is my Grading Plan which had some grading elevations (roadway, ditch, lot grading) labelled on it but they are just text and not actual civil objects. I have recently had to change some of these grades which I did by editing the text on the sheet. But now I am to edit the surface so I can update my Cut/Fill plan. So now I have to somehow edit my design ground TIN surface with the new elevations, (which aren't actually civil elevations).

I have 2 problems with this:

1. I have no idea how to do that

2. I am worried my new elevations won't jive well with some of the elevations that are already in the surface and that I am not editing however I don't have enough elevations to create a whole new surface.

Does this all make sense?

Jason

[AllenJessup · Accepted solution]

If you set/create a style that shows triangles an points. You'll see that there were very few points used to create the design surface. It looks like the roads were created with a few lines. While the Surface is Civil 3D the design method isn't. It's hard to tell what the original designer was doing or how to work with it.

If the design elevations are at points that were used to create the surface. You can select the surface and chose Modify Point from the ribbon.

This will let you modify the point in the TIN directly.

[Anonymous]

You see my nightmare Allan...lol. Problem is, not all the locations where our new grading elevations are match where the surface ones are. I could just add the points into the TIN surface right?.

[JamesMaeding]

Wow, so you have dynamic callouts in the sheets, and the underlying data maintenance is not clean and obvious.

If I was held responsible for those revisions, I would make sure I could rebuild the surface from scratch.

My rule in our company is no hand edits, ever. I recall you can get the breaklines back by doing xmlout, then back in.

Be sure to throw the original designer under the bus, management should know they can't switch jobs around if there is no "best practices" policies set up for surfaces that tells you where the original info is stored.

[Anonymous]

Oh trust me, I hear ya and agree 100%. There are many faults in this case:

1. We are a Structural Engineering firm and shouldn't have taken on a Civil job.

2. The guy that created the drawings was learning Civil3D as he went along I am told so really had no idea what he was doing or getting himself into.

3. We are a very small company (6 people including management) and when I came had absolutely no CAD standards let alone Civil3D Standards.

Best part of the job...taking over and cleaning up other people's crap.

[AllenJessup]

It looks like the only "Breaklines" are in the layer DITCH LINE PROFILE. At least as far as I can see.

I have found Alignments and Corridors. Which is a good thing. Theoretically there are Assemblies but they reference files not on my machine.

It looks like the original designer was learning Civil 3D. But I can't tell how far. What I don't see is any Corridor Surfaces used as part of the design Surface. Can you see any Corridors of Assemblies on your machine. Was it the one originally used for design or were you just given the drawing?

[Anonymous]

Screenshot attached

[Anonymous]

How difficult would it be to start over so I at least know what's in the dwg and how it was all built? I have done it before, just not recently so I am a bit rusty. But sometimes it's way easier to start over than to try and fix somebody else's work.

[AllenJessup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... sometimes it's way easier to start over than to try and fix somebody else's work.

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I would agree. If you'll be given the time it would be better. Not only better for you but for your employers. They're taking a lot of liability if things turn out not to be buildable in the field. I've seen that happen. Not a good time.

You can possibly use the existing surface and maybe the alignments.

[Anonymous]

Lol...I have 4 days.

[Anonymous]

So I could take my new grading plan objects, place them on my plan and create points to correspond and then I could create a brand new surface using those points, the road alignments and breaklines already in the drawing right?