Importing Survey Points

[john.greenMLB6V]

I'm doing my first topo survey with Trimble total station and want to ultimately create a topo map.

Prior to collecting the data points, I set up the total station and set it at elevation 1000.  I then proceeded to collect topo points throughout the site and saved and exported the file to .dxf.

My question...when I drag and drop the .dxf file into Civil 3D, it shows the point elevations in the 300 range when they should all be in the 1000 range. I'm a little new to this and I'm not sure why it is showing the discrepancy in elevation.

Any help is appreciated...thanks in advance...John

[Mike.M.Carlson · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

I would recommend exporting the total station points from Trimble Business Center in a comma separated value (.csv) format.  This type of file organizes the point data by Point #, Northing, Easting, Elevation, and Code.  Then you can import that point file directly into Civil 3D.  I recommend creating a Point Group upon import into Civil 3D, so you can just add that Point Group to a Civil 3D Surface definition.  

This video explains further about the recommended workflow:

[Udo_Huebner · Accepted solution]

Sounds like a problem with mismatched drawing units.

If you measure in feet, the DXF file will have feet assigned as the unit. If there is no unique unit, the DXF file will also be assigned feet as the default unit. If you now drag and drop the DXF file into an existing drawing (DWG) created from a drawing template where the initial units are set to meters, the DXF file will be scaled with the scaling factor 0.3048 by default.

[john.greenMLB6V]

Thanks...both worked...John