Stepped Grading

[nisreenKY4TZ]

Hello, i have a large amount of houses that i want to create a test fit for, each house on different plot with different contour and slopes. How can i create a Stepped grading ( i dont want a sloped grading ) in the fastest way using civil 3D?

[Neilw_05]

Are you looking for a dynamic solution? If so you will need some parameters to define how the pads are related to the roads. Otherwise there are multiple options. 

[nisreenKY4TZ]

I want a fast automated solution. I do not know how to work on civil 3d but i read it has some powerful automated solution for grading, but I couldn’t find a solution to make stepped grading. 
i used to make the test fits on Revit but manual work is taking too long because we have hundreds of homes to test fit in a very short period of time. 
I have the AEC collection, what do you recommend? 
the purpose of the test fits we do is to validate how the building will look on a specific land, draw boundary wall and riprap wall after each step, and get an estimate of the quantities of fill, and the walls we drew in addition to the SOG.

is there a specific workflow that you recommend?  

[neilyj666]

Without seeing what you are starting with it's difficult to comment in detail - I suspect that there is no OOTB automated solution for you though.

[Joe-Bouza]

For me the fastest solution is to assume a daylight boundary with an alignment/ surface profile>> infill, add pad feature lines, goto volume dash board examine>>>  ... assuming a volume adjustment for foundations (optional) run the cut fill balance in the grading tool bar

[neilyj666]

The Grading Optimiser in 2022 may be of use - I've never used it so not sure of the full capabilities.

Ultimately I think this will be a somewhat iterative process for you

[Joe-Bouza]

G.O. more apps to learn 😮 and I'm no Luddite

[Neilw_05]

Grading Optimizer might be the closest you will get to an automatic solution. As for a dynamic solution, you can start out with a model that has the lot pads tied to the roads, so if the roads change, the pads change accordingly. Then you check your earthwork and by adjusting the road profiles you can balance the site.  That is the overall approach. How to do that requires a lot more explanation of course. There are lots of videos out there for how to do that. I can't recommend any one in particular. At least that should get you looking in the right direction. 

[gherrmanRQ549]

A couple of solutions I often use are the OFFSETFEATURE command with a small offset and/or using wall-type breaklines for building surfaces.