Surface contours look weird/jagged and is shown multiple times

mhvam06 · ‎10-10-2016

Hello everyone,

I'm making an excavation plan of foundations and my finished product look like the image bellow.

Do you know why the contours look that way? It's all flat (2.20) but they are shown multiple times. I do not understand why. Has it something to do with the triangles?

Cheers

Mikkel

neilyj666 · ‎10-10-2016

Could be many reasons - can you share the dwg?

How did you create the surface and what objects did you use?

Did you amend the supplementing/mid ordinate values?

Neil

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Dexterel · ‎10-10-2016

Check edges of flat area (2.20 elevation) that is really on 2.20 and not on 2.2000001 or 2.199999999.

mhvam06 · ‎10-10-2016

I'm not at work anylonger so I can't upload the file. I'll try and describe the steps below.

1. I have a completely flat surface created by a rectangular feature line.

2. I have a lot of foundations with varying sizes and elevations.

3. I trace the foundations with a feature line and then insert an elevation point per 0.1 meters. This to add detail to the triangulation (triangles).

4. I then use "Grading Creation Tools" to create a grading group including surface. Tessellation spacing set at 0.1 meters and tessellation angle at 0.1 degree. This is again to add detail to the triangulation.

5. I create my gradings and use infill.

6: As the foundations are sometimes quite close and with varying elevations I create a "combined" surface in which I paste the initial surface along with my grading. This is where my flat surfaces gets messed up and look like the screen dump above. I think it is because the edges of the gradings are varying by less than 1 mm in elevation.

7: I'm using data shortcuts and I add my combined surface to the DS and then start on the elevations at a lower elevation. I work my way from the top most foundation to the lowest.

Cheers

Mikkel

mhvam06 · ‎10-10-2016

I created a spot elevation of the surface with 7 decimal places which is the maximum of the spot elevation. It's completely flat.... It didn't register any changes of the elevation even though the contour lines looks funny...

neilyj666 · ‎10-10-2016

Still not really following your workflow - what are you grading from and to?

Incidentally I'd be very wary of using gradings as this is asking for a drawing crash...!!!

Can you model it by just using featurelines?

The dwg will be of great use so we can see what is happening

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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jmayo-EE · ‎10-10-2016

It is because it is all flat. A contour does not understand where you want it to go and it will travel along the flat edges it can find.

To correct this place a breakline in the center of the area of concern place it at elevation 2.2001

John Mayo

mhvam06 · ‎10-10-2016

Lets say that the initial surface is completely flat at elevation 2.20.

I then use grading on the foundations using feature lines. I trace the bottom of the foundation. If the bottom of the foundation is at elevation 1.00 I then use the grading from the bottom to the target surface at 2.20.

As there are a lot of surfaces it will take forever to do by hand. I am done with the gradings and I believe that about 11.000 m3 of soil need to be excavated.

I'll upload it tomorrow.

Dexterel · ‎10-10-2016

Without the DWG or surface is hard to figure it out.
Are you sure the flat surface is on top?
Run audit on DWG maybe the surface got corrupted.

neilyj666 · ‎10-10-2016

Ok - I think I would have just used featurelines - one at the foundation base i.e. elevation 1.00m and the offset another horizontally by the desired amount and change the level to 2.20.

As @jmayo-EE said the fact that eveything is at 2.20 will make the contours a bit odd anyway.....and I'd still be wary of the number of gradings in the dwg

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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jmayo-EE · ‎10-10-2016

"and I'd still be wary of the number of gradings in the dwg"

Me2

John Mayo

mhvam06 · ‎10-10-2016

Thank you for your input everyone!

As I'm using data shortcuts no DWG has more than 15 gradings. I am dividing all of the foundations up according to elevations.

It is not possible to do it by hand using feature lines as many of the foundations overlap. I can post a 3D shot of it tomorrow.

@ionescu_dragosWHU3X

There's only 1 surface in that drawing as I'm using data shortcuts.

Dexterel · ‎10-10-2016

is it possible to make a landXML export of that surface? Maybe crop just the area of interest if the surface is to big.

For me (if you are not using smoothing contours ) shows that contours we see are not on the 3d faces we see (blue remark in attached jpg).

Dexterel · ‎10-10-2016

try turning of adaptive level of details (_AeccLevelOfDetailOff) and see if you get the same results in contours display.

mhvam06 · ‎10-11-2016

Thank you for your replys!

I tried adding a feature line. It cleans it up a little but it did not work.

Before adding the FL

After adding the FL

I have also attached a LandXML of the surface. Maybe that will be helpful?

Level of detail did not help. It's already off 🙂

Cheers

Mikkel

Dexterel · ‎10-11-2016

Your problem is as I posted above.

Your elevation is not 2.20 on the edge, but 2.19999999998 :D.

That's way your contour lines look strange.

Formula in label style that I used is:

<[Surface Elevation(Um|P10|RN|AP|GC|UN|Sn|OF)]>

P10 is the key, is bigger than maximum default P8

Dexterel · ‎10-11-2016

And your surface is not FLAT. If you drag your custom surface label whit P10 on your surface you will see its not flat at 2.20

Dexterel · ‎10-11-2016

As I posted above make sure that the flat surface you made at 2.20 is pasted last (on top of everything) in the final surface.
Its hard to really understand how you build your surface and gradients.
Maybe don't create infill's at all but use the inside hallow boundary to create a good surface at elevation 2.20 (exact) and past it on top of your surface.

Dexterel · ‎10-11-2016

My idea is to delete all infill's gradients (call this surface A).
make a big flat surface at 2.20 elevation (call this surface B).
In surface B add as hide boundary surface A.
make surface C paste surface A paste surface B.
This should get you a correct surface.

mhvam06 · ‎10-11-2016

Thank you so much for spending your time trying to solve this.

I am trying to figure out how to do this the best way.

Lets say that the big flat (target surface) is at 2.20 elevation. I then have a foundation which is at 1.50 elevation. I then create a grading but do not use infill on the bottom of the foundation.

I then use the outerside of the grading as a hide boundary. Then I create surface C in which I paste A and then B. But what about the bottom of the foundation... how do you handle that?

I have tried your solution where I create an infill at the bottom elevation of the foundation. I then use hide and paste the surfaces in another.

Doing so minimize the number of contours however it does not solve it completely. Maybe that's just not possible...

Cheers

@ionescu_dragosWHU3X wrote:
My idea is to delete all infill's gradients (call this surface A).
make a big flat surface at 2.20 elevation (call this surface B).
In surface B add as hide boundary surface A.
make surface C paste surface A paste surface B.
This should get you a correct surface.