Surface - "Error adding boundary"

[hencoop]

Hello all,

• I found that boundaries cannot be added to DS surface reference objects but that a single polyline mask can be; however, the polyline is a static object with regard to my road design and I would like to have my road design dynamically mask or hide the existing grade surface.

• I tried to add the road surface as a boundary to my existing grade surface and found that since the existing grade surface is the target surface of my road surface it cannot have boundaries made from my road surface.  The alert box also suggested that I make a copy of the surface to add the boundaries to.

• I am trying to add my road surface as a boundary to the copy of my existing grade surface but only get "Error adding boundary" when I try it.

• The road surface is dynamically linked to my corridor.

What am I doing wrong?  How should this be done?

[hencoop · Accepted solution]

What I found about surfaces to be used as Hide Boundaries to other surfaces:

• There cannot be any voids in the surface.  Some may exist and be so thin or small that it is almost impossible to find them.

I've been able to use my road surfaces, intersection surfaces, and other surfaces as Hide Boundaries to my existing grade surface but a couple are still generating errors and I simply cannot find anything wrong with them.

Also, sometimes when working on a hide boundary surface, a separate hide boundary surface that has already been applied just stops hiding anything at all.  It seems that somehow it acquired a void or some as yet unknown blemish that makes it unable to hide anything... upon closer inspection, there were points added along the road surface in an intersection after I edited the intersection surface to make it work.  Once I removed them (and the voids they created) the road surface began hiding again.

I gave up on the intersection.  I have a routine that will put an image under a surface and clip it along its boundary for hiding (like a wipeout) or else I can use the boundary it creates from the surface in the process and use it to define my hide boundary.  It isn't dynamic but is is much faster than dinking around trying to get C3D to accept the surface as a boundary.

[Joe-Bouza]

You can't add a boundary to a DS but you can paste a DS into a surface and add a boundary to that surface

[saulocuba]

Maybe help you, creates a Polyline around the surface, creates that Polyline to limit yourself to that surface, and the Civil 3D adds a Boundary Polyline with option and select the polyline. habras already limited and the surface. Thank You.

[Buzz0m]

I've been wondering why it some times works and sometimes doesn't! Thank you for revealing the answer!

[hallvard_skrede]

Just wanted to tell you that I had the same issue for a surface made directly from DEM.

When I made a "genereic surface", and then Edit and chose add DEM. It was suddenly possible to add the boundary.

Also 3D-polylines don't always work for adding boundaries, meanwhile 2D-polylines work more frequently (aside from issue in the lines above).