Hello everyone, When creating a corridor surface, the 'Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary' option does not reliably prevent TIN triangles from crossing the corridor centerline on horizontal curves. On curves, Civil 3D connects feature line points from the left slope to the right slope across the corridor, creating invalid diagonal triangles that corrupt the surface. This is a long-standing issue affecting corridor surfaces with: - Horizontal curves of any radius - Multiple corridor regions - Variable width assemblies The current workaround requires manually extracting corridor feature lines, joining them into a closed polyline, and adding it as a manual boundary — a time-consuming process that must be repeated every time the corridor is rebuilt. **Expected behavior:** 'Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary' and 'From Corridor Feature Lines' boundary options should reliably generate a valid closed boundary that prevents TIN triangulation from crossing the corridor on curves, without requiring manual intervention after every rebuild. This issue has been reported by users since at least Civil 3D 2018 and remains unresolved. Thank you. Show More

It would be great to have an extracted/dynamic corridor feature line that is "targetable" as an Offset/Elevation within same corridor from a separate baseline.   Often times, we have one baseline that we could extract a corridor feature line from and then have another baseline that has a SA that can "target" the first baseline's extracted feature.  This works if the feature is static but fails if the extracted feature is dynamic, which is a bummer.     Show More

Please add conflict resolution options when pasting one Civil 3D surface into another.   At present, when Surface 2 is pasted into Surface 1, the pasted surface simply takes precedence wherever the two overlap. There is no option to control how overlapping elevations are resolved, which can limit usability and create avoidable workarounds/rework.   Proposed Improvement   When a surface is pasted into another surface, Civil 3D should prompt the user to choose one of the following options:   Option: Behaviour: None Maintains current behaviour Keep Highest Uses the higher elevation where the two surfaces overlap Keep Lowest Uses the lower elevation where the two surfaces overlap   The default should be None, so existing workflows remain unchanged unless the user chooses otherwise.   Why This Would Help This would be extremely useful in workflows involving: existing ground and design surface comparisons temporary and permanent surfaces construction staging earthworks modelling merging multiple source surfaces resolving overlapping terrain conditions without manual editing In many practical cases, users do not simply want the pasted surface to override everything. They want the resulting composite surface to reflect either the highest or lowest elevations in overlapping areas, depending on the design intent.   Additional Improvement: Automatic Intersection Breakline To make this behaviour reliable, Civil 3D should also: detect the intersection between the two surfaces create a breakline along that boundary This would help prevent unexpected triangulation across the overlap zone and produce a cleaner, more predictable result.   Benefit This enhancement would: reduce manual surface editing improve control over pasted surface behaviour make composite surface creation more intelligent reduce triangulation errors near overlap boundaries better support real-world design and modelling workflows This would be a very practical improvement for anyone working with complex surface models in Civil 3D, and I believe it would add significant value to future releases. Show More

Autodesk Civil 3D already provides the ability to define section styles and apply different hatch patterns based on cut and fill materials. However, when generating construction documents, the current workflow requires users to manually create and manage legends in the sheet layout to explain the materials represented in the section views. I would like to suggest an improvement for future versions, such as Civil 3D 2028: the ability to automatically generate a dynamic material legend linked to the section views. The proposed functionality could: Read the materials and hatch patterns already defined in the section styles; Automatically create a legend in the layout showing the corresponding materials and hatch representations; Keep the legend synchronized when section styles, materials, or design information are updated; Allow users to select which materials should be included in the legend. Currently, even though Civil 3D can display different hatch patterns for excavation and fill materials within the sections, the documentation process still requires manual legend creation. For large projects with many section views, this becomes repetitive and increases the possibility of inconsistencies between the drawings and the design data. Adding a dynamic material legend connected to section views would improve productivity, maintain BIM data consistency, and make Civil 3D documentation workflows more efficient for civil engineering projects. Thank you for considering this enhancement for future releases. Show More

For featureline creation and editing there are a couple ways to identify the vertex elevations and grades.   1. Elevation Editor Panorama: it is useful, but difficult to identify which vertex or tangent grade you are editing and is disconnected visually from what you are editing.     2. Quick Elevation Edit Button: This is also a handy tool that allows you to see and edit the elevation or grade directly onscreen by clicking on the vertex or tangent.  Yes, useful, but you can only see the single elevation or grade you are hovering over.       3. Create Line and Curve Labels: Last is to create your own labels that add the start/end elevations and a grade label on the tangents. Must create separate labels for curves.  Labeling is the only option to see the information fulltime.  It is time consuming and adds needless extra content in your dwgs. A big drawback to "Labeling" is, if you add another vertex somewhere along the featureline - All the labels shuffle to the left each time you add a vertex. Leaving the last segment to require re-labeling.   THE SOLUTION: Add a new button to the Featureline Modify ribbon to toggle on/off temp graphics that label the slopes/elevations for all feature lines. Perhaps it can by applied to only a certain site or certain featurelines within that site.   Add a new property to featurelines that would either Enable/Disable this new toggle of the temp graphics for that featureline. Then the user can control which featurelines show their information.   Add a C3D settings for this toggle feature that would control the: - size of text - color of text - decimals for elevation and grade/slope - preference for Grade or Slope display - only show temp graphics below a certain screen zoom height.   I feel this would eliminate a lot of labeling and management of text that is not even required.              Show More

Would it be possible to add feature in Civil 3D that will allow users to generate top/bottom surface from 3D solid? Show More

Description: As infrastructure engineers working on large-scale corridor projects like highways or railways, we waste a massive amount of time and CPU processing power manually managing corridor surfaces and boundaries. The current workflow is heavy, slow, and causes severe performance drops. I would like to propose two interconnected ideas to drastically improve workflow agility and software performance: Native Outer Boundary by Applied Assembly Frequency (Hulling Algorithm) Currently, to avoid chaotic triangulation (pikes) in corridor surfaces, we are forced to add automatic or manual boundaries based on codes, or calculate maximum triangle lengths. This forces Civil 3D to calculate thousands of unnecessary lines and contours, choking the software ecosystem. The Idea: Implement an algorithmic surface option that limits triangulation strictly to the selected Links, following the corridor execution frequency. How it should work: The algorithm should find the outermost Link at Station A and connect it directly to the outermost Link at Station B, chasing the corridor frequency sequentially from start to end. The Benefit: No extra boundaries or geometric calculations needed. The surface boundary is implicitly defined by the corridor own execution frequency. This would drastically optimize CPU calculation times and completely eliminate out-of-boundary triangulation without adding heavy geometry. Reusable Corridor Surface Templates (Like Profile View Data Bands) Every time we design a new corridor using our standard assemblies with multiple structural layers (such as Top, Datum, Sub-base, Subgrade, etc.), we have to manually create 5 or 6 different corridor surfaces, assign their specific links, specify feature lines as breaklines, and apply surface styles. Doing this over and over for every single corridor or project is highly inefficient. The Idea: Create a template system for Corridor Surfaces, working similarly to how Data Bands work in Profile Views. How it should work: Once a user configures the 5 or 6 required surfaces for a specific standard assembly (mapping links, codes, and styles), they should be able to save this configuration as a Corridor Surface Template File. In any future project or corridor using that assembly, the user can simply click Load Template, and all surfaces, styles, and links will map and generate automatically. The Benefit: Massive time savings in production environments and standardized workflows across the entire company. Conclusion: These two features combined would transform Corridor modeling from a heavy process into a highly agile, automated workflow. It minimizes human error, ensures standard enforcement, and most importantly, improves Civil 3D performance by reducing unnecessary geometric calculations. Show More

Lots of users struggle to import GeoTiff files, mostly coming from 3rd party Drone image processing software (both DEM and/or Aerial images). In lots of cases, they get the error ‘unable to read file’.   Of course GeoTIFF files exist in different formats/versions (tiled or not, Different compression like Packbits, LZW,…). Apparently, there is a variant on this format: the so called 'BigTiff' file. Standard TIFF uses the file format version 42 in the header, but for the need for bigger images (breaking the 4GB boundary) a new format was needed, the so called BigTiff file format. And this uses the file format version 43 in the header. It's this type of (Geo)Tiff that is not supported by Civil 3D.   Users have to follow a workaround to convert these files with free (!!!) OpenSource software. Moreover, other Autodesk software (Infraworks) can read the files without any problem. So, Autodesk has the tech! It would be great that this tech would also be implemented in other (related) software like Civil 3D.   Several Support Cases starting from few years ago were created to bring this under the attention, but sadly even now - after a few support cases from several years ago - in version 2023, these files still aren't supported. Hopefully in a near future update? ‌ Show More

In the 2026 version of Civil 3D. You can't us an OSnap in any Visual Style other than Conceptual or Wireframe. That included Custom Visual Styles. I would like to see the ability to Snap in any Visual Style returned to the program. It can be difficult to edit Surfaces when you can't snap to the Tin Line endpoints. Show More

Once we add breaklines or boundaries to a surface there is no way to find out which entity was added as breakline or boundary. If the entity was a FL with name, C3D does not show its name. Don,t even the layer name. Personally, this should work as corridor targets where you see the layer name and FL name.   The highlight breakline or boundary never has worked!! surface object needs a refresh! Show More

In certain domains (e.g. dredging) the acquired data comes from single beam scanners, resulting in coordinates/points that represent a kind of cross sections of rivers, canals,... Those 'cross sections' aren't always straight. These 'non-straight' cross sections can create 'wrong' triangulations between the different sections (see screenshot below).     The following triangulation is expected for this type of terrain models:     The above result can be obtained by using the 'Swap Edge' editing command or by (manualy) creating longitudinal breaklines through each scanned point, but for this kind of projects it is enormly cumbersome and time-consuming.   Dreding companies work with surfaces with up to millions of points... For this kind of Customers (and certainly other users as well) it would be an enormous advantage and time-saver to have a tool where the direction of the triangulation could be forced in some kind of way. Or perhaps have the ability to swap edges in bulk (as the 'Minimize flat areas' command does for Contour line breaklines in case of flat triangles). Show More

This seems obscure, but actually is a huge deal. Drone point clouds are common now, and I am still not seeing people do well with making TINs from them. Every engine seems to want to decimate the pt cloud first, to lighten the load, then make the tin. You lose the "important" points when decimating, which is the opposite of what we want. Instead, use all the points, and simply the surface down to desired triangle count using the quadratic decimation method. The code is out there, its not something to be rewritten. What you do is read in the pt cloud, sort pts to divide into smaller chunks, make a surface of each chunk and simplify, then add the chunks together in the end. At least that is how I did it in my c# prog to multithread and not lock things up. It works, I use it daily. Wish adesk would up its game on this. Note that the resulting surface would cut all ties to past parameters. Like importing from an xml with just triangles. When starting with a .laz though, there is no history so that is a non-issue. Getting data lightweight is a huge issue and this method does that and maximizes detail from original data. Show More

Implement automatic survey point alignment to objects in Civil 3D. Show More

Make Waterdrop paths dynamic to the surface, so we only have to pick the start point of interest once, and the path will update as we design and build the proposed surface. Show More

Problem:   It's tiresome having to turn on and off Triangles when we want to Edit the surface.   Solution:   When initiating an Edit Surface command, have the Triangles become visible to the User... Then have the Triangles become invisible when exiting the command.      Show More

It would be nice to see some extended capabilities like the possibility to add "parabolic curves/fillets"  between selected PVI/Elevation points. Perhaps the possibility to edit the feature line like a Profile  in the "project explorer".  The possibility to lock certain points or entire lines would be nice. Quick button for converting Feature Lines to either Polylines or 3D-polylines.     Show More

Similar to this post from 6 years ago: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-ideas/linkoffset-perpendicular-to-widthtarget/idi-p/7110252   I would like the ability for a corridor section to be applied perpendicular to a width target rather than the corridor CL. This would be very useful for instances of on street parking bays or bump outs for traffic control where the radii of the curbs can be very small. Rather than creating a separate baseline and building new regions, I could check a box or add a target to the curb subassembly that would allow the sections to run perpendicular to the width target for the travelled way, preventing any distortion of the curb. I can see this being useful for things like sidewalks or trails that don't always run perfectly parallel to the road, or roadside ditches that vary in depth but have a constant foreslope that prevents them from running perfectly parallel the the roadway. Show More

Create a tool that can convert a feature line (parcel) CURVE to a LINE, just like the AutoCAD polyline modification grips.    Would help when editing:   Parcels Feature Lines, especially ones used to generate corridors off of. Issue: If a corridor’s main baseline is created from a feature line, then you edit the geometry of that feature line,  the corridor will not hold the “Locks Regions to:” “Station Locking” or “Geometry Locking” like it does when using an alignment Breaklines & 3D Polylines     Show More

 I assign names to my feature lines in the Feature Line Properties. It would help if my feature line names were used when I'm notified that one happens to cross another break line.    CURRENT: Breakline (3857772.228769, 10138861.953338) -- (3857790.830709, 10138845.251008) not added -- crossed a point at 3857789.774634, 10138846.199237   PROPOSED: Breakline MAIN ST ROW (L) not added. Crossed Breakline FIRST ST ROW (R)     Show More