Discover the intricate process of creating 3D visualizations from the corridors developed in our Civil 3D course. Learn how to create surfaces, paste them into existing surfaces, perform drive analysis, and troubleshoot potential errors that may occur during the process.
Key Insights
- The article provides detailed instructions on creating 3D surfaces from corridors in Civil 3D, using the example of DevBranch to explain the process from start to finish.
- The process of creating surfaces involves adding data, creating boundaries, rebuilding corridors, and performing a drive analysis. Occasionally, the 'corridor extents as outer boundary' option may result in errors, but these can generally be resolved or bypassed.
- After creating the surfaces, the next step detailed in the article involves pasting them into existing surfaces to view the combined result. This is part of a larger process of developing complex 3D visualizations in Civil 3D.
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In this video, we're going to start getting into 3D visualization of the objects that we've been creating in this course. So what we're going to go ahead and do is create surfaces from the corridors that we've created in this class.
We're going to go ahead and take those surfaces that we're about to create. We're going to paste them into the existing surface. We'll view what that all looks like combined together, and then we'll do a drive analysis of one of the corridors that we created.
So to do that, first we're going to go ahead and have to create surfaces from the different corridors that we created inside of this drawing. So I'm going to go ahead and zoom in on our corridors. I'm going to go ahead and go to my tool space.
I'm going to expand out my corridors, and I'm going to start here with DevBranch. I'm going to kind of slowly walk through DevBranch, and then as I move on, I may be working faster through the remainder of the corridors that we have here. So I'm going to go ahead and right-click on DevBranch, select properties.
I'm going to go ahead and go to the Surfaces tab of my Corridor Properties window, and this is where we start creating surfaces for Civil 3D using our corridors. So I'm going to go ahead and select the button here, where it basically tells Civil 3D that I'd like to create a surface based off of this DevBranch corridor. So I'm going to go ahead and select the surface button, and then now Civil 3D has created a placeholder for that surface.
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Now I need to add data into that surface. So that's what this Add Data box is for. We have the options for adding feature lines or adding links.
So inside of the feature lines, these are all the feature lines associated with our corridor. With the links, these are all the links that are associated with our corridor. So I'm going to go ahead and choose top, because when we created this corridor, we used an assembly, and that assembly has these links that are associated with each of the individual sub-assembly pieces.
Now each of those sub-assembly pieces has a code in it that is called top, that basically is the top of that corridor. So in selecting top as my code, I'm going to go ahead and create a surface of the topmost layer of that corridor. So I'm going to go ahead and choose top, and I'm going to hit this plus to add top into my surface.
Now I'm going to go ahead and create a boundary for the surface that I just created by selecting this DevBranch Surface. I'm going to go ahead and right-click, and then I'm going to choose how I want to add this boundary. Now sometimes you have this option for Add Automatically.
Otherwise, sometimes we'll go ahead and we can Add Interactively by picking on the screen or Add From Polygons that are drawn on the screen, or simply you can go ahead and do Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary. Sometimes Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary doesn't work very well, but for simplicity's sake, we're going to go ahead and use it. We may get some errors in some of the surfaces that we do end up creating using the outer boundary.
So I'm going to go ahead and use Add Automatically if I have it available. I'm going to go ahead and choose Daylight because that's the outer edge of my corridor. So I'm going to go ahead and choose Daylight.
I'm going to hit apply. I'm going to Rebuild my corridor. I'm going to hit okay, and when I do that you're going to notice that there will be a new surface that's placed underneath this corridor, and I can zoom in, select it.
I can go to Object Viewer. I can bring that Object Viewer window over here, and I can rotate it out, and I can see that corridor between my cul-de-sac and my intersection. So from here, I'm going to go to DevBranchEnd, right-click properties.
I'm going to go ahead and go to Surfaces, add a surface. I'm going to do my Links Top data. I'm going to add that data in.
I'm going to go to Boundaries. I'm going to go to DevBranchEnd, right-click. I don't have Add Automatically, so I'm going to go ahead and go to Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary.
I'm going to hit apply. I'm going to Rebuild Corridor, and I'm going to hit okay, and you can see the boundary looks a little funky here. I might have some holes in my surface, and that's because of that boundary automatically or the corridor extents, and that's fine.
So I'm going to go ahead and go to DevMain, right-click properties. I'm going to go to Surfaces, create a surface, add the Links Top data, Boundaries, right-click on the boundary. I'm going to go ahead and do Add Automatically.
I'm going to go to Daylight. I'm going to go ahead and apply, Rebuild Corridor, okay. I'm going to go to DevMainEnd, right-click properties, Surfaces, create a surface, add the Links Top data, Boundaries, DevMainEnd, right-click Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary because I don't have Add Automatically, apply, Rebuild Corridor, okay.
Now Civil 3D is giving me a warning. It says not added to corridor surface at DevMainEnd, zoom in. There's some sort of error here on my screen.
I'm going to go ahead and zoom out, select this surface here, go to Object Viewer. And if I go to Object Viewer, I have this corridor selected, but if I rotate out, I can see that this corridor did in fact create. So I'm okay with that.
I may have a little gap at the end here, but that's okay. So I'm going to go from here. I'm going to go to EX Highway.
I'm going to go ahead and right-click properties. I'm going to go to Surfaces, add surface, add data for Links Top, Boundaries. I'm going to right-click.
I'm going to go ahead and do Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary. I'm going to hit apply, Rebuild Corridor, okay. I'm going to go to Intersection Highway Main, right-click properties, Surfaces, create a surface, add Links Top data, Boundaries, right-click Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary, apply, Rebuild Corridor, okay.
Same thing with Intersection Main Branch, right-click properties, Surfaces, create a surface, add the Links Top data, Boundaries, click on the surface, right-click Corridor Extents as Outer Boundary, apply, Rebuild Corridor, okay. Now if I zoom out and I drop down my Surfaces, you're going to notice that I have all of the surfaces associated with my corridors, and then I have my main surface that we've been building everything off of. I'm going to go ahead and save this drawing, and then I'll meet you in the next video.
