Learn about editing grading objects in Civil 3D to refine them or add additional detail or information. This article goes through the steps on how to manipulate grading objects, change the slope ratios, and add feature lines for further definition.
Key Insights
- The article explains the method to edit grading objects in Civil 3D, which includes options like editing the grading, deleting the grading, or changing the grading group.
- Changes made to the grading objects, such as altering the cut slope and the fill slope ratios, are visually updated in the software. This allows the user to make adjustments to fit the grading objects better into the site.
- Further definition can be added to grading objects by incorporating additional feature lines into the site. This feature provides the ability to add elements like a drainage swale along the outside edge of the grading pad, offering more customization options in Civil 3D.
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We've created these Grading Objects inside Civil 3D, but they're pretty generic—not very well defined. So what we're going to go ahead and do now is talk about how you can edit these Grading Objects to further refine them or to add additional detail or information.
So I'm going to go ahead and zoom into Lot 14 here. From here, we have the option of either clicking on Grading, going to the Grading Creation Tools, and working through some of the editing options we have. We have Edit Grading, Delete Grading, or Change Grading Group.
From here, we can force things to move to other Grading Groups. But the other option that you have is if you select one of the diamonds for the Grading Object, then the Contextual Ribbon Bar pops up. Inside the Contextual Ribbon Bar, you can pull up information from the Grading Group or the Grading Object itself, or you can go ahead and make Grading Edits.
So I can go to Grading Editor. It will pull up the information on this Grading Object, and I can go in and change any of these parameters as needed. Or if I want to go to Edit Grading, it allows me to do it visually inside the drawing.
I can type in the Cut Slope and Fill Slope ratios that I want. So let's go ahead and do that with our Edit Grading option here. I'm going to go ahead and select Edit Grading.
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I don't actually have any Cut Slopes associated with this object here. These are all Fill, so it's not that big of a deal. But let's go ahead and change my Cut Slope ratio to something a little softer, like 4:1.
I'm going to go ahead and hit ENTER. Same thing with my Fill Slope—I'm going to change this to 4:1 as well, and I'm going to hit ENTER.
When I do that, you'll notice that Civil 3D updates my Grading Object. If I select both of my diamonds and go to Object Viewer, you're going to notice that as I rotate out, this Grading Object looks different. The slopes are more gentle.
You can go through and edit all of your pads and change the slope ratios by hand to make them fit better inside your site. Another option we have for adding further definition is that because these Grading Groups are all on the same Site, we can go ahead and throw in additional Feature Lines to further define these surfaces. If you wanted to change something like the grading pad by adding a drainage swale along the outside edge, you could go to Feature Line.
I could go ahead and create a Feature Line. I could make sure that I'm on my Dev Main. I could change the name of the Feature Line.
I'm going to put something like Lot 14 Swale. Then I'm going to go ahead and leave it as Grading Design. I'm going to leave it on C-Feet.
Then I'm going to go ahead and click OK. Now what Civil 3D is going to ask me to do is start creating this Feature Line, just like we've done with every other Feature Line we've created so far.
I'm going to go ahead and specify my start point. I'm going to pick somewhere up here in this upper corner. I know that this pad is set at 196.
So I'm going to go ahead and select a specific elevation for this beginning point—something lower than 196—so that we're starting our swale. I'm going to go with 195.9. I'm going to go ahead and hit ENTER. Then I'm going to go to this back edge here.
I'm going to drop down because we're going to be draining towards the back of the lot. Then I'm going to be choosing another elevation. So I'm going to hit E for elevation.
I'm going to hit ENTER. Then I'm going to specify my elevation. I'm going to choose something like 195.5 and then hit ENTER.
Then I'm going to pick somewhere in the middle. I'm going to choose another elevation—something like 195.3—and hit ENTER.
Then I'm going to pick somewhere on the outside edge over here. Again, I'm going to choose 195.5 because we're draining to the center back of the site. I'm going to go ahead and hit ENTER.
Then I'm going to pick somewhere up here. I'm going to type in 195.9 and hit ENTER. Then I'm going to hit ENTER to end, so that I have this Feature Line created.
Now we're going to go ahead and click on this Feature Line. I'm going to go to Elevation Editor just to make sure that my slopes make sense. I have a 0.83% slope, a 0.5% slope, a 0.5% slope, and a 0.82% slope.
Maybe not the best slopes for a dirt lot. Maybe we want to be somewhere more like 1% or 2%, or 1.5%. But for our purposes here, this will be a good example showing what the addition of a Feature Line into our Site can do. We talked about site-to-site interaction.
These are all on the same Site. We would expect that if I selected the diamond grips for my Grading Object, we would see these Feature Lines have an impact on what that object looks like. So I'm going to go ahead and go to Object Viewer.
I'm going to bring my Object Viewer over here. I'm going to expand it out. What we're going to see is that this pad has now been modified to have a lowered ring on this edge here.
This Site is now sloping towards this low point right here. This is how you can add additional definition to your Sites and allow further customization of your Grading Objects inside Civil 3D. I'm going to go ahead and save this drawing, and then I'll meet you in the next video.
