Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Any referenced datasets can be downloaded from "Module downloads" in the module overview.
Transcript
00:07
In this video, we're going to discuss the different parameters and display settings for the surface that we just created.
00:14
So to get to the different display settings and parameters for our surfaces,
00:19
what we're going to go ahead and do is navigate over to the Toolspace in the Prospector tab.
00:23
We're going to dropdown Surfaces, we're going to go to EG and we're going to right click and select Surface Properties.
00:29
Inside of the surface properties, we have the style settings for our surface.
00:34
I'm going to go ahead and dropdown our Surface Style and select Contours 2' And 10' (Background),
00:39
and then I'm going to select Edit that surface style.
00:43
So inside of the surface style, we have information regarding what the name and the description and who created it is.
00:49
This is not a display setting, this is just an informational tab that lets us identify our specific style.
00:57
Moving on from there, we start dealing with what the different parameters and display settings for our surfaces are.
01:04
So the first thing we come to is borders.
01:06
Borders are just outlines for specific regions of a surface,
01:13
whether it be the exterior boundary or whether it be a interior boundary for displaying or not displaying information within a surface.
01:23
Moving on from there, we have contours.
01:26
And the contours are going to display specific elevation locations on a surface.
01:32
Moving on into here, we can talk about what the different ranges are for contours if we're going to do a contour range analysis.
01:40
Otherwise, we can talk about the 3D geometry and whether or not we are going to flatten out that geometry,
01:47
or whether or not we're going to exaggerate it or if we're just going to use it based on the data that was put into the surface.
01:54
Moving to the next, we can show how we're going to display a legend that's associated with those contours.
02:01
Then we can talk about contour intervals, which are basically how often you show these contours on your surface.
02:09
Since this is a 2' and 10' contour style, we have our minor interval set at 2 feet and our major interval set at 10 feet.
02:18
Moving into the next option, we have the contour depressions.
02:22
If you have a depression in your surface and you choose true for display depression contours,
02:27
then you can choose your tick mark intervals and tick mark lengths.
02:31
Those ticks will indicate that there is a depression in the surface and there's no outlet for that depression on that surface.
02:41
And then contour smoothing basically makes so that the contours that are being displayed inside Civil 3D are not jagged,
02:49
they're rather smoothed out.
02:51
They don't necessarily represent a good indication of what the triangular lines are doing for our surface,
02:58
but it does look nice for when you're going to print it out onto a plan set.
03:03
Moving on to the next tab, we have grids.
03:04
So you can grid your surface and you can have a primary grid with an orientation of a specific direction,
03:09
and a secondary grid with an orientation of a different direction.
03:13
Usually they're within 90 degrees of each other.
03:17
And then what the intervals for those two grid types are, so you can have them be equal,
03:23
and have a square grid network on your surface where you can change the intervals at those gridding sections.
03:30
And so you can change how those grids are displayed inside of your surface.
03:35
Moving on to the next is points.
03:36
And this is how the data in your surface is being displayed,
03:40
if you choose to display what that point scale is going to be, what the point style is going to be.
03:45
And then moving on to triangles, we're just talking about how we're going to display those triangles,
03:52
whether or not they're going to use surface elevation, whether they're going to be flattened, or they're going to be exaggerated.
03:58
Most of the time when I'm dealing with surfaces, I'm always using the surface elevation rather than flattening or exaggerating.
04:06
So moving on to watersheds, if you do a watershed analysis in Civil 3D,
04:11
this is where you're going to choose how those watershed analysis are being displayed and what colors they're being displayed on.
04:17
So what you have is you have the generic parameters for your watersheds and then you have the watershed-specific display settings.
04:27
So you have your boundary point watershed, boundary segment watershed, depression watersheds,
04:31
flat area watersheds, multi-drain watersheds, and multi-drain notch watersheds.
04:36
And then you have your display settings for your legend.
04:39
What you want your surface to be displayed as, your point sizing, and then your 3D geometry,
04:45
whether or not you want to use your surface elevation, exaggerated or flattened.
04:50
Moving on to analysis, there are analyses that you can perform as part of a surface in Civil 3D and those are,
04:57
what are the directions of the faces of your surface?
05:01
What are specific elevation ranges inside of Civil 3D?
05:05
What the slopes are and what their percentages are, and ranges of those slopes inside of Civil 3D,
05:11
and then displaying arrows associated with those slopes?
05:14
And so each of these has set parameters before you perform an analysis.
05:20
So these areas are the set standards for when you do the analysis.
05:26
And then once you go into the Analysis tab, which we'll do later, you can change these numbers,
05:32
but this is what the base parameters are going to be for those analyses.
05:36
Moving on to display, this is where we kind of get in the meat and potatoes of how Civil 3D is actually showing this information,
05:41
and whether or not it is showing it.
05:44
What we have are three different distinct view directions.
05:47
You can have plan view which is top-down, model which is 3-dimensional, and then section which is cutting across section through it.
05:53
Plan and model have the same display settings.
05:56
They can be different from each other, but they contain the same components, whereas section only has one component.
06:04
It's what your surface looks like when you cut a section through it.
06:08
So we're going to go through a plan because it's the same as model, and we're going to talk about the different parameters.
06:14
So you have surfaces that are built out of points and triangles.
06:18
So when you are dealing with your surfaces and you want to perform edits to them, if you want to edit the points for a surface,
06:28
which we will do in a later video, in order to be able to edit those points, you have to have points turned on and be visible.
06:35
Same thing goes for triangles. If you want to edit your triangles, you have to have triangles turned on to be able to edit them.
06:43
If you do not have them turned on and you select the surface and try and perform a point or a triangle edit,
06:48
you'll get an error message that would say that you need to have them turned on,
06:51
and then you need to modify your surface style for the surface that you're trying to edit.
06:56
Moving on from there, we have the borders that we've discussed in the Borders tab,
06:59
and whether or not they're visible and what color, line type, scale, lineweight, and plot style they're going to be.
07:06
Moving down from there, we have our major and minor contours like we discussed in the Contours tab,
07:11
and whether or not they're going to be displayed and how they're going to be displayed.
07:14
We have our user contours, which is an analysis that can be performed.
07:18
You can define a specific user contour and you can say, I want that specific elevation to be displayed as a contour,
07:25
and you can turn it on or turn it off.
07:27
Same thing with your grids, and your direction analysis, your elevation analysis, slope analysis or slope arrow analysis.
07:35
All of these can be turned on and off and then choosing how you want to display them.
07:39
Most of the time when you're dealing with your direction elevation slope and slope arrow analyses,
07:44
you want to have them set to 0 because when you run the analysis, you're going to specify specific colors,
07:50
and those colors are forced through if you have it on layer 0.
07:54
With your watersheds, this is how you're going to choose to have them displayed,
07:58
and then your watershed settings are how it's going to be displayed color wise into Civil 3D.
08:06
So moving on from there, we have our summaries tab which goes through all of the different tabs and options available for the surface.
08:15
So we're going to go ahead and just leave everything as it was because this is a predefined surface style and I don't want to modify it.
08:22
So we're going to go ahead and click "OK" and then "OK" again.
Video transcript
00:07
In this video, we're going to discuss the different parameters and display settings for the surface that we just created.
00:14
So to get to the different display settings and parameters for our surfaces,
00:19
what we're going to go ahead and do is navigate over to the Toolspace in the Prospector tab.
00:23
We're going to dropdown Surfaces, we're going to go to EG and we're going to right click and select Surface Properties.
00:29
Inside of the surface properties, we have the style settings for our surface.
00:34
I'm going to go ahead and dropdown our Surface Style and select Contours 2' And 10' (Background),
00:39
and then I'm going to select Edit that surface style.
00:43
So inside of the surface style, we have information regarding what the name and the description and who created it is.
00:49
This is not a display setting, this is just an informational tab that lets us identify our specific style.
00:57
Moving on from there, we start dealing with what the different parameters and display settings for our surfaces are.
01:04
So the first thing we come to is borders.
01:06
Borders are just outlines for specific regions of a surface,
01:13
whether it be the exterior boundary or whether it be a interior boundary for displaying or not displaying information within a surface.
01:23
Moving on from there, we have contours.
01:26
And the contours are going to display specific elevation locations on a surface.
01:32
Moving on into here, we can talk about what the different ranges are for contours if we're going to do a contour range analysis.
01:40
Otherwise, we can talk about the 3D geometry and whether or not we are going to flatten out that geometry,
01:47
or whether or not we're going to exaggerate it or if we're just going to use it based on the data that was put into the surface.
01:54
Moving to the next, we can show how we're going to display a legend that's associated with those contours.
02:01
Then we can talk about contour intervals, which are basically how often you show these contours on your surface.
02:09
Since this is a 2' and 10' contour style, we have our minor interval set at 2 feet and our major interval set at 10 feet.
02:18
Moving into the next option, we have the contour depressions.
02:22
If you have a depression in your surface and you choose true for display depression contours,
02:27
then you can choose your tick mark intervals and tick mark lengths.
02:31
Those ticks will indicate that there is a depression in the surface and there's no outlet for that depression on that surface.
02:41
And then contour smoothing basically makes so that the contours that are being displayed inside Civil 3D are not jagged,
02:49
they're rather smoothed out.
02:51
They don't necessarily represent a good indication of what the triangular lines are doing for our surface,
02:58
but it does look nice for when you're going to print it out onto a plan set.
03:03
Moving on to the next tab, we have grids.
03:04
So you can grid your surface and you can have a primary grid with an orientation of a specific direction,
03:09
and a secondary grid with an orientation of a different direction.
03:13
Usually they're within 90 degrees of each other.
03:17
And then what the intervals for those two grid types are, so you can have them be equal,
03:23
and have a square grid network on your surface where you can change the intervals at those gridding sections.
03:30
And so you can change how those grids are displayed inside of your surface.
03:35
Moving on to the next is points.
03:36
And this is how the data in your surface is being displayed,
03:40
if you choose to display what that point scale is going to be, what the point style is going to be.
03:45
And then moving on to triangles, we're just talking about how we're going to display those triangles,
03:52
whether or not they're going to use surface elevation, whether they're going to be flattened, or they're going to be exaggerated.
03:58
Most of the time when I'm dealing with surfaces, I'm always using the surface elevation rather than flattening or exaggerating.
04:06
So moving on to watersheds, if you do a watershed analysis in Civil 3D,
04:11
this is where you're going to choose how those watershed analysis are being displayed and what colors they're being displayed on.
04:17
So what you have is you have the generic parameters for your watersheds and then you have the watershed-specific display settings.
04:27
So you have your boundary point watershed, boundary segment watershed, depression watersheds,
04:31
flat area watersheds, multi-drain watersheds, and multi-drain notch watersheds.
04:36
And then you have your display settings for your legend.
04:39
What you want your surface to be displayed as, your point sizing, and then your 3D geometry,
04:45
whether or not you want to use your surface elevation, exaggerated or flattened.
04:50
Moving on to analysis, there are analyses that you can perform as part of a surface in Civil 3D and those are,
04:57
what are the directions of the faces of your surface?
05:01
What are specific elevation ranges inside of Civil 3D?
05:05
What the slopes are and what their percentages are, and ranges of those slopes inside of Civil 3D,
05:11
and then displaying arrows associated with those slopes?
05:14
And so each of these has set parameters before you perform an analysis.
05:20
So these areas are the set standards for when you do the analysis.
05:26
And then once you go into the Analysis tab, which we'll do later, you can change these numbers,
05:32
but this is what the base parameters are going to be for those analyses.
05:36
Moving on to display, this is where we kind of get in the meat and potatoes of how Civil 3D is actually showing this information,
05:41
and whether or not it is showing it.
05:44
What we have are three different distinct view directions.
05:47
You can have plan view which is top-down, model which is 3-dimensional, and then section which is cutting across section through it.
05:53
Plan and model have the same display settings.
05:56
They can be different from each other, but they contain the same components, whereas section only has one component.
06:04
It's what your surface looks like when you cut a section through it.
06:08
So we're going to go through a plan because it's the same as model, and we're going to talk about the different parameters.
06:14
So you have surfaces that are built out of points and triangles.
06:18
So when you are dealing with your surfaces and you want to perform edits to them, if you want to edit the points for a surface,
06:28
which we will do in a later video, in order to be able to edit those points, you have to have points turned on and be visible.
06:35
Same thing goes for triangles. If you want to edit your triangles, you have to have triangles turned on to be able to edit them.
06:43
If you do not have them turned on and you select the surface and try and perform a point or a triangle edit,
06:48
you'll get an error message that would say that you need to have them turned on,
06:51
and then you need to modify your surface style for the surface that you're trying to edit.
06:56
Moving on from there, we have the borders that we've discussed in the Borders tab,
06:59
and whether or not they're visible and what color, line type, scale, lineweight, and plot style they're going to be.
07:06
Moving down from there, we have our major and minor contours like we discussed in the Contours tab,
07:11
and whether or not they're going to be displayed and how they're going to be displayed.
07:14
We have our user contours, which is an analysis that can be performed.
07:18
You can define a specific user contour and you can say, I want that specific elevation to be displayed as a contour,
07:25
and you can turn it on or turn it off.
07:27
Same thing with your grids, and your direction analysis, your elevation analysis, slope analysis or slope arrow analysis.
07:35
All of these can be turned on and off and then choosing how you want to display them.
07:39
Most of the time when you're dealing with your direction elevation slope and slope arrow analyses,
07:44
you want to have them set to 0 because when you run the analysis, you're going to specify specific colors,
07:50
and those colors are forced through if you have it on layer 0.
07:54
With your watersheds, this is how you're going to choose to have them displayed,
07:58
and then your watershed settings are how it's going to be displayed color wise into Civil 3D.
08:06
So moving on from there, we have our summaries tab which goes through all of the different tabs and options available for the surface.
08:15
So we're going to go ahead and just leave everything as it was because this is a predefined surface style and I don't want to modify it.
08:22
So we're going to go ahead and click "OK" and then "OK" again.
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