Terrain from survey mess

[Zowie]

Export a 3Ds to Sketchup. Chief Terrain tool is a crapshoot at best.

[Rupert]

Yes, as Glen says, a terrain break line right down the middle of that wall fixes a lot of problems

Thank you it works fine

Rupert

[johnnyprc]

Your problem is that per the contour, Chief is treating that correctly. Its more a problem with the data than CA. I agree that you need to fix by hand.

If you know how to use Sketchup, you could import into sketchup, run the terrain tool, fix and then export/import into CA.

[jtcapa]

How many of you guys use topographic survey information imported directly from AutoCAD? I would guess that 50% of my residential projects have an official survey with topographic data, and it is only recently that I've been successful at creating CA terrain from it. I watched several video's on how to do it without the "craziness" which was common. There are many tricks and tools to get the terrain to display correctly. I've seen the terrain region simplification method, but like many of you, I need to use the actual topographic information. It is when we pop a house and retaining walls in that mix that the challenges arise.

I tend to either convert the surveyors topo lines into terrain elevation lines and assign them a height based on where my floor level is, or I trace over their lines directly with terrain elevation lines. I'm still learning these tools, after years of dinking with them.

[moak]

Now that this thread has been resurrected - I started it 2 years ago - I've learned a few things. I now create terrains by using a few terrain "Elevation Regions" at key points that relate to the survey data and I let Chief fuss with the individual contours. This is really a case of close enough is good enough.

[jtcapa]

Now that this thread has been resurrected - I started it 2 years ago - I've learned a few things. I now create terrains by using a few terrain "Elevation Regions" at key points that relate to the survey data and I let Chief fuss with the individual contours. This is really a case of close enough is good enough.

I was wondering about that. I just finished a complicated terrain using both the AutoCAD topo lines and popping in those special "elevation region" boxes to smooth things out. They don't print so you can have then where needed to make things look right.

[Mattyt12]

How many of you guys use topographic survey information imported directly from AutoCAD? I would guess that 50% of my residential projects have an official survey with topographic data, and it is only recently that I've been successful at creating CA terrain from it. I watched several video's on how to do it without the "craziness" which was common. There are many tricks and tools to get the terrain to display correctly. I've seen the terrain region simplification method, but like many of you, I need to use the actual topographic information. It is when we pop a house and retaining walls in that mix that the challenges arise.

I tend to either convert the surveyors topo lines into terrain elevation lines and assign them a height based on where my floor level is, or I trace over their lines directly with terrain elevation lines. I'm still learning these tools, after years of dinking with them.

I only ever use contours generated from a surveyors plan, I simply import their dwg, copy the contour lines (which automatically join as polylines most of the time) and convert to terrain elevation lines, give a value then build terrain. Sometimes extra elevation points are required to get chiefs contour lines to match the surveyors.

Only thing is that any slabs manually generated relate to the floor level of zero not the height nominated on the terrain.