Civil 3D 2007 Complete - Points-Profiles Swinburn

HES2146C
Swinburne University of Technology

Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Science
2007
Computer Aided Design

Civil 3D Fundamentals
Assignments Due Date: Midnight 31 May 2007
Submissions via email to: swinburne@cadapps.com.au
Submissions to include Student Number on emailed attachment.

All files to be zipped into one single file and submitted as an attachment to the email.
The submission date is taken as the date the file/s are received in the requested email
mailbox.
Late submissions Marked score LESS 20% per day received after the
Assignment Due Date
Prepared by: CADApps Team Page 1 © Copyright - CADApps Australia Pty Ltd
Table of Contents
Lab 1 – Civil 3D Interface and Points ............................................................................. 5
1. Introduction to Autodesk Civil 3D .............................................................................. 5
Introduction..................................................................................................................... 5
User Interface.................................................................................................................. 5
Menus.......................................................................................................................... 5
Toolspace Settings and Prospector ............................................................................. 6
Autodesk Civil 3D Objects ......................................................................................... 8
Layout Tools ............................................................................................................... 9
Tool Palettes, Panorama and Properties.................................................................... 10
The Drawing Settings – Units and Scales................................................................. 11
Shortcut Menus and Tool Tips.................................................................................. 12
Help System .............................................................................................................. 13
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 14
Exploring the Civil 3D Environment ........................................................................ 14
2. Introduction to Civil 3D Points.................................................................................. 16
Point Groups ................................................................................................................. 16
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 17
Launch Civil 3D and Open Drawing ........................................................................ 17
Create New Points..................................................................................................... 17
Graphic and Tabular Point Display........................................................................... 20
Editing Points Geometry........................................................................................... 22
Deleting and Protecting Points.................................................................................. 23
Control the Display of Point Data................................................................................. 24
Modify the Point Object Style .................................................................................. 24
Description Key Sets................................................................................................. 25
Review and Modify a Description Key Set .............................................................. 26
Importing and Creating Point Data ............................................................................... 26
Create Points Layout Tools....................................................................................... 26
Create a Point Group................................................................................................. 28
Lab 2 – Working with Surfaces ..................................................................................... 30
3. Introduction to Surfaces............................................................................................. 30
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 30
Creating a Surface..................................................................................................... 30
Adding Points to a Surface ....................................................................................... 32
Managing the Surface Display.................................................................................. 33
Labelling the Surface ................................................................................................ 34
Analyse the Surface – 2D ......................................................................................... 38
Analyse the Surface – 3D ......................................................................................... 39
Water Drop Analysis................................................................................................. 40
4. Editing Surfaces .......................................................................................................... 42
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 43
Adding Breaklines to a Surface ................................................................................ 43
Surface Creation – Alternate Data Sources .............................................................. 46
5. Importing Civil 3D Points and Comparing Surfaces............................................... 47
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 48
Create Points from a File .......................................................................................... 48
Change the Surface Display...................................................................................... 51
Adding a Surface Boundary...................................................................................... 51
Lab 3 – Alignments and Lot Layout ............................................................................. 54
6. Sites and Alignments................................................................................................... 54
Managing Sites.............................................................................................................. 54
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 54
Alignments .................................................................................................................... 55
Creating an Alignment from an Existing Polyline.................................................... 56
Editing an Alignment ................................................................................................ 58
Changing the Alignment Chainage Labelling........................................................... 59
Creating an Alignment by Layout............................................................................. 60
Creating a Quick Profile View...................................................................................... 63
7. Civil 3D Lot Layout (Parcels) .................................................................................... 66
Lessons.......................................................................................................................... 67
Creating a Parcel from Objects ................................................................................. 67
Creating the Road Reserve (Right of Way) .............................................................. 68
Editing the Road Reserve to include the Court Bowl ............................................... 69
Splitting the Residential Parcel into Two Logical Segments.................................... 73
Subdividing to Create Individual Lots ...................................................................... 75
Editing Lots............................................................................................................... 78
Creating Parcel Tables .............................................................................................. 78
Lab 4 – Site Grading and Long Sections ...................................................................... 80
8. Grading ........................................................................................................................ 80
Introduction................................................................................................................... 80
Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 80
Grading and the Civil Design Process .......................................................................... 80
Proposed Surface Data Users.................................................................................... 80
Proposed Surface Grading Data................................................................................ 80
Grading for Proposed Civil 3D Surfaces ...................................................................... 81
Prospector and Grading............................................................................................. 82
Grading Styles (Settings Toolspace)......................................................................... 83
Organise Grading Data ............................................................................................. 84
Lesson ........................................................................................................................... 85
Launch Civil 3D and Open the Project Drawing ...................................................... 85
Create Sites and Grading Groups.............................................................................. 86
Create a Proposed Surface ........................................................................................ 90
Design a Retention Pond........................................................................................... 93
Create a Complete Surface........................................................................................ 95
9. Civil 3D Long Sections (Profiles)............................................................................... 97
Introduction................................................................................................................... 97
Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 97
Profiles in Civil Design................................................................................................. 97
Profile Design Process .............................................................................................. 97
Design Criteria .......................................................................................................... 98
Profiles in Civil 3D ................................................................................................... 98
Lesson ........................................................................................................................... 98
Launch Civil 3D........................................................................................................ 98
Create Existing Ground Profile and Profile View .................................................... 99
ASSIGNMENTS ........................................................................................................... 103
Lab 1 – Civil 3D Interface and Points
1. Introduction to Autodesk Civil 3D
Civil 3D is an object-based design environment with defined interactions between ‘civil’ objects.
Rather than depending upon three separate 2D views of a design (plan, profile and section), Civil
3D develops a three dimensional design model. The three dimensional model enables all users to
see the same design in the same way and there is no longer any need to interpret 2D components.
Aside from the distinct advantages gained in design visualization, a digital Civil 3D drawing can
be readily modified. When edits are made to one ‘civil’ object, all related objects automatically
update. For example, if a designer changes the elevations on a surface, all objects that are
affected by that change are updated to the new information. A profile and its cross sections will
automatically adjust their elevations based upon changes to the surface.
The philosophy of Civil 3D is that data is the most important element of a design. The project
design model should not need to change forms when shared between participants, but rather act as
an accessible project resource.
In Civil 3D, all Civil 3D objects created are supported by assigning both an Object Style and
Label Style/s to the object to control its behaviour and presentation.
The Object Style defines how the object will looks (so for a Surface it would define what is
displayed about the surface in 2D and 3D, such as contour spacing, triangulation, slope arrows).
The Label Styles describe what (textual) information is displayed for the object, including text
size, decimal places, text style, etc. For a point, a label style may include display of the point
number, elevation and description and also sets out how this information is arranged relative to
the point object.
Introduction
The purpose of this section is to provide a guided tour of Autodesk Civil 3D. Civil 3D uses the
standard AutoCAD drafting environment, which includes the graphics editor, drafting command
menus, and the Help system.
After a brief introduction to the AutoCAD components, the focus shifts to the behaviour and use
of the Civil 3D Toolspace. The Civil 3D Toolspace can initiate commands, organize data, create
and modify objects and styles. The Civil 3D Toolspace is made up of two components:
 Prospector – enables the user to create, edit, view and manage civil engineering objects
 Settings – provides a list of all the available display styles for the civil engineering
objects that can be created.
User Interface
Menus
…
Pull down menus in Civil 3D play a smaller role than in other software. The emphasis is on
direct user access to objects by either right-clicking on the object itself, or accessing objects via
the Civil 3D Toolspace (Toolspace).
Toolspace Settings and Prospector

Users can display the toolspace window by selecting Show Toolspace… from the General drop-
down menu.
The general layout of the toolspace is shown below:
Figure 1.01: Prospector Toolspace
The Toolspace includes some fundamental

controls:
Toggles on/off the display of the ‘project

item state’ icons in the Prospector tree
Toggles on/off the display of the ‘drawing

item state icons’ (i.e. Indicates whether an
object in the drawing is locked or unlocked)
Toggles on/off the display of the ‘drawing

item modifier’ icons in the Prospector tree
(indicates if an object is ‘out of date’ and
requires updating)
Switches the display of the Panorama

window
Displays the Help menu
The lower left corner has two buttons for
controlling the toolspace window behaviour.
The Toolspace is used to manage both
Object Styles and Project Data. The The top of the two buttons sets Auto hide
Prospector tab gives access to the On/Off. This feature minimizes and opens the
project data and the Settings tab gives window when we hover with the mouse over
access to Object Styles Settings. it. The button below sets the window’s
properties.
You can access all Civil 3D object
styles from the Settings page in Click and hold on the title bar to drag the
Toolspace. window around. Drag the window to the left
side of the screen to dock it.
Right-Click on any item in the Settings
or Prospector page to obtain access to
the functions of the selected object.
Figure 1.02: Settings Toolspace
When in docked state, click on the top bar of the
window and drag it to undock it.
This applies to all dockable toolbars in the

AutoCAD Drawing Window.
Autodesk Civil 3D Objects

Civil 3D objects are AutoCAD entities specifically developed to support design requirements of
objects typically involved in the civil design process. These are created as intelligent objects that
are able to maintain relationships with other objects in the drawing.
Object Types (partial list)
Supports: external survey data imports, terrain modelling and design

output
Supports: data imports, terrain modelling and design output
Supports terrain modelling and grading design
Supports subdivision design and site grading
Supports site grading, subdivision design and surface modelling
Supports subdivision design and corridor modelling
Supports corridor modelling
Supports profile display
Relationships
Interacts with: Field book files, external survey data, Points and Surface
Models
Interacts with: Surface models
Interacts with: Points and Profiles
Interacts with: Alignments, Grading and Corridor
Interacts with: Surfaces and Corridor
Interacts with: Grading, Corridor, Profiles and Sections
Interacts with: Surfaces, Alignments and Grading
Interacts with: Profiles, Surfaces and Alignments
Layout Tools
Layout Tools display the set of design tools available for the selected Civil 3D Object.
Alignments, Profiles, Pipe Networks, Cross Section Sample Lines and other design objects are
supported via the consistent set of floating tools that stay active until the user has finished the
design task and exits from the command.
The included command icons support the most common design processes for creating and editing
the relevant object. The basic functions are on the left side of the toolbar and the more complex
functions appear towards the right hand side of the toolbar as the design element/object continues
to develop.
Tool Palettes, Panorama and Properties
Autodesk Civil 3D makes use of standard AutoCAD controls, where appropriate, to support the
standard user interface.
Tool Palettes
Tool palettes are used for design objects, catalogues and user command menus.
The Panorama Window

The Panorama window is a multi-purpose dialog box. The primary purpose of the window is to
display lists of data such as points, alignment entities and description keys.
Figure 1.03: The Panorama Window

The Panorama window is automatically displayed when the user edits objects, such as Edit
Points, Edit Keys (shown above) and also to advise of any errors or issues when creating objects
(such as crossing breaklines, etc).
The window can be set to be transparent, to Auto-Hide, and to be able to be ‘docked’. To edit the
display control of the Panorama window (this also applied to the Prospector Toolspace), right
click on the Properties Icon :
The Drawing Settings – Units and Scales
Each drawing establishes the units of measurement and the drawing scale.
You can review the units and scales for your drawing from the Civil 3D Toolspace. Click on the
Settings tab and then right click on the Drawing Name at the top.
The shortcut menu will include the option to Edit Drawing Settings… Click on this to open the
Drawing Settings form:
As well as setting the units and drawing scale here, users can choose what layers different objects
are created on, what abbreviations are used for alignment geometry points and what other general
settings are required.
The Properties Window
The Properties window has the same functionality as the standard AutoCAD Properties Window.
This window supports all editable properties for Civil 3D Objects.
Figure 1.04: Properties Window
Shortcut Menus and Tool Tips

Civil 3D supports
access to Object
Properties, Styles and
Edit functions by right-
clicking on the entity in
the AutoCAD drawing
editor or in the
Prospector Toolspace.
Pop up menus are
context sensitive and
provide access to
functions specified to
the selected object.
Tool tips display also on the screen when the mouse is stationary in the drawing – the tool tips
provide real-time information about Civil 3D objects in the drawing (e.g.: surface levels at the
hover location, offsets and chainages relative to alignments, etc).
Help System
The AutoCAD help system incorporates the Civil 3D help – you access both in the same way. By
pressing the F1 key or selecting the Help menu, you display the Civil 3D Help System. This is a
movable window including the tabs:
 Contents - for progressively opening folders
 Index - type in a key word and obtain the index listing
 Search - for typing in an issue and obtaining all the help topics including the typed in
information
Figure 1.05: Civil 3D Help System – Contents Searching
Lessons
Exploring the Civil 3D Environment
1. Double click the desktop Civil 3D icon.
2. From the File menu, select Open.
3. Browse to..\Civil3D Training\Module1\ and from the list of drawings, select C3D Data
Set.dwg.
Civil 3D
Prospector
Toolspace
Figure 1.10: Civil 3D Environment
4. If the Prospector Toolspace is not showing start the command [General]-[Show

Toolspace].
5. Click the Prospector tab to show its data panel.
6. To the left of the current drawing name, C3D Data Set, click the Expand Tree icon to view
the list of Civil 3D objects present in the drawing.
Figure 1.60: Prospector Object
Tree
Figure 1.65: Prospector Object Tree – Sites

Expanded out
In this drawing a number of Alignments MAY have already been created.
Alignments are Civil 3D objects and exist in a Site. A Site contains Alignment Objects, Parcel
Objects and Grading Objects that can interact with each other.
7. Expand out the object type Sites, then expand out Site 1.
8. This will show the object types that exist in the site – Alignments, Grading Groups and
Parcels
If there is a + sign next to Alignments then proceed with Steps 9 and 10 below:
9. Expand out the Alignments – note that a series of alignments have been created
10. Right click on one of the alignments to get a context sensitive shortcut menu – select Zoom
To to zoom into that alignment in the drawing window. This method of searching for Civil
3D objects is available for any object via the Prospector Toolspace.
Note that the Prospector tab includes two parts:
- object management
- preview and list of selected object types
Exit Civil 3D
When you are finished working in Civil 3D, you can either use the File menu exit command, or
simply close the window.
Click the close icon at the upper right of the Civil 3D program banner.
Civil 3D will prompt you to save your work before it shuts down. Since we’ve only been looking
around, you can click NO and let the application close.
2. Introduction to Civil 3D Points
All civil projects start with basic site data, such as point data established in the field.
This module discusses options to create points manually and also introduces point groups and
methods for managing point display.
Point Groups
Managing points can become a challenge not only due to the often high number of them in a
project, but by their possible affect on other Civil 3D data, such as a surface. Civil 3D includes a
point organisation feature called point groups.
Point groups are a key component of Civil 3D for managing the points that are used to build a
surface and to control ‘en masse’ the display characteristics of a collection of points.
The basic method to organize data in Civil 3D is to use the Prospector data tree and the displayed
points on the screen. The resulting points are listed in the Prospector panel as individual points
and as members of the point group ‘_All Points’.
Figure 2.01: Prospector Object Tree
Point groups allow you to segregate points into categories that you define. A point group allows
you to manage several points at a time using their point group name. A point group also enables
you to display only the points of immediate interest. Point groups also facilitate excluding
unwanted points from a surface data set when you build a surface.
Point groups organize points that are similarly named (all natural surface points) or are related by
function (monuments, iron pipes, section corners). Besides using descriptions, point groups can
be created from a selection set, by point number ranges or a combination of these selection
methods. Point groups based on point descriptions are the most useful.
Lessons
Launch Civil 3D and Open Drawing
1. Start Autodesk Civil 3D by double-clicking the Autodesk Civil 3D desktop icon.
3. In the File dialog box, select Open and browse to..\Civil 3D Training\Module2\C3D Data
Set_M2.dwg
Note: In this tutorial we’ll use the existing Point Styles, Label Styles and Description Key Sets.
Create New Points

1. From the Points menu select Create Points… The Create Points toolbar appears.
Alternatively, right click on the heading Points in the Prospector Toolspace and select
Create Points from the shortcut menu.
Figure 2.04: Points Toolspace
2. From the Create Points toolbar, click the drop down arrow next to the miscellaneous icon
and select Manual.
3. The command line will prompt you to specify a location for the new point. Type in the co-
ordinates 8509.80, 28803.00 at the prompt and press [Enter].
4. The command line will now prompt you to enter a point description, followed by an
elevation. Enter in TR 1 (Note: CAPITALISATION is important AND you must use a
SPACE between TR and 1) for the description and specify a point elevation of 416.10
A point will now be created on screen – note that it will include a symbol representing a tree.
5. Repeat tasks 3 and 4, entering the following information.
Easting Northing Description Elevation
8514.8125 28740.8861 TB1 428.95
8437.1349 28803.0405 EB 401.80
8456.1244 28812.1202 NS 402.05
8480.0678 28798.9133 EB 414.60
6. Press <Enter> to exit the command
The Civil 3D Points listed above should now be displayed in the area east of Cairns Street, as
shown below.
Figure 2.05: New Civil 3D Points Created
Let’s now create some more points by clicking in specific areas in the display window.
7. From the Layers Manager, navigate to the layer “Points Setout” by selecting the drop-down
arrow to the right of the current layer name, and turn the layer on (click on the light bulb so
it illuminates, as shown below).
The following should appear in your display window.
8. Repeat steps 1 and 2 and create new points by graphically clicking on a location within the
corresponding circle (when prompted for a location) and entering the following
information.
Description Elevation
A TR 2 413.93
B TB2 418.43
C TB1 423.35
D TB2 423.03
E FH 424.59
F TPIT 425.87
G EB 424.12
H NS 430.40
I NS 430.43
J NS 424.80
K TR .5 430.05
L TB1 428.24
9. Once you have completed entering the points listed above, hit <Enter> to exit the command
and turn off the layer “_Points Setout”.
The following should appear in your display window.
Note: Points are automatically numbered, sequencing from the last created point number. You
can change this before creating points by clicking on the arrow on the Create Points
Toolbar and expanding out the Point Identity heading – change the Next Point Number.
Graphic and Tabular Point Display

The Settings Toolspace is used for style editing. Styles are standardised items that control the
display of all Civil 3D drawing objects, including points. Styles are created, copied, edited and
saved from the Settings Toolspace.
Styles used for point display are Point Styles and Label Styles.
1. Expand the Prospector Toolspace and select Points to reveal the point list.
Figure 2.06: Civil 3D Points List
Note: Point data can be sorted by clicking on the respective columns.

Note: Point descriptions can be imported as number or alphanumeric codes.
2. Right-click the column headers to show available point data for display.
3. With the mouse cursor, select a range of points from the table, right-click and note the
available menu commands.
Editing Points Geometry
This section discusses how Points can be edited. Three methods exist:
 Graphical Edits – Since the point is an AutoCAD object the point object can be selected and
moved graphically – this will be reflected dynamically in the Points List
 Tabular Edits – The figures in the Points list can be adjusted to change the point – this will be
reflected dynamically in the drawing window
 Point Edit by Selection – Selecting and right clicking on a point or collection of points
enables the option to Edit Points. This opens the Panorama Window for editing of the
selected point/s
1. Expand the Prospector Toolspace and select Points to reveal the point list. Right click on
Point Number 2 and select Zoom To from the shortcut menu
2. Point Number 2 will be centralized in the drawing window
3. In the Points List, change the Point Elevation to 405.79 and press Enter. The on-screen
point description will update to reflect this change:
4. Click on the point object marker (cross) in the drawing. Click on the blue grip tab that
displays and move the point to the right, immediately above the Tree symbol. Note: the
points list will immediately update to match the new point location.
Figure 2.07: Graphical and Tabular Points Editing
Deleting and Protecting Points
Points can be deleted from the Points List or by using the Erase command in the drawing window
and selecting point object/s.
1. Click on Points in the Prospector Toolspace. This will display the Points List.
2. Right click on Point Number 4 and choose Zoom To
3. In the drawing window, click on the central point (point number 4) to select it, type E in
the command line (for erase) and press Enter.
The point will be deleted from the screen and from the Points List.
To protect your points:
4. Highlight all the points in the Points List (click on the Point Number 1, hold down the Shift
button on the keyboard and click on the last Point in the list).
5. Click the right mouse button and select Lock from the shortcut menu
Note the icon displayed against

each point – this indicates that
the object is locked from editing.
Now try deleting or moving a
point – it won’t work until the
points are Unlocked.
Users can UNDO deleted points

using the standard AutoCAD
undo command.
Figure 2.08: Locked Points
Control the Display of Point Data
This section discusses how Point Object and Point Label Styles are used to control the graphic
display of point data. These styles are normally transferred and maintained via the prototype
(template) drawing.
Both point object and point label styles control graphic display of points.
The point object style controls the symbol represented at the point location and whether or not the
symbol and/or label is displayed (both in a 2D and 3D view). The point label style controls the
display of point attributes (number, elevation, description).
Modify the Point Object Style

These next steps modify the Point Style that controls the display of the point object (node).
1. From the Toolspace, select the Settings tab. Civil 3D displays the library of styles
applicable to points, surfaces, parcels, grading, alignments, profiles and sections.
2. Expand C3D Data Set (if required) to display the different object types.
3. Under Point, expand Point Styles, then right-click on the Standard point style, and click
Edit.
Note the small orange triangle at the top right corner of the Standard point style – this indicates
that the style is being used by object/s in the drawing.
The Point Style dialog box is displayed:
Figure 2.09: Point Style Dialogue Box
4. To show the different object display options, click the Marker tab.
The Marker tab enables these operations:
• Different symbols can be used to represent the point node.
• Custom symbols can be inserted to be used in conjunction with Description Key Sets.
• Symbols can be scaled based on the drawing scale, fixed scale, absolute units or relative
to screen.
5. From the Marker tab, use the Custom Marker option and superimpose a circle symbol on
a cross (click on the button showing a circle). The marker component of the point objects
in the drawing will update to reflect the modified style.
6. Review the settings in the Information, 3D Geometry, Display and Summary tabs.
7. Under the Display tab you can change the Marker and Label Component visibility settings.
Under the Summary tab you can view all details for the Point Style.
8. Click OK, zoom to a point and note how the point objects display has changed,
representing the node with “circle” superimposed on an “x.” This applies
simultaneously to all point objects in the drawing that are using the Standard point
object style.
Description Key Sets

When you need to automatically organize and visualize points upon creation, Description Key
Sets are highly useful.
Description Key Sets enable you to:

 Assign alternate descriptions to points (change numeric to alpha descriptions for
example).
 Assign specific symbols to points (set the Point Object Style).
 Assign the point to a prototype layer definition.
Description Key Sets are accessed from the Settings toolspace. A sample file appears as follows:
Figure 2.11: Description Key Editor
Description Key operations are applied when you create points. For each distinct field code you
can do the following:
 Assign a point style to represent the point node. Any AutoCAD block can be used to
define a point style.
 Assign a label style to the point to control point labeling.
 Assign an alternate or a Full description to a point.
 Assign specific labels to Points (set the Point Label Style)
 Assign the point to a specific layer.
The following sections detail how to create the Point Styles, Description Key Set and the Point
Groups to enable Description Key functionality.
Review and Modify a Description Key Set

A Description Key Set is used to assign an alternate point description, controls point display, and
assigns the point to a layer.
For each survey description, a Point Style, Point Label Style, Format (or alternate description),
and a Layer for point insertion is assigned.
To review the Description Key Set, go to Settings in Toolspace, expand Point, expand
Description Key Sets, right click on _Au Alpha Codes, and pick Edit Keys.
The Description Key Editor palette appears. You will see the following
Figure 2.14: Description Keys
Note: To create a new description key entry, you can either copy an existing entry and modify it
accordingly, or hold your mouse over an existing entry, right-click and choose New.
Importing and Creating Point Data

Civil 3D provides an intuitive points creation toolspace to quickly and easily create point objects
in your drawing.
Create Points Layout Tools

There are two methods for displaying the Create Points toolspace:
 From the Points Menu: Click on the Create Points… command of the Points menu
 From Prospector: Right click on the heading Points in the Prospector panel of the
Toolspace and select Create from the shortcut menu.
This will open the Create Points Layout Tools (below):
Figure 2.02: Create Points Layout Tools
The Create Points toolspace is used to create points using a variety of methods. Users click on
the relevant icon (or drop down arrow beside an icon) to determine the category and command
they which to use to create points.
As an example, users can import points from an external file by clicking on the Import Points
icon. The Import Points function includes a list of format type’s accessible form the pull-
down menu of the Format field. You need to select the correct format of the import file. After
identifying the file format, you then need to specify the Source File, which is the file to be read.
The selected file is read and the points inserted into the project.
Note that the Import commands in the Points menu are limited to reading ASCII (e.g.: .txt, .csv
type) and database files.
Figure 2.03: Import Points Dialogue Box
The next steps in the process are to create a point group and then a surface from the point group.
Create a Point Group
1. From Prospector, right-click on Point Groups and select New.

2. From the Point Group Properties dialog box, select the Information tab.
3. In the name field, type Countourable.
4. Click the Include tab.
5. Tick the Include All Points option:
Figure 2.16: Point Group Properties – Include
6. Click on the Exclude tab – here the user determines which points should not be included in
the point group.
Figure 2.17: Point Group Properties – Exclude
7. Click on with raw descriptions matching and type in FH* in the field.
8. Click on the Points List tab – note that no points with description FH are in the point
group.
9. Click OK.
Note: In the Overrides tab users can tick on to assign a Property to ALL points in the point
group. To test this:
10. Right click on the point group Contourable in the Point Groups list and select Properties.
11. Click on the Overrides tab and tick on to override the Property for the Point Style.
12. In the Override area, set the Point Style to SEWMH
13. Click on the Apply button to review the changes.
14. (Note that these overrides will not apply to the FH point)
15. Now un-tick the Point Style property overrides and click OK.
Note: Any points that are NOT assigned a Point Style and Point Label style via the Key
Description File will use the default styles as set in the Point Group (Note also that Point Groups
can be ordered, so the point group at the top has priority over the point groups below).
You have successfully created points in the drawing. In the next session you will learn to create a
Civil 3D surface
16. Save your drawing.
Lab 2 – Working with Surfaces
3. Introduction to Surfaces
In keeping with Civil 3D’s object based design modelling, surfaces created in Civil 3D can
dynamically interact with any objects (such as points and breaklines) that have been used as
design inputs to the surface.
Autodesk Civil 3D create a dynamic, continuous representation of a surface by connecting the
surface points in a network of triangles. Using this network, you can interpolate the elevation at
any location of the surface, not just locations that are defined by a point. The network creates a
continuous surface that you can use to display contours and elevation data that is accurate to the
data inputs.
The display of surfaces is managed by applying a Surface Object Style and Surface Label Styles
to the object.
In this lesson we will be:
 creating a surface by using a point group
 displaying the surface in different ways
 adding contour labels to a surface
Lessons
Note: If you are working on the same drawing from Modules 1-2 then you can continue with
this project. Otherwise do Steps 1-3 inclusive
1. If required, Start Autodesk Civil 3D by double-clicking the Autodesk Civil 3D desktop
icon.
3. In the File dialog box, select Open and browse to ...\Civil 3D Training\Module3\C3D
Data Set_M3.dwg
Note: In this drawing a point group and points have been created.
Creating a Surface
1. From the Prospector tab in the Toolspace (Prospector), expand the drawing name tree to
view the Civil 3D objects list.
2. Click on Surfaces, click the right mouse button and select New. This will open up the
Create Surface form:
Figure 3.01: Create Surface Dialog Box
The next step is to name the surface in the Create Surface form:
3. For the surface Name, type in Existing Surface.
4. For your Style, set the Value to _Au Contours – Background 1m.
Note: The Surface Style sets out how the surface should look in BOTH a 2D or 3D view. This
style control extends to the contour intervals to be displayed, smoothing of the contours, whether
to display the surface triangles, display of slope arrows, and the colours/layers for all aspects of
the surface displayed.
In the later lessons we will change the Surface Style to adjust the display of information for the
surface object
5. Click on OK to create the surface.
In Prospector there will now be an Existing Surface object under Surfaces.
In Civil 3D, users can set whether to manually rebuild the surface when the source data for the
surface changes, or whether to automate the surface rebuild to dynamically react to changes in the
surface building data.
6. Right click on the Existing Surface object in the Prospector Toolspace and select the
option Rebuild-Automatic.
Note: If you do not set the surface to be Rebuild-Automatic the surface will not automatically
update when it detects changes to the surface data. As with all Civil 3D objects, if a change is
detected and an object has not been updated it will show the ‘Out of Date’ symbol next to the
object in the Prospector tab. You need to right click on the source object/s and select Update to
remove this symbol and re-create the object using the current data.
Adding Points to a Surface
After creating a surface, the next step is to assign data to the surface. The data can be a single
item from the list data or any combination of data elements.
1. To add points to the surface, click the Expand Tree icon for the Existing Surface Surface
Object.
2. In the Existing Surface tree, click the Expand Tree icon for Definition.
3. Click Point Groups, click the right mouse

button and select Add.
This displays the Point Group dialog box that lists all
of the point groups. To add a point group to the
surface, select the group from the list:
Figure 3.02 and 3.03: Adding Point Group Data
4. From the Point Group dialog box list, select Contourable.

5. Click OK to assign the point group to the surface and to close the dialog box.
The surface will automatically build based on the data inputs:
Figure 3.04: Surface Created
The display of the surface contours (colour and interval) is controlled by the Surface Object Style.
Note that if you hover the mouse over the surface you will get a ‘tool tip’ which will show you
the current surface level.
Managing the Surface Display

Upon creation of a surface it is usual to review the triangulation. This evaluation allows you to
discover if the data is properly triangulated and if linear features (Road edges, tops/toes of banks,
drain inverts, etc) are correctly represented in the net.
The _Au Contours – Background 1m style does NOT display the triangulation of the Existing
Surface surface. To be able to view the triangulation, you need to EITHER modify the currently
applied surface style or assign another surface style that displays the triangulation.
Note: the _Au Contours and Triangles – 0.2m style does show the triangulation of the surface.
To show the triangulation of the surface, it is proposed to:
 Change the applied Surface Style to be _Au Contours and Triangles – 1m; and
In the Prospector panel, select the Existing Surface, click the right mouse button and
1. Click on the Information tab to view the Surface style assigned to the surface.
2. To view the list of available styles, click the list arrow under the heading Surface style.
3. Select the style _Au Contours and Triangles – 1m and click on the drop down arrow for
the icon (shown above) immediately right of the Surface style list.
4. From the options select Copy Current Surface.
This will make a new surface style based on the _Au Contours and Triangle – 1m.
5. Click OK create and apply the new Surface Style.

The Surface style will change to be _Au Contours and Triangles – 1m for the surface
6. Click OK to apply the changes and exit the Surface Properties form:
Figure 3.09: Revised Surface display
Note that the surface now displays the triangulation (lines connecting points) and the colour of the
contour lines has changed.
7. Familiarise yourself with the triangulation by zooming into areas of the surface
8. Save your drawing.
Take note of the triangulation and the point codes – the point descriptions EB indicate the edge of
bitumen and TB indicates top or toe of bank. It is usual for the triangle lines to run along these
features. The ‘default’ triangulation has not delivered this outcome in parts of the surface.
The FH point has not been included in the surface.
Why?
How would you get them included in the surface model again?
Labelling the Surface

Labels help to ‘describe’ attributes about the surface. There are three label types that are usually
applied to a surface:
 Contour Labels
 Surface Elevation Labels
 Surface Slope Labels
Surface and contour labels created for a surface dynamically report surface levels. Additionally,
contour labels are sensitive to the display of contours and the contour interval for the surface.
Creating Contour Labels

You can label individual contours or groups of contours at the same time. To do this:
1. Zoom to the surface
2. From the Surfaces menu, select Labels and select Add Contour Labels…
Civil 3D displays the Create Contour Labels dialog box:
Figure 3.10: Create Contour Labels Dialog Box
3. The icon on the left is used to set the layer that the contour label line should go on.
Civil 3D creates contours where the contour label line crosses the contour line/s – deleting the
label line will delete the associated contour labels. Leave the contour label line layer as is.
4. You can select which surface to create the labels for by clicking on the Select Surface icon
5. For the label type, leave the setting to Group Label Line – this can be adjusted by clicking
on the pick list arrow and selecting another contour labelling method
6. Leave the Multiple Group Interior to not label group interiors.
7. The Major contours can be turned on/off or the display style changed by clicking on the
Major Interval icon (click on the actual icon to change the style or the pick list
immediately to the right of the icon to set whether or not the major contours will be
labelled. Leave to the defaults.
8. Turn off the minor contours by using the pick list arrow next to the Minor interval icon
and selecting the option to not plot minor contours (see below):
Figure 3.11: Turn off the Minor Contours
9. To create the labels, select two points on screen that cross several contours.
The command labels each contour where the line intersects a contour:
10. Now turn ON the option to label the minor contours as well as the major contours and
select again two points on screen that cross several contours:
Figure 3.12: Contour Labels Added
11. Exit the contour labeling command by closing the Create Contour Labels dialog box.
12. Click on a contour label line and move it using the grips. Note that the contour label
locations adjust to suit the new location of the label line.
Creating Surface Labels

You can create elevation (level) labels and slope labels to describe surface features:
1. From the Surfaces menu select Labels and select Add Surface Labels… This will bring
up the following form:
2. Select Slope as the label type and click on
the button Add.
3. At the command prompt, press Enter to
create slopes based on one point
(instantaneous slope).
4. Now click on the surface where desired to
create slope arrows
Note: the Label Type allows you to set how you
would like the slopes to display – there are two
style options here (slope label or grade label)
Figure 3.13: Create Surface Labels

5. Now click on the option Spot Elevation (or Spot Level) as the Label Type and then click
on the button Add.
6. The command line will prompt you to nominate whether you want to add a One-point or
Two point slope label, press <Enter> to accept a One-point label.
7. Click on the surface wherever you would like a surface label to be added:
Figure 3.14: Surface Labels Added
Analyse the Surface – 2D
You can apply different surface styles to control how a surface will look in 2D and 3D.
Some useful surface styles have already been created and will be applied to see the different
representations of the surface.
1. In the Prospector panel, select the Existing Surface, click the right mouse button and
click Properties…
3. Using the pick list, change the

Surface style to _Au Slope
Arrows & Triangles.
4. Click OK to exit the Surface
Properties dialog box and
review the changes.
Note how a slope arrow is now
drawn in the centre of each triangle
showing the direction of the land.
The colours for the slope arrows and
slope ranges can be adjusted by
reviewing the Analysis tab from the
Surface Properties dialog box.
Figure 3.15: Slope Arrow Surface Style
5. Do Steps 1-2 inclusive.

6. Using the pick list, change the
Surface style to _Au Levels
Shading.
7. Navigate to the Analysis tab
and ensure that the Analysis
type is set to Elevations.
8. Select 4 for the number of
Ranges and select the Run
Analysis button
review the changes.
Figure 3.16: Levels Shading Surface Style

Note how triangles of different colours are now used to describe the surface.
The colours range from red to green depending on the elevation of the surface for that triangle.
The colours for the triangles and elevation ranges can be adjusted by reviewing the Analysis tab
from the Surface Properties dialog box.

11. Using the pick list in the
information tab, change the
Surface style to _Au Slope
Arrows & Watersheds.
12. Navigate to the Analysis tab
and ensure that the Analysis
type is set to Watersheds.
13. Select the Run Analysis button

review the changes.
Figure 3.17: Catchment Surface Style
Note how different areas of the surface have been created to represent different catchment areas
and catchment types.
Each catchment area is individually labelled with the catchment details.
In order to keep the surface details most relevant to the further lessons, change the surface display
back to the contours and triangles:

16. Using the pick list, change the Surface style to _Au Contours and Triangles – 1m.
17. Click OK to exit the Surface Properties dialog box and adjust the surface display.
Analyse the Surface – 3D

The Surface style also controls how the surface will look in 3D as well as 2D.
To quickly ‘see’ the surface in 3D use the Civil 3D Object Viewer – this viewer allows you to
select any collection of objects and view them in an independent 3D viewing environment
18. Click on the surface contours in the drawing to highlight the surface
19. Click on the right mouse button and select Object Viewer from the shortcut menu:
You can hold down the left mouse button
to rotate the surface view in 3D.
Clicking and dragging the top/bottom
small circle will allow you to rotate the
surface view up/down only. Clicking and
dragging the left/right small circles will
allow you to rotate the surface view
left/right.
The surface can be viewed in a rendered
or wireframe view by clicking on one of
the following buttons:
The pick list at the top right enables to
you select some ‘standard’ 3D views.
The surface display of elevation banding
has been set in the surface style – you
could edit the style or apply a different
style to display contours or triangle lines
or slope arrows, etc.
Click on the ‘target’ icon to set this 3D
view in the drawing window.
Figure 3.18: 3D Object Viewing
Water Drop Analysis

1. From the Surfaces menu, expand the Utilities function and select Water Drop…
2. The command line will prompt you to ‘Select a surface… ‘ Press [Enter] and select
Existing Surface from the drop down list. The Water Drop Dialogue box will appear…
Figure 3.19: Water Drop Dialogue Box
3. The Water Drop dialogue box allows you to select a number of options. For this example,
accept all default values and click OK.
4. The command line will prompt you to ‘select point…’ with your cursor, click some points
on your surface and you will notice that polylines will form on your surface model.
The polylines represent the direction of water flow as if a single water drop landed on your
surface at the location of the nodes you select. The end of the polyline represents the
lowest point of the surface that water would flow to, working from the selected water drop
locations.
4. Editing Surfaces
This module discusses functionality in the software to edit the surface levels manipulating the
triangulation and adding breaklines to the surface model, and
Upon review of the surface the following irregularities are noted:
If the coordinates are in an electronic file in a format Civil 3D can read, then the data can be
directly imported into Civil 3D as long as you understand the file structure. The structure of a file
is a set of rows representing unique coordinate locations. In turn, each record is made up of data
elements. The most common point file structure is point number, easting, northing, elevation and
The dashed red lines indicate where the triangulation is

incorrect.
In these locations the triangles should be following the red
lines, since these lines connect up common types of points
(EB for edge of bitumen, TB for top of bank).
Figure 4.01: Surface Analysis – Incorrect Triangulation
There are two very efficient methods for changing the triangulation of a surface:
 Use the Surface Edit tools to swap the triangle directions (one triangle line at a time)
 Create polylines to describe the required direction of the triangle lines and then to force the
surface to use these lines in the triangulation (termed as adding breaklines to the surface).
Note that polylines which include levels at each of the vertices can be added directly as
breaklines, without the need of any points.
Breaklines can be manually added to the surface to force the triangulation to adjust.
For large scale survey, manually adding breaklines or editing the surface triangulation is a tedious
and error-prone process – Civil 3D incorporating CADApps Stringer program provides very
efficient tools to add breaklines to a surface by automatically connecting up common point
descriptions with 3D polylines and adding these polylines to the surface model as breaklines.
Breaklines are created from AutoCAD objects – normally 3D polylines.
Lessons
Note: If you are working on the same drawing from Modules 3 then you can continue with this
project. Otherwise do Steps 2-4 inclusive
icon.
3. In the File dialog box, select Open and browse to..\Civil 3D Training\Module4\C3D Data
Set_M4.dwg
Note: In this drawing a surface has been created and is ready for editing.
Adding Breaklines to a Surface
Creating Polylines to Use as Breaklines

First create polylines, to use as a data source for the surface.
1. At the command line type in 3DPoly and press Enter.
2. At the command line type in Node and press Enter. This will force the software to ‘snap’
to nodes in the drawing.
3. Hover over the left-most point with description Top Bank until the ‘node snap’ glyph
appears. Left click to start the polyline and snap to the node of Top Bank – this will
automatically assign the elevation of the node to the vertices of the polyline (see example
below).
to nodes.
5. Hover over the middle point with description Top Bank until the ‘node snap’ glyph
appears. Left click to start the polyline and snap to the node of Top Bank (see example
below)
6. Press Enter to stop the command and add the 3D polyline:
Figure 4.02: 3D polyline for Top Bank added
7. You can list the attributes of the line by clicking on it in the drawing and typing in li at the
command line and pressing [Enter]. This will open up a form to list the details of the
polyline. Check to make sure that levels exist greater than zero at the start and end of the
polyline. If not, delete the line and repeat Steps 1-6 inclusive.
8. Repeat Steps 1-6 inclusive to create a 3D polyline connecting up the Edge Bitumen point
descriptions from the mid point to the far right point, as shown:
Figure 4.03: 3D polyline for Edge Bitumen added
Adding Breaklines to the Surface

1. To add breaklines to the surface, click the Expand Tree icon for the Existing Surface
surface object.
3. Click on Breaklines, click the right mouse button

and select Add.
This displays the Add Breakline dialog box to select the
type of breakline being added:
Figure 4.04 and 4.05: Adding Breaklines

4. You need to name the breaklines you are adding – type in ‘EB and TB1’
5. For the breakline Type, select Standard.
6. Click OK to select objects in the drawing to use as breaklines. Click on both of the 3D
polylines that you have just created.
7. Press Enter to confirm the selection of polylines to add as breaklines
The surface will automatically re-build based on the added data inputs:
Figure 4.06: Breaklines Added to the Surface
Note: The surface will dynamically react to the added breakline objects – grip editing or deleting
the 3D polyline object will force an update to the surface.
8. In the Prospector tab note that there is a new icon next to the Breakline data type indicating
that breakline data has been applied to the surface.
9. Click on the Breakline heading to ‘see’ the breakline entries that have been added to the
surface. You can delete the breakline data by right clicking on the entry here and selecting
Delete – this keeps the original polyline/s in the drawing.
Since the surface is tracking the status of the breaklines, deleting the polyline/s from the drawing
will delete the breakline/s from the surface.
Moving either end of the polylines will also force the surface to change – you may wish to
explore the effect of grip editing one end and ‘relocating’ it.
If you delete the polylines redo all the Steps under the heading Adding Breaklines to a Surface
Surface Creation – Alternate Data Sources
Surfaces can be created using a variety of data sources
These include:
 Creating a surface from Civil 3D points (as above)
 Creating/Editing a surface by applying breaklines
 Creating a surface using ‘contour’ objects (normally 2D polylines at elevation) – the
difference between this method and adding Breaklines is that the source data (contours)
have automatically have vertices added or vertices removed from the line to improve the
triangulation
 Creating a surface by directly importing a co-ordinate file (this sets out the triangulation
points and adds them directly to the surface)
 Creating a surface by Importing a Land XML file (and XML file is a data source file that
can include information describing surfaces, alignments, profiles and other data able to be
interpreted by Civil 3D)
 Importing data from Autodesk Land Desktop
5. Importing Civil 3D Points and Comparing Surfaces
This module discusses options to import and organize point data and forming a surface boundary.
Point data comes in a large variety of formats. These formats include coordinates written or
printed on paper, existing Land Desktop projects, ASCII or LandXML files. If the data is not in
electronic form, the data must be hand entered into a file and then imported. The results of any
point data that is transcribed (from paper to electronic form) must be carefully reviewed for data
entry errors.
If the coordinates are in an electronic file in a format Civil 3D can read then the data can be
directly imported into Civil 3D, as long as you understand the file structure. A typical file
structure that is suitable for import is characterised by a set of rows of data representing unique
coordinate locations (and optionally point numbers and descriptions).
The most common point file structure is point number, easting, northing, elevation and
description.
There are two basic methods for separating the data elements of a record; comma and space
delimited. These are illustrated below in examples of ASCII files.
Comma Delimited:
137,3077.2770,8349.1357,625.9300,TRAV
145,2750.7102,7851.4276,637.2300,TRAV
Spaced Delimited:
301 4019.0583 9156.0964, 88.4600 TRAV
306 2172.3277 8531.0849 606.5600 TB
A comma-delimited file means that a comma character separates the elements of the point. A
space delimited file means the elements of a point are separated by a space.
Note: Autodesk Civil 3D will not read or import the file if you select a format that does not match
the format of the file.
When you import a file into Civil 3D, you must specify the correct format of the data you want to
import into the drawing. Specifying in incorrect data format and importing with the incorrect
element order will result in undesirable outcomes.
In this lesson you will be importing a large group of points in a comma delimited file and
updating a point group to include the extra points and rebuild the surface.
You will also apply a boundary to the surface to control the extents of the surface model.
Lessons
icon.
3. In the File dialog box, select Open and browse to ..\Civil 3D Training\Module5\C3D Data
Set_M5.dwg
Note: In this drawing a point group and surface has been created.
Create Points from a File
Review the Points File before Import

When a points file is received it is important to open the file and view the information in the file:
1. Start Windows Explorer and navigate to the directory ..\Civil 3D Training\Module5
2. Open the file PENZD_NS Points.csv:
Note the structure of the file. Each line

describes a point, and the attributes of
the point are separated by commas, in
the following order:
Pt No, Easting, Northing, Elevation,
Description
(PENZD for short)
These files are very easy to bring into
an Excel spreadsheet, where you can
get greater control over the data and
editing.
Note: Files that are to be imported
should NOT include headings at the top
Figure 5.01: Points File for Import of the file
3. Close down the file by clicking on the X at the top right corner.
So the points file can be summarized as PENZD – comma delimited
Import Points
4. From the Points menu in Civil 3D, select Create Points…
5. Click on the Import Points icon
6. The Import Points dialog appears.
Figure 5.02: Import Points Dialogue Box
7. From the Format pull-down menu, select PENZD (comma delimited).

8. Click the folder icon to the right of Source File to display the file select dialog box.
9. In the Select Source File dialog box, navigate to ..\Civil 3D Training\Module5. Select
PENZD _NS Points.csv. Click Open.
10. Click on OK.
You should now notice that a number of extra points have been created on the screen.
Update the Point Group

When new points are added to a drawing they are not automatically added to all the point groups.
Those point groups affected by the new points show as ‘out of date’ in the Prospector tab and
require ‘updating’ to bring in the extra points:
The ‘out of date’ shield is set against the
Contourable point group.
This point group is being used by the Existing Surface
object as a data source to build the surface.
1. To update the point group, right click on the
Contourable point group and click on Update in
the shortcut menu.
The surface will be re-built and incorporate all the extra
imported points.
Figure 5.03: Update the Contourable Point Group
Figure 5.04: Complete Display of Natural Surface with the new imported points
Change the Surface Display
To reduce clutter, the surface style will be changed to use a style that does not include the
triangles and has different colours for the contours.
1. In the Prospector panel, select the Existing Surface, click the right mouse button and click
Properties…
3. To view the list of available styles, click the list arrow under the heading Surface style.
4. Select the style _Au Contours - Background 1m and click on the list immediately right of
the Surface style list.
5. Click on OK to exit the dialog box and apply the changes
Adding a Surface Boundary

It is a common occurrence to need to apply boundaries to the surface to prevent the surface from
triangulating in areas where there is no appropriate survey data.
In Civil 3D you can create three different types of boundaries for a surface:
 Outer: this trims the outer edges of the surface. Only 1 outer boundary should be applied to a
surface
 Hide: this hides all triangulation internal to the boundary
 Show: this shows all triangulation internal to the boundary
Applying a boundary does not change the surface levels – it just removes the triangulation to
account for the boundary location (with the ability to restore the triangulation by deleting the
boundary).
In this case a basic polyline will be created and used as an outer boundary to the surface. You can
grip edit the boundary to see more or less of the surface model.
Creating a Polyline to Use as an Outer Boundary

First create polylines for the boundary
9. Either click on the polyline icon or type pl at the command line and press Enter.
10. Click around the model to visually ‘trim’ off some parts of the surface.
Note: It is strongly advised that you do NOT
move the boundary or create a boundary such
that any part of any alignment is outside the
boundary.
If you try to make a Road/Corridor from an
alignment, the software is expecting to be able
to get existing surface level information for the
WHOLE length of the alignment.
Figure 5.05: Polyline created for boundary
Adding an Outer Boundary to the Surface

10. To add a boundary to the surface, click the Expand Tree icon for the Existing Surface
surface object in Prospector.
12. Click on Boundaries, click the right

mouse button and select Add.
This displays the Add Boundaries dialog box
to select the type of boundary being added
Figure 5.06 and 5.07: Adding an outer

Boundary
13. You need to name the boundary you are adding – type in ‘Outer’
14. For the boundary Type, select Outer.
15. Do not toggle on Non-destructive breakline
Note: A destructive boundary will remove any triangles that cross the line of the boundary. A
non-destructive breakline will, on the other hand, triangulate right up to the edge of the
boundary.
16. Click OK to exit the form
17. Click to select the polyline in the drawing to use as the boundary and press Enter to
confirm the selection.
The surface will automatically re-build based on the new boundary:
Note: The contours do not come

up to the edge of the boundary
because it is a destructive
boundary.
The polyline representing the
boundary can be grip edited to
show more or less of the surface.
Deleting the polyline will delete
the Boundary definition from the
surface.
Figure 5.08: Boundary Applied
The Existing Surface object is now complete.
Lab 3 – Alignments and Lot Layout
6. Sites and Alignments
Managing Sites
You create and maintain relationships between Alignment, Parcel (Lot) and Grading Group
objects in Civil 3D by grouping them into a Site. Generally, you manage objects that are
collected in a site by using a common property.
Figure 6.01: Prospector Object Tree - Sites
When you create alignments, parcels and grading groups, you must specify a Site for them. If
you create these objects before you create a site, a site with a default name is automatically
created and the objects are assigned to it (for example Site 1).
One of these relationships that will be exposed in the next module is the automatic sub-division of
a road reserve parcel from an alignment penetrating into a parcel of land.
More than one site can reside in a geographic location; however, the objects contained in different
sites will not interact with each other.
Lessons
icon.
Set_M6.dwg
Since ‘Site 1’ is already we will simply add more alignments to this site.
Alignments
For a residential subdivision design, horizontal alignments are used to define road centrelines,
which generally consist of straight-line tangents and curve geometry. It is the horizontal
alignment that is pegged out in the field for construction, thereby serving as the reference for
subdivision construction.
Other features in subdivisions that reference horizontal alignments include kerbs, footpaths, lot
boundaries and service lines such as drainage pipes and water reticulation.
Due to the potential complexity of horizontal alignment design, Autodesk Civil 3D incorporates a
wide range of tools to facilitate the construction of horizontal alignment geometry such as lines,
arcs and spirals. Spirals are curves with varying radii to provide a smooth transition between
tangents and curves.
Similar to other objects in Civil 3D, a dynamic link exists between display styles and the
appearance of the horizontal alignment. Therefore, updating a style will result in automatic
changes to the appearance of the horizontal alignment in the AutoCAD display.
Alignment geometry can created from a polyline, or you can use the Alignment Layout Tools to
create an alignment object interactively. You can also make edits to the resulting alignment using
grips on the alignment object, or the commands on the Alignment Layout Tools toolbar.
Since alignment elements can be created that are dependent on other alignment elements,
tangency between the alignment components can be automatically maintained during alignment
editing.
For Advanced Road Design users, alignments are used to create Roads in this software. If it is
intended to use an alignment to undertake a Road design using Advanced Road Design, some
rules need to be observed:
 Alignment Name: No spaces or unusual characters (such as *, !, (, ), etc) in the name
 Alignment Description: The Advanced Road Design software uses the prefix in the
description to obtain information about the type of alignment. These are:
 r- for a road alignment
 k- for a kerb return alignment
 cds- for a cul-de-sac alignment
 i- for an island alignment
 nr- for an alignment that does not fit one of the above road types
If it is intended to use Civil 3D for the generation of design profiles, assemblies and road
corridors, then the above requirements on the Alignment Name and Description do not
apply.
Creating an Alignment from an Existing Polyline
It is a very natural process for AutoCAD users to create polylines. Civil 3D can ‘read’ a polyline
and convert it to an alignment – it even includes functionality to automatically create horizontal
curves connecting up the tangents.
1. From the Alignments menu, select Create from Polyline.
2. The command line will prompt you to Select polyline to create alignment. Select the
purple polyline describing the road centreline at Marin Street.
Figure 6.02: Screen Display – Marin Street
Note: The end of the polyline you select will determine the direction of the alignment.
After selecting the polyline the Create Alignment dialog box will be displayed:
3. Use the pick list if required to place the alignments in
Site 1
4. For the alignment Name type in Marin
5. For the alignment Description type in r-
6. Note the Alignment Style – the alignment style sets
out how the object (line and arc and spiral colours and
layers, radius snap, etc) will display and behave
7. Note the Alignment Label Set – this controls the
labelling of the Major and Minor Chainages and
Geometry Points along the alignment. The label set is
a collection of Major Chainage, Minor Chainage and
Geometry Point label styles.
Accept the default styles for now – we will edit the labels at
a later date.
8. Under Conversion Options
 tick ON the option to ‘Add curves between
tangents’ – this will Automatically add
horizontal curves between the tangent lines
and that curve will maintain tangency to the
lines when edited
 Tick On the option to ‘Erase existing
entities’
9. Click on OK to convert the polyline into an alignment:
A new Civil 3D alignment object is created. This is a single object with in-built intelligence of
the rules governing the creation of the alignment.
Note that the labelling has been automatically applied in accordance with the Alignment Label
Set.
In the Prospector tab you can find the Marin Alignment object shown in Site 1 – just expand out
Sites and then expand out Site 1 and Alignments.
You can zoom to an alignment from the Prospector and also right click to review the alignment
properties.
10. Click on the Marin alignment. Grips will show to indicate parts of the alignment that can
be graphically moved. Square grips show the start/end of lines, triangle grips indicate IP
points and circular grips indicate the parts of arc segments that can be graphically adjusted
11. Edit the curve radius by clicking on the circle ‘grip’ central to the arc segment. Make the
radius smaller:
During the editing you are getting a preview of what the new alignment would look like and you
may notice it ‘snapping’ to incremental changes in the radius. In the Civil 3D Alignment Style
you can set a Radius Snap – in this way you can automatically ‘snap’ to a whole number or, say,
the nearest 5m radius.
After editing the alignment graphically all the labelling automatically updates.
Editing an Alignment
Aside from graphical edits to the alignment, users can also edit an alignment by changing the
layout parameters
1. In the drawing area, click and select the Marin alignment
2. From the Alignments menu, select Edit Alignment Geometry. This will open the
Alignment Layout toolbar:
From this toolbar users can actually create extended sections of lines, arcs and spirals for the
alignment, as well as deleting parts (Sub-entities) of the alignment and adding new IP points.
3. On the Alignment Layout tools, select the Pick Sub entity icon and pick the arc
segment of the alignment on screen.
4. Once a sub-entity is picked on the
alignment the Alignment Layout
Parameters form is displayed.
5. Depending on how the sub-entity was
created and what the sub-entity is, users
can adjust different aspects of the sub-
entity.
Note: The software will not allow values that
have no solution within the constraints of the
alignment.
6. Check the Included Angle to see the
deflection in the alignment.
7. Review the speed characteristics for the
road (assume 40km/hr) and assume a 3%
super elevated pavement.
8. Based on the speed and deflection angle
type in an acceptable Radius value for
the horizontal curve
Does this work geometrically?
Do you have to adjust the radius to suit other

constraints (such as prospective property
boundaries)?
9. Make the radius 85m.
Click on the x in the Alignment Layout Tools or press Enter to stop the alignment editing.
Changing the Alignment Chainage Labelling
In general, users normally want to change the spacings of major and minor chainages for an
alignment.
To change the chainage labelling along an alignment:

1. In the drawing area, click and select the Marin alignment
2. Right click on the mouse and select Alignment Properties from the shortcut menu:
3. Click on the Labels tab to review the labelling associated with the alignment;
Each aspect of the alignment label (Major Stations, Minor Stations and Geometry Points) each
have a Label Style which describes how they will look.
The labels are collected together and applied to an alignment in the above form.
A Label Set is a collection of these labels that you can save and then re-use
4. For the Major Stations Increment, change the value to 50.

5. Click on OK to apply this change:
The alignment now reports the chainage every 50 metres only (Major Station label) and provides
ticks at every 10 metres (Minor Stations).
Creating an Alignment by Layout
The second alignment will be created using the Alignment Layout tools.
An alignment will be created for Perth Street using three AutoCAD points created in the drawing.
The points are shown as follows:
1. From the Alignments menu, select Create by Layout...
2. For the alignment Name type in Perth

3. For the alignment Description type in r-
4. Note the Alignment Style – the alignment style sets
out how the object (line and arc and spiral colours
and layers, radius snap, etc) will display and behave
5. Note the Alignment Label Set – this controls the
labelling of the Major and Minor Chainages and
Geometry Points along the alignment. The label set
is a collection of Major Chainage, Minor Chainage
and Geometry Point label styles.
6. Click on OK to create an alignment. This will immediately open the Alignment Layout
Toolspace:
7. Click on the drop down list for the far left icon and select to create an alignment by picking
Tangent to Tangent (With Curves) – you can then pick points for the tangents and the
software will insert horizontal curves connecting to the tangents.
8. Click on the drop down arrow for the icon again and click on Curve Settings to review the
curve radius and spirals between the tangents:
9. Tick ON to create a Curve between
tangents. Tick OFF the spiral options
10. Type in a Radius of 100
11. Click OK to apply the settings and return
to the creation of the tangents
12. The command prompt is to start the alignment.

to nodes.
14. Click on the AutoCAD point that is touching the Delawn alignment
to nodes.
16. Click on the mid point node

to nodes.
18. Click on the last node to create the alignment
19. Press Enter to stop editing the alignment
Note: If you make a mistake part way through this command simply go to the Alignment menu
and select Edit… to edit the alignment again using the Alignment Layout Tools.
The final alignment should look as follows:
In the next Module, the Perth alignment will be used to automatically create a road reserve parcel
of land.
Creating a Quick Profile View
Now that we have a surface model and several alignments to work with, let’s create a profile
view:
1. From the Profiles menu, select Create from Surface…
The following dialogue box will appear:
2. From the Alignment drop down list, select Brisbane and click on Add>>
3. Once the information is displayed in the Profile List, click on the button Draw in profile
view… The following dialogue box will appear…
4. Change the Profile view name to Brisbane Street and the Band set to _Au Simple Design.
5. Click OK.
6. The command line will prompt you to Select profile view origin… select a location to the
east of Brisbane Street, outside the surface model.
The following profile will appear in the display window…
7. To prove the dynamic relationship between the alignment and the profile that we have
created for Brisbane Street, select the end point of the Brisbane alignment, and move it.
You will notice that the profile has automatically updated to represent the new surface
levels based on the changes made to the alignment in plan view.
7. Civil 3D Lot Layout (Parcels)
Parcel objects in Civil 3D are typically used to represent real estate parcels such as lots in a
subdivision. Parcels can also be used to represent other features with closed boundaries such as
bodies of water, contaminated areas and soil regions.
A parcel is created as part of a site. The site collection on the Prospector tab contains a list of
parcels and their properties.
Autodesk Civil 3D offers a wide range of tools for parcel layout, definition, annotation and
management. Parcel objects are created based on pre-defined styles, which exist for the parcels
themselves and for the annotation used to describe the parcels.
Styles are used to control the display of parcel boundaries, parcel annotation and associated tables
for parcel data. Because Civil 3D objects are aware of related objects, as we have seen in previous
modules, if you change the parcel geometry, parcel and table annotation updates automatically,
making it easier to both create and manage parcel data in your residential subdivision design.
Design criteria for subdivision lots generally involve minimum square meterage of the lot and
minimum frontage to the road reserve. These criteria are used to design the individual parcels in
the following subdivision. Here the minimum area for a parcel will be 500m2 and with a
minimum frontage of 15 metres.
For this example a large section of land is to be sub-divided into individual lots.
This is a three step process:

 Convert a 2D polyline into a Parcel of land
 Create the Road Reserve leading into and including the cul-de-sac
 Subdivide to create individual parcels of land meeting minimum frontage and area criteria
The blue polyline extending along the west

side of Delawn Street and further west for
Perth Street is to be used for the parcel
creation and sub-division layout.
Since alignments and parcels interact, we

will create a right of way (road reserve)
automatically for Perth Street.
An extra polyline has been created and will

be used to modify the nose of the road
reserve parcel at the end of the cul-de-sac.
Because we want the alignment and parcel

to interact, the parcel MUST be created in
Site 1 (where the Perth alignment lives).
Lessons

Note: If you are working on the same drawing from Module 6 then you can continue with this
icon.
Set_M7.dwg
The process for creating the individual lots is to start with a single parcel boundary, divide that up
into road reserve and lot areas and then to divide the remaining sections into individual lots.
Note: To select a Parcel of land you normally must click on the area label describing the parcel
of land (not the boundary line).
Creating a Parcel from Objects
1. From the Parcels menu, select Create from Object
2. Click the boundary polyline (blue polyline located west of Delawn Street on the layer _Lot
Boundaries.
This displays the Create Parcels – From Objects dialog box:
3. Make sure that the parcel will be added to Site 1.
4. The Parcel Style controls the display of the object (the
line segments and whether there is fill hatching)
5. Label Styles control the labelling display for the
parcel including the Area Label and the segment
labels.
6. Tick ON the option to Automatically add segment
labels
7. Tick ON the option to Erase existing entities.
8. Click OK to create a parcel of land from the polyline:
This is a screen grab of the
created parcel.
Note the automatic labelling of

the parcel and the summary of the
lot number and area.
The labelling will automatically

update for any changes to the
shape of the parcel.
Creating the Road Reserve (Right of Way)

The road reserve can automatically be accounted for in Civil 3D:
1. From the Parcels menu, select Create ROW
2. Select the new parcel created in the drawing and press Enter to open the Create Right of
Way dialog box:
3. Make sure that the figures match above:

a. Offset from alignment: 7.5m
b. Fillet radius (both): 6m
c. Cleanup Method (both): Chamfer
4. Click on OK to create the Road Reserve parcel:
5. From the Prospector tab, expand out Sites and Site 1.
6. Expand out Site 1 to show the Parcels created and note the following:
The Prospector shows us all the parcels that have been created.
Three parcels have been created, but we only made two of them
(L# 102 and L#103).
Where did the first parcel come from?
(Hint: it only came into being after the Marin alignment was
created).
Editing the Road Reserve to include the Court Bowl

An adjustment needs to be made to the Road Reserve parcel to incorporate the shape of the land
required in the court bowl.
There are a number of methods to address this issue – in this instance another polyline will be
used to create an extra parcel of land.
Then the Parcel Layout tools will be utilized to trim out the extra lines and create a unified Road
Reserve parcel.
7. From the Parcels menu, select Create from objects:
8. At the command line prompt click on the
polyline representing the head of the
court bowl.
9. Press Enter to create a parcel from this
object:

labels.
labels
This is a screen grab of the
resultant parcels from adding in
the cul-de-sac parcel.
There is some trimming out

required in the internal sections to
rationalize down to one single
road reserve parcel.
We use the Parcel Layout Tools to delete segments of a parcel:
16. From the Parcels menu, select Create by Layout:
By Expanding out the view using the double arrow on the right you can access the ‘automatic’
design parameters for individual lot layout. Note that the ‘extra’ parcel of land will be
redistributed back to the properties – click on this Value if you want to change that rule
17. From the toolspace click on the Delete Sub-Entity icon.

18. On screen, click on the internal lines you do not want as part of the road reserve parcel,
working from one end to the other:
Segment 1 Deleted by selecting it Segment 2 Deleted
Segment 3 Deleted Segment 4 Deleted
All internal segments deleted. The Delete Sub-Entity tool is very powerful for
unifying parcels of land by removing parcel
segments.
The lot area and geometric labelling

automatically updates to reflect the new shape
of the parcels.
Note: In the Settings tab you can right click on

the drawing name at the top and select to ‘Edit
Drawing Settings’. By changing the drawing
scale here you can resize the Civil 3D label text
in the Model Space view.
Splitting the Residential Parcel into Two Logical Segments
There is a logical point to break the one residential parcel into two, in preparation for the
individual lot layout.
The Parcel Layout tools are to be used to create a segment to split the parcel into two
Line to separate
parcels
1. From the Parcels menu, select Create by Layout:
2. On the Parcel Layout Tools toolbar, select Add Fixed Line – Two Points. This will open
the Create Parcels – By Layout dialog box
labels.
labels
9. At the prompt to Select Attachment Point, click the north-western corner of the parcel at
the 90 degree angle using an End or Intersection snap
10. Now choose the direction of the fixed line to extend to a point on the Delawn frontage of
the parcel, approximately perpendicular (don’t concern with it being exact):
11. Click to select and the parcel will be subdivided into two:
Subdividing to Create Individual Lots
Civil 3D incorporates some excellent tools to automate the process of individual lot creation
based on minimum frontage and minimum area rules.
Creating the Cul-de-sac Lots

1. If you stopped the Parcel Layout Tools, then from the Parcels menu, select Create by
Layout:
2. On the Parcel Layout Tools toolbar, select Slide Angle - Create.
3. If required, fill out the Parcel Create – Layout dialog box, making sure that the parcels are
created in Site 1 and that the automatic labelling is toggled ON
4. At the prompt to ‘pick a point within the parcel to be subdivided’, select the residential lots
for the cul-de-sac
5. At the prompt Select start point on frontage, select the southeast corner of the lot, south of
Perth Street:
Start Point on Frontage End Point on Frontage
Civil 3D will track along the parcel line between the start and end point – you just provide the
general direction
6. Click to select the end point of the frontage
7. At the prompt to ‘specify angle at frontage’ type in 90 and press Enter
8. A selectable lot line will be displayed. In the command prompt note the message ‘Specify
Area <500sq.m>’. Press Enter to accept this figure
The software will proceed to automatically lay out the individual lots:
The full labelling will occur at the end of the command.
Creating the Delawn Frontage Lots

9. If you stopped the Parcel Layout Tools, then from the Parcels menu, select Create by
Layout:
10. On the Parcel Layout Tools toolbar, select Slide Angle - Create.
11. If required, fill out the Parcel Create – Layout dialog box, making sure that the parcels are
created in Site 1 and that the automatic labelling is toggled ON
12. At the prompt to ‘pick a point within the parcel to be subdivided’, select the large parcel
located north of Perth Street and west of Delawn Street
13. At the prompt Select start point on frontage, select the southwest corner of the lot
Civil 3D will track along the parcel line
between the start and end point – you just
provide the general direction
14. Click at the northeast corner to select the

end of the frontage
15. At the prompt to ‘specify angle at frontage’ type in 90 and press Enter
16. A selectable lot line will be displayed. In the command prompt note the message ‘Specify
Area <500sq.m>’. Press Enter to accept this figure
The software will proceed to automatically lay out the individual lots:
All the lots have been created and are fully labelled.
Editing Lots
Lot lines can be graphically edited on screen – Civil 3D will maintain the original rules that were
applied to create the lot.
As an alternative users can access the Parcel Layout Tools to edit individual segment lines, delete
segment lines and create additional segment lines.
Creating Parcel Tables

Civil 3D includes tools to create dynamic, display controllable parcel tables. In this lesson you
will use an existing parcel table style to create the parcel table
1. Click on the Parcels menu, select Tables and then select Add Area… This will open the
Table Creation dialog box:
2. Select _Au Lot Areas as the Table Style

to apply
3. In the Selection section, tick on to
Apply all the styles listed
4. Also use the pick box for each of the
styles to change the Selection Rule to be
‘Add Existing and New’
This will mean that when new parcels are
created, the table automatically updates.
5. Click OK to exit the dialog box and

create the table
6. In the drawing area, click to place the table:
The table will always stay current to the parcels in the drawing.
Lab 4 – Site Grading and Long Sections
8. Grading
Introduction
Grading is a technical art form that requires engineering design skill and basic mathematics, code
compliance, aesthetics and maintenance considerations. Autodesk Civil 3D offers significant
assistance with site grading design and planning.
Objectives
In this module, you will:
 Become familiar with how grading tools can be integrated into the site design process.
 Become familiar with feature lines and how to develop grading objects.
 Complete an exercise that will familiarize you with surface creation and management
using the Grading tools.
Grading and the Civil Design Process

In projects that involve roads, designers and developers soon find that the roads become the
“spine” of the project. The site design feeds to the roads for drainage purposes with consideration
for other three-dimensional tie-outs around the property. Contours, contour labelling and spot
shots are added to complete the representation of this data for the construction plans.
Grading may begin in the preliminary site design and be refined as the project progresses. Mass
grading plans are usually created for earthworks estimations and finished grading plans are
prepared for construction plans.
Proposed Surface Data Users

 Planners – lay out preliminary site plans
 Engineers – do the mass grading
 Designers – do the finished grading
 Surveyors – check, compute stakeout information and create as-builts
 Construction – for earthmoving and grading purposes. Contractors use the grading
information to build the sites and can now use data from the plans or directly from the
digital data.
Proposed Surface Grading Data

The data for proposed surface grading originates as either:
 Point and contour data used for grading, or
 Feature lines.
Let’s see how these are used to create and edit site grading.
Types of Grading Data
The types of data to use for developing grading are three-dimensional (3D) points, (points with
elevations) and contours with elevations. We also now have Base Line Grading and Feature
Lines offered to us in Civil 3D, which are new tools built upon traditional concepts.
When to Use Point Data or Feature Line Data?
When developing a surface, sometimes 3D point data can be used. This might be when the
designer wants to set a critical point or one that sets an elevation in the preliminary stages of the
thought process. Point data is limited because a point becomes part of a TIN. The point does not
control how the TIN triangles are created in the surface building process. A feature line can
influence the TIN development since triangles don’t usually cross a feature line.
What Are Feature Lines?
A feature line is an object in Autodesk Civil 3D that the grading commands can recognize and use
as an object to grade from. Usually, feature lines have multiple vertices that mark important
“grade breaks” in the drawing, such as a ridgeline, a building grading footprint, or the bottom of a
swale. A feature line can represent any object in the drawing from which you may want to grade,
such as a stream line. A feature line is a special kind of object that the grading commands can
recognize and use as a base line or target.
A target is represented by another surface, elevation or offset. Target elevations can be either
relative or absolute. In Civil 3D, grading targets, which are also known as daylight lines, are also
represented as feature lines. You can create other grading objects from grading target feature
lines. Autodesk object dependencies become active so when you adjust the grading properties
(slopes, elevations etc.) of the first grading object, the second grading object will automatically
update based on the redefined target feature line.
When to Use Base Line Grading?
A base line may be an open or closed 2D or 3D geometric figure that is a lot line or a feature line.
You can also select any polyline, line, or arc and convert it into a feature line for grading use. The
same criteria values can be applied to multiple base lines in order to save time, as long as they are
graded on the same side.
Grading for Proposed Civil 3D Surfaces

Autodesk Civil 3D grading tools provide functionality that allows for the efficient development,
analysis, value engineering and quality control necessary for assembling a constructible set of
plans. Surfaces are represented in the AutoCAD display as an AECC_TIN_SURFACE object,
which can be manipulated through the use of context sensitive menus.
Grading data is created in several ways comprising automated routines as well as carefully
considered manual computations. Some examples include:
 3D Road design data.
 3D Retention Pond data.
 3D site grading data.
Autodesk Civil 3D grading commands provide the ability to design the site in three dimensions.
The Project and Project Site are typically defined ahead of time. Then, a Grading Group is
established to store alternative designs because many alternatives can be worked on in the project.
These Sites and Grading Groups can be viewed graphically in the AutoCAD display or in the
Prospector toolspace. Prospector also displays the data in tabular format. You have complete
control over how this information is displayed in either graphical or tabular formats.
Prospector and Grading

As you know from our work in previous modules, the left side of the Prospector Toolspace is
used to select project data. In this case, we see a Site called Site-Module 8. This site includes
Grading Group 1. The right side of Prospector shows data either in either tabular or graphical
format. Here, we see a Feature Line that is part of Grading Group 1.
The Settings toolspace appears below showing an example for Grading Criteria:
The left side of the Settings toolspace is used to select the styles for project data (points, surfaces,
parcels, grading objects, alignments, etc.) for viewing and manipulation. The right side of the
toolspace shows details of the different styles.
Grading Styles (Settings Toolspace)

The Settings Toolspace is used for editing the Grading Styles. Grading Styles are standardized
items that control the behaviour of Grading Objects. The Grading Criteria Styles are shown
above. Grading Styles and Command Settings are shown below:
The Edit Command Settings dialog contains the following columns:

 Property: Displays the selected property name for such items as: Distance, Elevations,
Coordinates, etc.
 Value: The Parent Value displays the value of the property as defined in the parent
setting or style.
 Override: When the property value is changed, a check box is marked in the override
column. This means that the value has been overridden and will not be affected if settings
at a higher level change.
 Child Override: An arrow in the child override column indicates that a subordinate
setting or a child label style has overridden that setting.
 Lock: The settings can be locked by clicking the lock in the right column. When a label
style setting is locked at a higher level, that setting in any subordinate settings and styles
cannot be edited.
Organise Grading Data
Using Prospector, a designer creates a site for each design alternative that they foresee. The sites
may be used to develop a variety of scenarios and, following analysis, a best solution will be
selected for actual use. This approach enables more effective, high value engineering. We’ll see
in the lesson how the Prospector organizes our design alternatives into an easy to use tree.
Autodesk Civil 3D makes use of Sites to manage alternative designs within a single project. For
example: a Civil 3D Site can be defined to build multiple tie-out scenarios for a proposed grading
surface. Another use might be to hold a particular design in limbo while it is being reviewed and
use another Civil 3D Site to move forward with a design concept. When the review is complete,
the designer may be able to use the new concept but can always resort back to the alternative
Civil 3D Site if they need to.
Site properties, accessible from the Prospector toolspace, are displayed in the following dialog
box:
The tabs are:
 Information: Allows a description to be added or edited.
 3D Geometry: Controls the display of the object(s) either at elevation or flattened.
 Construction Geometry: Controls layering.
 Numbering: Controls sequential numbering and similar parameters.
Lesson
The following grading capabilities and operations in Autodesk Civil 3D are detailed:
 Create Feature Lines based on desired elevations for a building pad.
 Establish Grading criteria for the feature lines.
 Create Feature Lines based on desired elevations for a Retention Pond.
 Create grading for a Retention Pond.
 Create a Proposed Surface from the gradings.
NOTE: Save your file routinely as you work.
Launch Civil 3D and Open the Project Drawing

1. Double-click the Civil 3D icon from the desktop.
2. Use the File menu Open command to navigate to ..\Civil 3D Training\Module8 and select
C3D Data Set_M8.dwg. Click Open.
3. From the General menu, select Show Toolspace… to open the Prospector Toolspace if it is
not already visible.
4. Select the drawing name at the top of the list.
5. From the Layers Manager, navigate to the layer “_For Grading” by selecting the drop-down
arrow to the right of the current layer name, and turn the layer on (click on the light bulb so it
illuminates, as shown below).
The following objects should now appear in your drawing:
Polylines to be used as feature

lines for grading.
Create Sites and Grading Groups

These next few steps show how to create a Site and a Grading Group for the project.
1. From the Toolspace, select the Prospector tab.
2. From the C3D Data Set_M8 expanded tree, right-click on Sites and click New…
3. In the Information tab, enter the site name as Site1-M8.
4. Under Property on the 3D Geometry tab, check the Site Display mode to be sure the Use
Elevation is selected.
This is important because the alternative is to Flatten to a fixed elevation. We want to see our data
in 3D.
5. Click Apply and OK.
6. Expand Sites and you will see the Site you just created.
7. Expand Site1-M8 and right-click on Grading Groups. Click New…
8. Name the grading group “Proposed” and click OK. Proposed is created.
Notice that you can create a surface as you do the gradings – we will leave this off for the
moment, and elect to create a dynamic surface of the grading group later in the design of the
building pad. The surface model will be used to obtain volume calculations and do volume
analysis.
Design a Building Pad
With the Site and a Grading Group created, we can begin creating grading objects. We’ll start
with a simple building pad.
Preparation
1. From the pull-down menu, choose Grading and click Grading Creation Tools. Civil 3D
displays the Grading Creation Tools toolbar.
2. Select the Set the Grading Group icon. (The tool tips can help you find it.)
3. In the Select Grading Group dialog, make sure the Site name is Site1-M8 and the Group
name is Proposed.
4. Click OK.
5. From the Grading Layout Tools toolbar, click the Set the Target Surface icon and select
Existing Surface if it is not already selected.
6. Click OK.
7. Select the Set the Grading Layers

icon.
8. In the Set Grading Layers dialog box,
verify the Grading Layer is set to C-
TOPO-GRAD.
9. Click OK.
10. Zoom in to closed polyline that represents the proposed building pad on the west side of
Delawn Street.
Proposed Building Pad
Create the Feature Line

The first step is to convert the polyline to a feature line. Then you will assign an elevation of 442
to the feature to represent the building floor level.
1. From the Grading menu, choose Create Feature Lines from Objects (alternatively you can
select the icon from the Feature Lines toolbar).
2. Select the closed polyline that represents the building pad and press ENTER to accept the
selection.
3. From the Create Feature Lines Dialogue Box, check that the Site is set to Site1-M8, and set
the feature line style to Building Pad. Click on OK.
You have now converted the polyline to a feature line to be used for grading. Notice that it is
converted and placed on the Feature Line layer. It turns red to conform to that layer colour. The
next step is to assign the elevations.
4. Click and select the polyline with your left mouse button. Click your right mouse button and
choose Elevation Editor from the menu.
The Panorama Window shows the Grading Elevation Editor.
5. Change the elevations of all vertices to 442 and click the green checkmark to close the
Panorama Window.
Establish Settings
To create a grading object from a feature line, you assign a Grading Criteria Style. The style
dictates the grading target (surface, elevation or distance), the grading type (slope or grade) and
the slope/grade values.
1. From the Toolspace, click the Settings tab.
2. In the Settings dialogue box, expand Grading, expand Grading Criteria Sets. Right-click on
_Au General Purpose and select New…
3. In the Information tab, name the new criteria _Au Surface by Slope.
4. Click the Criteria tab. Under Parameter, look for Grading Method and click the Target field.
5. Set the Target Value to Surface.
6. Under Cut Slope Projection, set the Slope to 1:2 if it is not already set.
7. Under Fill Slope Projection set the Slope to 1:3 if it is not already set.
8. Click Apply and click OK.
Create Grading Object

1. From the Grading Layout toolbar, click the Create Grading icon.
2. Choose the feature line that represents the building pad. Civil 3D prompts you to indicate the
grading side.
3. Select a point to the outside of the feature line to indicate the grading side. Civil 3D prompts
Apply to entire length?
4. Press ENTER for Yes.
5. Press ENTER to accept the Cut Slope Value.
6. Press ENTER to accept the Fill Slope Value.
7. Press ENTER to conclude this process.
You now have the following three objects:
o Baseline Feature Line – Building
Pad
o Target Feature Line – Where
slopes match existing surface
(Blue-cut, Green-fill)
o Grading Object – Drawn between
the two feature lines
Create a Proposed Surface

The proposed surface will ultimately contain the natural surface and the grading surfaces. In this
section, we’ll create the proposed Surface beginning with the Building Pad for the Proposed
surface.
Create a Surface from Building Pad

As new grading objects are added to the grading group, the proposed surface will automatically
update to reflect the added objects. However let’s begin by creating a surface from the Building
Pad Grading Group.
1. From the Prospector toolspace, expand Sites – Site1-M8 – Grading Groups.
2. Right-click on Proposed and select Properties from the menu.
3. From the Grading Group Properties dialogue box, choose the Information tab.
4. Toggle Automatic Surface Creation on.
The Create Surface dialog box appears.
5. In the Name field, type Proposed.
6. In the Description field, type Proposed.
7. In the Style field, choose the _Au Contours-Design-0.1m surface style.
8. Click OK to exit the dialogue box.
9. Tick ON the toggle for Volume Base Surface and select Existing Surface.
10. Click OK to exit the Grading Group Properties dialogue box.
Notice that blue contours will appear within the grading for the building pad, representing the
new Proposed Surface.
Create Infill for the Proposed Building Pad

11. From the Grading Creation Tools toolspace, select the drop down list next to the Create
Grading icon and select Create Infill.
12. The command line will prompt you to select an area to infill. Select the area within the
building pad (i.e. Within the red feature line).
13. Notice that a red diamond will appear to denote the infill.
This gets us to the point where we have a Proposed surface established with the grading from the
building pad.
Balancing Earthworks
In this sequence of steps you will determine the volume of the building pad surface and attempt to
balance the earthworks by adjusting the elevation of the building pad feature line.
1. From the Grading Creation Tools toolbar, select the Grading Volume Tools icon.
The following toolbar will appear:
At present the Net volume for

the building pad surface is in
fill. To adjust the elevation of
the feature line, select the
or toggles to raise or lower
the feature line.
2. To balance the earthworks, select the Auto-balance icon in the Grading Volume Tools
toolbar, and set a required volume of 0 Cu.M
Notice that the entire grading group for Building Pad will be adjusted to accommodate the
automatic balancing.
You can show the volume history by clicking on the arrow – this will show a spreadsheet
of changes to the grading group and the effect on the volumes of cut and fill.
Check the Elevations of the Building Pad

3. From the Feature Line Toolbar, select Elevation Editor.
4. Select the red feature line that represents the building pad.
Remember the blue and green lines represent the grading as it ties to the existing ground. You
may need to hold the Shift and Spacebar keys to cycle through objects as you pick with your left
mouse button, and select the building pad feature line.
5. When the dialogue box displays, you will notice a change from the initial elevation of 442 we
set earlier.
Design a Retention Pond

In this example you will be creating a retention pond made up of a series of connected gradings.
Create the Feature Line

1. Zoom in to closed polyline that represents
the base of the retention pond on the east
side of Stawell Street.
2. From the Grading menu, choose Create
Feature Lines from Objects (alternatively
you can select the icon from the Feature
Lines toolbar).
3. Select the closed polyline that represents
the base of the retention pond and press
ENTER to accept the selection.
4. From the Create Feature Lines Dialogue
Box, check that the Site is set to Site1-M8,
and set the feature line style to Basic
Feature Line. Click on OK.
You have now converted the polyline to a feature line to be used for grading. Notice that it is
converted and placed on the Feature Line layer. It turns green to conform to that layer colour. The
next step is to assign the elevations.
6. Click and select the polyline with your left mouse button. Click your right mouse button and
choose Elevation Editor from the menu.
7. Change the elevations of all vertices to 434 and click the green checkmark to close the
Panorama Window.
Create Grading Objects

8. From the Grading Creation Tools toolbar, set the grading criteria to _Au Height Difference
by Slope.
9. Click on the Create Grading icon.

10. Choose the feature line that represents the building pad. Civil 3D prompts you to indicate the
grading side.
11. Select a point to the outside of the feature line to indicate the grading side. Civil 3D prompts
Apply to entire length? Press ENTER.
12. Assign a Relative Elevation of 8.00m and press ENTER.
13. Press ENTER to accept the Slope Value.
We have now designed the walls of our retention pond with the criteria of 1:2 for an elevation of
8.0m. The next step in the process is to level out the top of the wall, before grading back to the
surface.
15. Change the grading criteria in the Grading Creation Tools toolbar to _Au Offset at Grade.
16. Click on the Create Grading icon and select the new outer feature line created from
the previous grading.
17. Civil 3D prompts Apply to entire length?

Press ENTER.
18. Specify a distance of 3.0m. Press ENTER.
19. Specify a grade of 3%. Press ENTER.
20. Change the grading criteria to _Au Surface
by Slope.
21. Click on the Create Grading icon

and select the new outer feature line
created from the previous grading.
22. Press ENTER to apply to entire length.
23. Press ENTER to accept the Cut slope.
24. Press ENTER to accept the Fill slope.

The retention pond is almost complete. The next step in the design process is to create the infill
for the base of the pond.
Create Infill for the Retention Pond

1. If the Grading Creation Tools select the drop down list next to the Create Grading icon
and select Create Infill.
2. The command line will prompt you to select an area to infill. Select the area within the base
of the retention pond (i.e. the green feature line).
3. Notice that a red diamond will appear to denote the infill.
The retention pond is now complete. You will notice that the Proposed surface we created
earlier now includes both the building pad and the retention pond.
The final step in this design process will be to create a Final surface that incorporates both our
Existing surface and our Proposed surface.
Create a Complete Surface

The complete surface will ultimately contain the natural surface and the grading surfaces. In this
section, we’ll create the complete surface beginning with the natural surface.
1. From the display window, select the Existing Surface which is currently displayed in a series
of grey contours.
2. In the command line type COPY.
3. Specify the base point as 0,0 and press ENTER.
4. Press ENTER to accept the first point as displacement.
In the Prospector, you will see a new surface

entry Existing Surface (1)
5. Right-click on Existing Surface (1) and
select Properties.
6. In the information tab, change the name of
the surface to FINAL and change the
surface style to _Au Contours-NS-1m.
7. Click on Apply and OK.
8. Expand the FINAL surface in the Prospector. Further expand Definition.

9. Right-click on Edits and select Paste Surface.
10. In the dialogue box, select Proposed and OK.
The new FINAL surface should now appear as follows:
Note that the styles of Existing Surface and
Proposed Surface have been set to _Au No
Display
9. Civil 3D Long Sections (Profiles)
Introduction
As with points, parcels, terrain models and alignments, profiles and cross sections in Civil 3D are
considered intelligent objects. Profiles are dynamically linked to horizontal alignments and Civil
3D surfaces. When the horizontal alignment is edited, the associated profile dynamically updates.
If the surface is modified, then the profile is also updated to reflect the change.
Civil 3D styles can be defined to control the display of profile data, and display associated labels
and annotation.
Objectives
In this module you will:
 Learn how existing ground profile data relates to horizontal alignments and the
subdivision road design process.
 Understand the dynamic link between horizontal alignments and existing ground profiles.
 Learn how to design proposed vertical alignments.
 Adjust the labels and annotations associated with the profiles.
Profiles in Civil Design

Profiles are required for all road designs. This module discusses generation of existing ground
profiles and finished design profiles.
Existing ground profiles represent the surface directly under the horizontal alignment, and are
used as a reference for the engineer to design the proposed vertical alignment. Existing ground
profile data is usually generated from an existing ground surface model.
The proposed vertical alignment, or the finished ground profile, represents the grades and
elevations that you drive along.
In Civil 3D, existing ground profiles are associated with a single horizontal alignment. Changes
to the horizontal alignment result in automatic updates to profile data.
Profile data is reported as station (or chainage) and elevation.
Profile Design Process

The first step in the road design process is the horizontal alignment, after having defined the
horizontal alignment, the designer would complete the following steps:
 Create a Profile View in the drawing.
 Sample and plot existing ground profile data.
 Create the finished ground profile using tangents and vertical curves.
Existing ground profile data is extracted from the existing ground surface model.
Civil 3D greatly simplifies the creation of existing ground profile data due to the dynamic link to
the horizontal alignment.
Design Criteria
Design criteria for profiles are specified in terms of maximum grade and minimum vertical
curvature. The maximum allowable grade is a function of the type of road. For example, main
roads that carry a large number of trucks would have a lower maximum allowable grade than
subdivision roads. Vertical curves connect the tangents and are designed with parabolas. Their
design criteria is represented by a factor called the “K” value. K is calculated by dividing the
length of the curve by the grade break at the Point of Vertical Intersection (PVI). A larger K value
means a “flatter” curve. Roads with higher design speeds require larger K values.
Profiles in Civil 3D
In Civil 3D, the Profile View accommodates the existing and finished design profile data. Profile
data is plotted on a grid, using the Y-axis for elevation and the X-axis for stationing, or distance
along the alignment.
Existing ground profile elevations are calculated from the TIN surface model along the alignment
and are displayed on the profile view. The finished design profile is created on the existing
ground profile. A good design practice involves following the existing conditions of the land as
close as possible to minimize excessive cuts and fill. Civil 3D uses Profile Layout tools to create
the tangents and vertical curves that make up the finished design profile. Styles are used to
control the display of the profile view.
Success with Autodesk Civil 3D means developing a set of styles that display your data according
to required standards. In the following lesson, we will create profiles and apply styles to control
how they display both electronically and on paper.
Lesson
This lesson shows you how to perform the following tasks in Civil 3D:
 Generate and layout Profiles.
 Use styles for controlling the display of profile data.
Launch Civil 3D
1. Double-click the Civil 3D desktop icon.
3. Use the File menu Open command to navigate to…\Civil 3D Training\Module9 and select
C3D Data Set_M9.dwg. Click Open.
Create Existing Ground Profile and Profile View
The first step is to create an existing ground profile and a profile view. The existing ground
profile data is extracted from a surface model. The surface model in this drawing is called EG1.
The Profile View represents the grid that profiles are drawn on. The Y-axis represents elevation
and the X-axis represents the stationing, or distance along the horizontal alignment.
The following items control the display of a Profile View:
 Profile View Style: Control the display and spacing of the profile grid, profile title and
horizontal and vertical axis annotation for stations and elevations.
 Profile View Label Styles: Control the display of text and annotation on the profile view
Follow these steps to create the existing profile form the NS surface and the Profile View:
1. From the Profiles menu, click Create From Surface…

Civil 3D displays the Create Profile from Surface dialogue box.
2. On the right side of the dialogue box, select the EG1 surface and click the Add>> icon.
Civil 3D adds the data to the Profile List.
3. Click Draw in profile view.

The Create Profile View dialogue box is displayed.
4. In the Profile view name field, type Alt 1, and from the Alignment pull-down menu, select
Cedar Street.
5. Change the Profile view style to _Au Road Design -20x and set the dialogue as per Figure
below.
NOTE: The Profile view style can be edited to change the display of the profile view.
Note: You can set a Station Range for the profile view – this enables the ‘splitting’ of profile
views for arranging out into separate layouts and plotting.
6. Click OK.
7. At the command prompt to Select profile view origin, click a point to the right of the plan
view to specify the location for your profile view.
Note: There is a dynamic relationship exists between the horizontal alignment and the existing
ground profile. When the alignment is edited, the existing profile and the profile view will update
automatically.
Profile Band Sets – Setting the Values
The level information in the band sets needs adjusting, so that the design profile levels are used in
the Design Levels row of data, as well as setting the cut/fill depths and vertical geometry to use
the design profile.
1. Click on the Profile View in the drawing to highlight it.
2. Right-click and choose Profile View Properties… from the shortcut menu.
3. For the Vertical Geometry, set Profile 1 to be FG1

4. For the style Au Depths P2 – P1, set Profile 1 to be EG… and Profile 2 to be FG1
5. For the style _Au Design Levels P2, set Profile 2 and Profile 1 to be FG1
6. Click on the band set for Superelevation and click on the button to delete this band
7. Click OK to accept the changes and note the adjustments in the band set:
The Cut/Fill Depth shows
the level difference between
the existing and design
profile.
The Design Levels show the

design profile levels.
HES2146C
Swinburne University of Technology

Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Science
2007
Computer Aided Design

Civil 3D Fundamentals
Assignments Due Date: Midnight 31 May 2007
Submissions via email to: swinburne@cadapps.com.au
Submissions to include Student Number on emailed attachment.

All files to be zipped into one single file and submitted as an attachment to the email.
The submission date is taken as the date the file/s are received in the requested email
mailbox.
Late submissions Marked score LESS 20% per day received after the
Assignment Due Date
ASSIGNMENTS
Lab 1 – Civil 3D Interface and Points
Task 1- Working with Civil 3D Points
 Open Assignment Points.dwg
 Drawing Settings to be set:
o Units: Metres
o Angular Units: Degrees
o Scale: 1:1000
o Zone: Map Grid of Australia Zone 55, using GDA94
datum
 Manually add 20 Civil 3D points to the data that was imported, choosing your own
locations, taking note of the level around it, adding your own Point Description (use the
descriptions from the examples below) & Level. Use a mix of the following descriptions
when creating your points: TR 1, TR 2, TB1, BB1, FH, TPIT & EB1
 Change the Label Style of all points in the drawing to _Au Pt Number Level Code using
point group overrides
 Change the Point Style for the points with Raw Description ‘NS’ to show a cross rather
than a Dot. (Hint The current Point Style for NS is Leveldot)
 Lock all points.
 Add a new Points Group named Feature, from the Include Tab, tick include all points.
From the Exclude Tab, tick ‘With raw descriptions matching’, type in TR*, FH to be
excluded from Points Group.
Save your Drawing
Questions:
(Provide your response in a word document or equivalent & save as Assignment Points.doc and
submit with the drawing)
 Identify the points in Civil 3D with the highest & Lowest Elevation. Provide their Pt No,
Easting, Northing, Elevation & Description.
 Find Points in the drawing with FH as the raw description and Identify the Point Style
applied
 What is a Point Group? Why are Point Groups used?
 What does the Description Key Set do?
 Can you explain why the point marker display of points with TR 2 is twice the size as
points with description TR 1?
Lab 2 – Working with Surfaces
Task 1- Creating Surfaces
 Open your previous drawing named Points. Use File-Save as to save the drawing with the
name
CREATING A SURFACE MODEL
 Create a new surface called Existing Surface (remember to turn on Automatic Rebuild,
on your Existing Surface) and use Point Group named Feature created in the previous
Assignment as a data source
CHANGE SURFACE DISPLAY STYLE
 Apply a display style to the surface that displays Contours and Triangles with 0.2m
contour Intervals
SURFACE LABEL
 Label all Major Contours ONLY.
 Create Waterdrops on the surface model to review low points.
 Create a spot level at the highest & lowest points in the surface
 Show the average slope (as a label by 2 Points) along the breaklines you have drawn
 Save the Drawing with the name Assignment Contours Task 1.dwg
Task 2 – Adding Surface Breaklines

 Draw a 3D polyline connecting points with descriptions TB1 and add it as a Breakline to
the surface model. Repeat the process for EB1 points. The contours will change to
include the breaklines that you have added.
 Apply Surface Styles: _Au Slope Arrows & Triangles
_Au Levels Shading
_Au Slope Arrows & Watersheds
 After Changing each style save as individual drawings with the same name as the Style
you changed it to (e.g. _Au Slope Arrows & Triangles.dwg)
Questions
(Provide your response in a word document or equivalent and Save As Assignment Points.doc
and submit with the drawing)
 What is a Breakline?
 What do they do to a surface model?
 How many Triangles are there in the surface model?
(Hint: Have a look at the Surface Properties)
Lab 3 – Alignments and Lot Layout
Task 1 - Alignments
 Open ASSIGNMENT ALIGNMENTS.dwg
 Set Units to Scale 1:500/Australia MGA 55
Polyline
 Create an Alignment from the existing polyline – name it Poly and assign horizontal
curves as follows First Curve: 150m radius
Other Curves: 100m radius
 Adjust the chainage labels such that the Major Stations appear every 50m & Minor
Stations every 10m.
Layout
 Create an Alignment by connecting Civil 3d points in the drawing, using the Tangent-
Tangent (with curves) alignment layout routine, with the following settings.
Make the Settings: Name: Layout
Type- CLOTHOID
Spiral- 50m length
Curve- 125m length
Spiral- 50m length
(Hint: make sure they are ticked on so you can change them)
Tables
 Add a table for the ‘Layout’ and ‘Poly’ Alignments
 Set Label Type to ‘Multiple Segments’.
 Click on Add and select an Alignment.
 From the Alignments menu, select Table Style ‘_Au Chainage Easting Northing Radii
Bearing IP‘ and create a table in the drawing.
 Do this for both Alignments.
(Place the tables next to their respective alignments.)
Save Drawing as Assignment Alignments .dwg
Task 2 - Parcels
 Open Assignment Parcels Drawing
Drawing setting to be set:
o Set Units to Scale: 1:1000
o Australia, MGA 55
 Create 2 Alignments from the Orange polylines – Name them Road1 and Road2.
Accept the style defaults
 Create a Parcel from the blue rectangle. Tick on to ‘Label Parcel’ segments.
 You should have 4 Parcels
 Add a ROW (Road Reserve) for all 4 parcels and use a 7.5m offset from the alignments.
(Hint: you will need to click on the parcel area labels to select them)
 Subdivide one of the 4 large parcels into smaller Property lots with the following
parameters:
o Automatic Layout ON
Layout Parameters
o Default Area =550m2
o Min Frontage = 12m
o Redistribution Method = Place remainder in last Parcel
o Renumber the property lots from 1 and sequentially number (e.g. 1,2,3,4,)
o Create an Area Table for all the parcels.
Save file as Assignment Parcels.dwg
Lab 4 – Site Grading and Long Sections
Task 1 - Site Grading
Grading
 Open ASSIGNMENT GRADING.dwg
 Create a new site named “Building Pad” and a new Grading Group called Proposed.
(make sure both the Automatic Surface Creation & Volume Based Surfaces are ticked).
 Create a Feature Line from the Existing polyline (use Style Building Pad) and assign
levels 443 using the Elevation Editor
 Open the “Grading Creation Tools” toolbar set the “Proposed” Grading Group and the
Target Surface as “ES”
 Create a surface from the “Proposed” Grading Group, using the style _Au contours-NS-
0.2m. Ensure that you apply an infill to the Building Pad.
Establish Settings & Create Grading

 Using the Grading Criteria set “Basic Set”. Create a grading for the entire Building Pad
with the following settings Cut 1:2 Fill 1:3
(Hint: Use criteria Surface @ Slope)
 Create Infill
Volumes
 Select Grading Volumes Tools Icon (note your Cut & Fills
 Select the Auto Balance Volumes Icon, leave as 0 Cu. M & hit OK
 On the far right side, click on the down arrows to view the Volumes History
 Zoom back in on the Feature Line, pick the Feature Line and right click Elevation Editor
(what is the new level of the Feature Line?)
Save drawing as Assignment Grading.dwg
Task 2 – Long Sections
Profiles
 Open Assignment Profiles.dwg
 Create a Profile for both Cedar St & Spruce Grove with the following settings
Profile View Style - _Au Road Design-20x
Band Set Style – Simple Road Design
 Place profiles one above the other
 Adjust the row Information in the Bands to show the following Band Types in order
Horizontal Geometry
Existing Levels
Chainage
Save Drawing as Assignment Profiles.dwg

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HES2146C

Swinburne University of Technology

Computer Aided Design

Assignments Due Date: Midnight 31 May 2007

Submissions via email to: swinburne@cadapps.com.au

Submissions to include Student Number on emailed attachment.

Toolspace Settings and Prospector

Figure 1.01: Prospector Toolspace

The Toolspace includes some fundamental

Toggles on/off the display of the ‘project

Toggles on/off the display of the ‘drawing

Toggles on/off the display of the ‘drawing

Switches the display of the Panorama

Figure 1.02: Settings Toolspace

This applies to all dockable toolbars in the

Autodesk Civil 3D Objects

Object Types (partial list)

Supports: external survey data imports, terrain modelling and design

Supports: data imports, terrain modelling and design output

Supports terrain modelling and grading design

Supports subdivision design and site grading

Supports site grading, subdivision design and surface modelling

Supports subdivision design and corridor modelling

Supports corridor modelling

Supports profile display

Interacts with: Surface models

Interacts with: Points and Profiles

Interacts with: Alignments, Grading and Corridor

Interacts with: Surfaces and Corridor

Interacts with: Grading, Corridor, Profiles and Sections

Interacts with: Surfaces, Alignments and Grading

Interacts with: Profiles, Surfaces and Alignments

The Panorama Window

Figure 1.03: The Panorama Window

Figure 1.04: Properties Window

Shortcut Menus and Tool Tips

Figure 1.05: Civil 3D Help System – Contents Searching

Figure 1.10: Civil 3D Environment

4. If the Prospector Toolspace is not showing start the command [General]-[Show

Figure 1.65: Prospector Object Tree – Sites

Figure 2.01: Prospector Object Tree

Create New Points

Figure 2.04: Points Toolspace

6. Press <Enter> to exit the command

Figure 2.05: New Civil 3D Points Created

The following should appear in your display window.

Graphic and Tabular Point Display

Figure 2.06: Civil 3D Points List

Note: Point data can be sorted by clicking on the respective columns.

Figure 2.07: Graphical and Tabular Points Editing

Note the icon displayed against

Users can UNDO deleted points

Figure 2.08: Locked Points

Modify the Point Object Style

The Point Style dialog box is displayed:

Figure 2.09: Point Style Dialogue Box

Description Key Sets

Description Key Sets enable you to:

Figure 2.11: Description Key Editor

Review and Modify a Description Key Set

Figure 2.14: Description Keys

Importing and Creating Point Data

Create Points Layout Tools

This will open the Create Points Layout Tools (below):