Civil/Grading Question

[Cocytus09]

Hi Everyone!

 

What's a good way to loft/sweep a Curb & Gutter shape on a Site with very noticeable grade elevation changes? and how about creating the sidewalks and landscaping on the terrain?

 

I really never had to work with actual grading conditions based on a civil's "New Grading Plan" with noticeable elevation differences.

 

I've created my terrain using the "Drape" command in AutoCAD which creates a pretty good looking massing of the terrain. I'm really having trouble creating my Curbs and Gutters for the site because the result I get is an object intersecting with the terrain. My sidewalks and landscaping also intersect with the terrain.

 

Please see attachment.

 

Any suggestions? Any info or technique would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Ky Lane]

Im thinking lofts?

[Scott Dombrowski]

I have yet to find a decent solution to this. My terrain comes from contour lines and the resulting mesh is usually pretty jagged, even when applying a normalize spline modifier to the contours beforehand. Here's my workflow for now:

 

* Attach all of your splines outlining your pavement areas into one shape and extrude that to a height taller than your terrain.

* Do a boolean/cut/remove outside with your terrain and your extruded pavement area. That should leave you with just the terrain mesh that is pavement.

* Make a copy (not an instance) of that new pavement terrain mesh and change the "boolean/cut/remove outside" to a "remove inside". Now you have another mesh that is your grass/landscape area. You can use the same method to cut out sidewalks too.

* Apply an edit poly to your pavement and go to the border sub-object mode. That should select the outside edge of your pavement mesh, which you can then detach as a spline.

* Use that spline as a source for your loft/sweep curb profile.

 

You'll quickly see that your curbs follow the jagged shape of the terrain. On the plus side, there aren't any gaps. On the minus side, it looks like the concrete contractor was smoking crack when he poured the curbs.

 

I'm beginning to experiment with converting the contours to NURBS and making a smooth terrain that way. I haven't gotten very far at all yet, but the initial results look somewhat decent. If anyone else wants to chime in on how to get smooth curbs and graded pavement/sidewalks, that'd be nice.

[Cocytus09]

Thanks Scott! I like the tip of detaching the edge to use as a spline for the path.

 

I've been using the "Glue" plug-in from "itoo software" for creating my splines/paths for my curb shapes on the terrain. It's a pretty cool plug-in. I import the 2D linework representing my curbs, and the "Glue" utility puts it directly over my 3D terrain. Google "itoo software", go to the Free Plug-ins area, and check out "Glue". CGA won't let me post the direct link yet.

 

Thanks for your insight Scott! Learning of different approaches is always good. I'm still working on the problem, if i come up with something nifty, I'll make sure to post it.

 

Any more suggestions ladies and gentlemen?

[Scott Schroeder]

Lofts are probably your best bet. You can draw out your curb spline at zero feet, getting it the shape you want. Then making sure you have verts at all of your elevation changes, change the height of that particular vert to the height of the topo line. I typically use smooth verts on my spline, but if that doesn't work then I switch the uncooperative verts to bezier.

 

This way you have a nice smooth curb with adjustable mapping coordinates if you need to add in the breaks in the concrete. You can also use this same line to loft your sidewalks, grass, and roads. So one line can give you multiple objects.

[Claudio Branch]

 

Any suggestions? Any info or technique would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

I have yet to find a decent solution to this.

 

 

Ever considered hiring an expert to do it for you?

Edited July 25, 2008 by Claudio Branch

[Scott Dombrowski]

Ever considered hiring an expert to do it for you?

 

Actually, no, I haven't. Having only been in the arch viz field for just over a year, I'm a long ways from expert status. However, expert status is what I'm shooting for, so if I hired one to do it for me, I wouldn't learn how it's done. Kinda like the "give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish" saying.

 

That said, I attempted to use the trial of EasySite (http://www.cadeasy.com). We have a highly customized CAD setup here, so installing it and getting to run on AutoCAD 2006 was a no-go. It looks like it'll do what I want, though the interface looks clunky and the website looks outdated (last forum post was in 2005). Claudio, do you have any sample renders w/ corresponding wireframe image you could post showing what EasySite does?

 

We have shiny new copies of Civil 3D running upstairs... looks like its time to go hang out up there and see how those guys are doing with it. Maybe I can beg for a copy.

 

Re: lofts vs. sweeps... Lofts do seem to have a lot more control over texturing and shape tweaking. However, they only work on one spline at time. Think simple straight section of road... the curb paths are two splines, one on one side of the street, one on the other. You have to split those splines up into two separate objects and make separate lofts from each. A sweep modifier, while it has a lot less tweakability, seems to get the job done in a hurry by working on all spline sub-objects in a shape at once. No need to split up all the curb paths into separate objects... just attach them all to one shape and apply a sweep modifier. Pick your curb cross section shape and all the curbs are created at once. So I guess it's tweakability versus speed.

 

Thanks for the tips Scott and Edson. Now I have some more experimenting to do.

[Claudio Branch]

 

That said, I attempted to use the trial of EasySite (www.cadeasy.com). We have a highly customized CAD setup here, so installing it and getting to run on AutoCAD 2006 was a no-go. It looks like it'll do what I want, though the interface looks clunky and the website looks outdated (last forum post was in 2005). Claudio, do you have any sample renders w/ corresponding wireframe image you could post showing what EasySite does?

 

 

EasySite will eliminate alot of terrain modeling headaches. I have 3 years worth of projects that I can show you. Perhaps you should just PM me your e-mail address.

 

I will post them on-line only if it is alright w/ Jeff and/or the moderator.

 

What is up with Loft/Sweep? They sorta work, but not really in any predictable way. They both really just beat my ass down...

[Claudio Branch]

 

Claudio, do you have any sample renders w/ corresponding wireframe image you could post showing what EasySite does?

 

 

Here is your sample:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/31584-modelling-terrained-roads.html?=#post218797

 

The interchange image was created using AutoCAD/EasySite, Max 9, Onyx Trees, Advanced Painter and V-Ray.