Chapter 16 – AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Essentials – The Essentials and Beyond

hello my name is Eric Chappell author of
autocad civil3d 2013 essentials and this
is the additional exercise for chapter
16 we're given three tasks for this
exercise and the first one is to create
a pond design similar to the one that
you created in the last two exercises
we've been given a feature line between
lots 62 and 66 represented here in green
and we're going to use the same geometry
and the same approach to creating a pond
in this area so to get started I'm gonna
go to the Home tab and launch the
grading creation tools and if you recall
our first criteria set that we use was
grade 2 relative elevation and that's
what I'll choose here I'm going to
assume that my feature line is already
set to the right elevation and if I look
here by letting my cursor drop into the
grip I can see its elevation 169 if you
watch this number right here elevation
169 so that sound that sounds about
right
I'm seeing a 170 contour right there so
I'm going to grade 2 relative elevation
from this feature line toward the inside
I want to apply to entire length yes my
relative elevation is going to be 7 feet
down which is the same depth that we
used for the other pond the same
beginning depth we edited it later on
and I want to define this by slope 3 2 1
is the slope that I want to use and
there we have the inside of the pond now
if you recall in order to fill in the
space at the bottom of the pond we need
to create an infill and maybe to show
you that I'm going to split my viewports
here into two viewports so let me switch
over to the view command and we'll do
two vertical viewports and that's going
to take just a second to regenerate
itself
and I'm going to here's a quick little
shortcut to get your viewport oriented
I'm going to right-click that and use
object viewer to get it and the right
orientation that I want with a very
simple object and then I want to look at
it the same way in my drawing so I'll
click this button right here and that'll
set my view in the drawing to match
pretty cool the only thing I'm going to
do differently is I'm going to set my
visual style to conceptual and that will
give me a shaded look at the pond it's
taken just a second to process that
information and there we go
so now it's very clear that we have a
hole in the bottom of the pond so in
order to take care of that we're going
to add an infill just drop it in right
there and what that does is it it
permits the triangulation of the surface
to exist across the that area that we
that we just created so that takes care
of the inside of the pond now we want to
create the berms of the pond so to do
that we'll use a grade two distance and
I'll use my create grading command right
off of the same feature line we're going
to do entire length yes our distance is
going to be ten feet and we're going to
do a two percent grade so just slope it
up ever so slightly so that when rain
does fall on this berm it falls in word
toward the pond not outward and then
we'll continue by grading to a surface
tying it into existing ground I need to
tell it what surface is my target that's
going to be eg and I'll launch the
create grading command using the the
outer feature line of the grading object
we created earlier to find this by slope
three-to-one sounds good
slope again
three-two-one once again and now it's
going to create the day lighting for me
and if it's in there quite nicely it
doesn't even require that we do any
adjustment to fit it within the allotted
area and you can see in the 3d view
we've got a pretty nice looking pond and
that takes care of our first task which
is to create a pond similar to the one
that we did in the last two exercises
our next task is to continue doing some
lot grading namely for lots 27 28 and 29
so the first thing I need to do is zoom
into those Lots which in my 2d view on
the left is pretty easy but for the 3d
view I think to make that go more
quickly I'm going to start by setting it
back to plan view and the way I'll do
that is click in the viewport to make it
active and I'm going to use the plan
command to set that view to plan view
now the plan view also does exhume zoom
extents so I'm going to need to uh to
zoom back in to the site plan find the
Lots next to it and use the same object
viewer trick that I used for the pond to
get it oriented the way I want it so I'm
going to zoom into the site here and I
think the easiest way to do this is
going to be to select some of the
objects in the adjacent Lots that are
already graded and kind of get our
orientation set up based on those so
we've got a couple of feature lines here
I can pick
and just right-click bring up object
viewer if there's oriented kind of the
way I want them and then set the view
now I can close down object viewer and
I've got us you know similar 3d
perspective set up in this in this right
viewport now I'm a big fan of having a
2d and 3d view available anytime I'm
doing grading because grading is a 3d
design approach and in in my opinion you
can't do it effectively in 2d so to get
started I'm going to create some feature
lines along the the perpendicular lot
lines so I'll just go to feature line
create feature line I want to make sure
I get the right site so I'm gonna click
the pick from drawing button for the
site and select another feature line
that I know is in the same site that I
want and that happens to be lot grading
the style I'm going to use is also
called lot grading and I'll click OK my
start point I'm going to snap to the
front end point of the lot line and I'm
not going to worry about the elevation
I'm just gonna let it be set to 0 but
then for the back lot line when I snap
to the end point I want to base that on
a surface so I'm going to type su for
surface I want my surface to be eg it's
going to pick up the elevation of eg of
that location and I'm going to accept
that as the default and that'll set the
backlot line to the correct elevation
I'll hit enter to complete the command
and then I'll do that again for lots 28
and 29 so just repeat that same sequence
luckily it's saved all my defaults from
before so I don't have to do all of that
again
and again I'm going to use surface it's
already remembered that my surface is eg
so that step is taken care of so it gets
a little quicker each time I'll repeat
the command snap to the front end point
enter snap to the back end point you use
the surface option existing ground and
that takes care of those three feature
lines and if I take a look at my 3d view
I can see that everything looks pretty
good it looks like it's some I don't
have anything shooting way down to
elevation zero or it looks the way I
would expect it to look in 3d so now
I'll create a feature line along the
back lot line so I'll just use the same
command create feature line and I'll
start by snapping to this endpoint here
notice it picked up an elevation of zero
so I'll go ahead and use the surface
option once again because I want this to
match eg it looks like I've got a
straight shot from one end to the other
so I'll just snap to the other end point
here and once again use a surface
elevation of eg
now the problem with that is the shape
of the surface or the terrain is not a
straight line from one end to the other
it actually has some ups and downs in
fact looking at the contours it looks
like we kind of are climbing to a high
point right here where this line ends so
we need to have that taken into account
in the design of the elevations of this
backlot feature line so to take care of
that we're going to use the elevations
from surface command I'm going to click
on the feature line I want to bring up
my edit elevations panel and use the
elevations from surface command based on
the eg surface and I want to make sure
this insert intermediate grade break
points is turned on because that's going
to create additional elevation points
everywhere that there is at inline
underlying the future line so you
probably saw the little green circles
there at first now those little green
circles have all become elevation points
and this backlot line now is a much
closer match to the existing ground
surface in fact it's a perfect match now
to the existing ground surface now for
the building pads to make life easy on
myself I'm going to copy those from lot
to lot I'll take this first one and
rotate it so that it's a little more
parallel to the to the road if I wanted
to I could get real particular about the
rotation of that but just keep in mind
we are designing dirt here it doesn't
need to be super accurate in this case
and the next thing I want to do is set
those building pads to the correct
elevation so that I have the building
pad being the highest point not only the
highest point within the lot but the
highest point that creates a at least a
2% slope toward the outside of the lot
so that's what we'll take a look at next
so in order to establish that minimum 2%
slope the first thing I need to figure
out is what's the highest point
on the exterior of the lot and a quick
way to do that is using the quick
elevation edit tool right here because I
can move my cursor around on these
feature lines and it start and it will
tell me in a tooltip what the elevations
are so that's one ninety point seven
that's one ninety point five that's one
ninety two and that is one ninety two so
I got to check these again one ninety
two point six one ninety two point four
so this point right here is the highest
point on lot 27 so what I do now I'll
escape out of that command I'm not
actually going to use that command what
I am going to use is the elevation by
reference so rate or raise lower by
reference that's this one right here so
I'll launch the tool my reference point
is going to be the high point right
there and the object that I'm raising is
on the building pad right here and I'm
going to say that I want a grade of two
percent between those two points and I
think something went wrong because my
feature line disappeared so let's undo
that
and I'm thinking maybe I didn't snap to
the right location so let's try that
once again we're gonna do raise lower by
reference for my reference point I'm
going to snap to this endpoint right
here and look at the elevation readout
down here it's set to zero that's not
what I want I'm going to hit the tab key
until it says an elevation that makes
sense
one ninety two point six that's more
like it
so now I'll click on that point and
complete the command and say that I want
a two percent difference and now I see
just a slight change in elevation on the
building pad and what's going on here is
there underneath this feature line is a
parcel line and that parcel line is that
elevation zero and the first time I snap
to it I got the wrong elevation I got
the zero elevation so my building pad
disappeared from view because it went
way down to almost elevation zero so now
I'm just going to repeat that process
for a lot 28 I'll use the quick
elevation edit command to figure out
where my high point is here we're at one
ninety two and a half one ninety two
point six one ninety four point five and
sometimes it's a little tricky one
ninety four point two so once again this
lower left corner is the high point so
I'll scape out of that I'll do my raise
lower by reference
once again my reference point will be my
high point want to be careful and use
the tab key to make sure I'm picking the
right elevation I'm going to use two
percent and watch the 3d view over here
when I enter the two percent you'll see
that building pad raised up slightly
actually it was this guy right here
repeat that once again I'll assume that
this is the low point but let's check it
just to make sure I'm sorry the high
point not the low point
and we'll use quick elevation edit
that's 195 194 and a half 194 point two
one ninety five point eight so that was
a bad assumption this is my high point
this time near the road this is one
ninety five point eight this is one
ninety five so this time when I do raise
lower by reference I'm gonna snap to
this corner here once again I want to
make sure I'm getting the right
elevation so I'll click the tab key to a
two percent slope it's gonna bump that
up a little bit and that successfully
grades all the Lots the same way that we
did for lots twenty-five and twenty-six
so we set the side lot line from the
road elevation to existing Road
elevation to existing Road elevation to
existing we set the backlot line to
match existing and then we set the
building pad to be high high enough so
that it created at least a two percent
slope with the perimeter of the line and
that takes care of task number two for
task number three we are asked to create
a surface from the feature lines that
we've used to grade Lots 25 through 29
so I'll begin by going into prospector
and I'll right-click surface and say
create surface and I'm gonna call my
surface Lots 25 - 29 and I'll go ahead
and use the contours one-in-five design
style then i want to add some feature
law or some brake lines to that surface
so in prospector I'll expand down to the
brake lines node right-click that and
say add and I'm gonna use standard brake
lines I don't need to weed any points
because I want as many points as I can
in this case I do want to supplement
however I may have
some some longer lengths especially
along the side lot lines or we've got
over a hundred feet of of no elevation
data so I want to create some elevation
data I'm actually going to go every 10
feet not every five and we've also got
some pretty small curve so I'm going to
do a middle ordinate distance of 0.05
now how do I know a point oh five it's
just from experience knowing that I've
got some really small arcs point one
seems a little big to me 0.01 seems a
little too small so point O five feels
about right just a gut feeling from
years of doing this I'll click OK and
then I'm gonna pick my feature lines I
could have done a select similar or some
other trick but there there aren't a lot
of them so I'm just going to select them
one at a time and once I've got them all
selected I'll hit enter and hopefully
we're gonna see a surface pop up there
and that's looking pretty good the
contours are looking just about right
I've got the high building pad in the
center and all the contours kind of
radiating outward from there if there
was something I would add I maybe create
a boundary to clean it up but really
we're only dealing with a couple of
extra tin lines here so I think what I
would probably do is go to surface
properties and turn on the surface
triangles
we've got a few extra triangles in here
that we can remove and one other thing I
want to do I'm looking at this void in
the surface up here and I'm realizing
that I actually missed an important
brake line and that's the red one out
front so I'm going to go in and add that
I'm gonna click on it and I'm going to
add two surface as a brake line I want
to add it to my Lots 25 through 29
surface use the same settings that I
used before and now I'm going to get a
little better in definition along the
front of the surface but I'm also going
to get some some extra surface lines so
no problem I'm just going to use some of
my editing tools my delete line to get
rid of that and I'm going to use a
little trick I learned called a fence
I'll type F for fence and lets me get a
bunch of these quickly I'll do the same
thing down here F for fence
that's looking pretty good I think one
more spot we'll do it a four fence and
now we've got a nice little surface
representing our lot grading for Lots 25
through 29 just so we can look at it a
little bit more closely I'm going to
take it into object viewer make my
object view if you were a little bigger
spin it around a little bit if we zoom
in closely you know ground is pretty
flat but we can pick out the building
pads and the swales in between and
that's exactly the kind of look we want
for a residential development like the
one we're creating so that satisfies the
requirement for task number three and
that finishes the additional exercise
for chapter 16