problem with ground modelling

[astrageneca]

can you people got an idea how to modelling terrain surfaces with/out contours?
i am planning to use Autocad 2007 but just brought Sketchup (one friend suggested) for it,
not sure if i can do it, what about rendering and all those stuff (like trees, roads, etc ? ) should i finally go for 3dsmax?
anyone tried about it?
help me

[CADTutor]

SketchUp can do terrain modelling, animation and there is a library of trees etc.

[boofredlay]

There are a lot of questions to be answered first:

1. What is the final result you want?
2. Photorealistic rendering or not?
3. Construction documents or just "pretty pictures"?
4. How large is the project?
5. How large is the client's budget?
6. How large is your firm's budget?

It is difficult to answer your question with a simple answer.

SketchUp is great for terrain modeling, adding roads, trees, people, cars and more. However taking it to a civil drawing stage can be problematic. Also if it is a large project and you don't have a super fast computer, you will get frustrated with SketchUp.

I hope I helped and I would be interested in hearing a couple answers to the above questions.

Cheers.