topographic map in 3d for dummies

Hello people

never worked in 3d in autocad

i have autocad 2009

please direct me on how to

1. draw a topographic map

i have a topographic map on paper and i want to draw a 3d version of it.

the existing map has 12 grids.each grid is 50x50 feet. have calculated the elevations (it was assignment) and cut and fill for each square.

2. than i want to draw the surface according to topogrphic map

3.than i want to calculate the cut and fill volume.

4. later on i want to draw the excavation for the building on the surface which in the middle of a map and draw concrete foundation

in the excavating zone

the amount of work to be done and time to figure it out scares me

but i really want to learn it:geek:

as i progress i will be posting the achieved results in this thread

at the end it should be a great tutorial

Let see how it works out

thanx

thanx

Welcome to the forum Zabilya

I have deleted your duplicate threads. Please take a minute and read through our Posting Guidelines.

What program are you using? Is it just plain Autocad?

What is this project for? Is it a class assignment?

that was a quick reply

iam using autocad 2009

i also have revit and architect 2009 not installed yet

its a kind of learning project which had been taken from a previous job of our teacher

we have been given a project with almost everything in it

first thing was to calculate the actual elevation beetween contours

in order to find the volume cut and filled for a square and for a project in total

its my initiative to try to do this in 3d using autocad

as i understand my thread should be in 3d autocad section

cad64 if u can trasfer it there it will be better

the tutorials i found in this forum on my question dont cover the topic from scratch

cad 64 i saw your work in your website....amazing

thats exactly what i want to do at first than i have more staff related to construction on that surface

where do i start?

Yes, you'll find that responses come pretty quickly around here. Although, since it's Saturday, most of the regulars are not around.

I have moved your question to the 3D Modeling section.

Thanks for the feedback on my website, but my 3D work is all done in 3DS Max, so I won't be of much help to you in Autocad. There are plenty of guys here that will be able to help you though, so stick around and I'm sure one of them will be along shortly. :wink:

Nobody knows the solution?

Have you read through this thread: http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33487

yea i saw it but i dont know how to get there

is he working in 3d space 2d space?

can you post a scan of this topo map? What i would probably do is import the topo map as a jpeg into autocad and trace the elevation lines(just like using a thin transfer paper over a map) This should give you the lines where you can loft between them and create a surface. Once you have this surface you can cut a solid using this and use the inquiry menu(Tools>Inquiry>Region/Mass Properties) to get information about the solid like surface area.

Thanks a lot man i already heard about tracing but i thought tracing will cause some inaccuracies...i will scan it soon and will do tracing as u mentioned.....but i'm loosing you on lofting and surfacing

just let me get the scan and tracing done first

keep in touch:)

I think no matter what you do you will have not have an accurate model. Unless you scan survey data right into a cad program you will have some transfer of data.

If you can scan in a small portion of what you are working on this may help out(if you can't get the whole map in)

How u doing guys and shift1313 in particularly

i've uploaded the thing

what do i want? good question

first of all i want to see how this will look like in 3d

i want to know will autocad find by itself where my desired elevation is which is 94.3

then i want autocad to cut and fill the area(which i forgot to mark but its visible on the scanned map) to elev 94.3

then just for fun i want to see a video, square by square how does it levels from existing elevation to proposed elevation

lots to ask but help me in my steps

maybe its faster for u to do it by yourslef rather then explaining

but i wanna do it myself so guide me

thanx

P.S Cad64 if you passed by can u tell me how can send i shift1313 mail,or notify him

contour.dwg

P.S Cad64 if you passed by can u tell me how can send i shift1313 mail,or notify him

You need to make one more post. Once you have 10 posts, you will have access to the Private Messaging system and you will be able to contact other members. :wink:

Sorry there is nothing that will automatically make that for you. You need to manually move your trace lines to the Z elevation then you can loft between the curves creating a surface. Do you know the elevations of each set of lines?

Also i do not think these lines will be valid for a loft operation but i will have to play with it a bit more. If you can post up the elevations I will try to help you out.

if u zoom in on backround you will see numbers

can u ellaborate in instruction

ex. 1.switch to 3d

2. change a view how

and so on i didnt work in 3d at all

zabilya,

You posted a dwg file but it references an image, but only you have it so others can't see the contour elevations.

The first step to take is to move each polyline to the desired elevation.

Just use the move command, select polyline, base point 0,0,0 and move to 0,0,z (where z is the contour elevation).

When you are done with that, post the new drawing and we can go on to the next step.

as charles said. there is only a file name in the middle of your contours and no elevation data. If you post that or upload the jpeg image we can go from there.

what do i want? good question

first of all i want to see how this will look like in 3d

 

This makes it seem like you want the lay of the land in 3d

 

i want to know will autocad find by itself where my desired elevation is which is 94.3

 

No it wont

 

then i want autocad to cut and fill the area(which i forgot to mark but its visible on the scanned map) to elev 94.3

 

The software only does what you tell it to. Cutting out an area from a solid is very easy but if you are working on site plans there is a lot more you need to be aware of with the type of land, backfill, clearance etc.

 

then just for fun i want to see a video, square by square how does it levels from existing elevation to proposed elevation

 

We are here to help but someone taking the time to help you draw this let alone create a video for you step by step, i dont think that will happen. I certainly can't/won't do that. If you are asking to see an animation of the material removal from you drawing this is not going to happen either. Its not like the real thing where it comes out one bucket load at a time. Its one operation and its gone like that.

 

lots to ask but help me in my steps

maybe its faster for u to do it by yourslef rather then explaining

but i wanna do it myself so guide me

 

Like I said, we are here to help you learn. No body will go to the extents/details to complete the project for you. The little information you provided wouldnt be enough to do anything with the model.

 

Your best bet is to include all reference materials or at least the information needed like elevation, building size and location etc. If you have the land drawn as a solid, all you need to do is create another solid that is the size of your building and use the SUBTRACT command. If there is more to this problem please clarify.

thanx for reply

i managed to lift up the contour lines to the req'd elev.

should the corners of the grid to be moved on z axes as well?

should i join the grid lines together?

at the corners of each square i've included the elev.at that point

the scaned file i'm using is too big, but i attached a smaller version file

have a look

contour3d.dwg

scan1.pdf

sorry if part of the last reply didnt all make sense or it was a repost. another member posted in here and it got confusing(that has been removed). im going to look at these files now and see what i see.

okay so i wasnt able to do much with your curves except make a surface. The curves arent valid for the loft operation. What do you need to do with this model?

here is a screen shot of what it looks like using EDGESURF with surftab1 = 50 and surftab2 = 10. From there you can run a lisp routine and make this a solid.

I know you can perform a loft on Spline curves. your curves are 2d polylines and it will not let me loft with them. 2d polylines are typically okay to use a loft cross sections but i keep getting an error saying faces have more than one loop. Ill have to play with it a bit more because i havent run into this issue before.