Spot elevation points?

[ironman]

I'm working on a really exciting project. I have a client who has to raise the elevation of the parking lot for his car dealership, and he wants a rendering to see what it would look like (did I mention its really exciting?)

I got the topography map in cad, and the changes in elevations are ever so slight. The lowest point is about 198' and the highest about 202'. So the final rendering isn't going to look too much different from whats there now.

Anyway, on the topography map, there are dozens of spot elevations, mainly around the perimeter of the parking lot. Is there any way to incorporate these into my model? I've been doing splines of the grade, dropping them into Max, and using the compound object/shapemerge to get my model. How would I bring in these spot elevations? Can it be done?

I'm very new at doing this type of work in Max, so please be gentle

[Cad64]

As far as I know, the spots won't really help you in creating a surface. Max needs lines in order to loft the surface. Can you draw splines between the spots?

[ironman]

As far as I know, the spots won't really help you in creating a surface. Max needs lines in order to loft the surface. Can you draw splines between the spots?

Actually, it seems I have a bigger problem, and I was hoping you (or anyone) can help me out with this...

I have seen multiple tutorials on this, and for some reason its not working...I turned all the contour lines into plines in cad, I connected (closed) them outside the site of the project, imported them into 3dmax (version 6) and tried using shapemerge to crop it, using the perimeter of the site. It worked once for me, then i tried it again and it didnt work.

I know I am missing something simple here. Should I be drawing the contour lines as splines? Do I need to close them? Should the perimeter of the site be a pline? Does it matter?

This is really giving me a headache, since it worked only once, and i'm not sure what the heck i did to get it to work. Plus I reviewed many tutorials on this site. What am I doing wrong?

I attached an image of the site...the orange lines are plines representing the coutour lines, and the blue line is the pline of the site.

Please help...anyone...

[Cad64]

I assume you've seen this tutorial? http://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/3ds-max/surfaces.php

I don't use Shapemerge, or Boolean, unless I absolutely have no other choice, so I don't really have any advice. Those tools always seem to make a mess of things and I usually end up spending more time fixing the problems that they created.

But I can tell you that Polylines are fine. They get converted to Splines when imported into Max anyway. And yes, the perimeter of your site should be a closed Polyline if you want to use it to cut through your terrain surface.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to tell you other than to go back and read through the tutorial again. You must have missed a step?

Also, try shutting down Max and restarting. Sometimes Max gets confused and needs to be refreshed, so starting with a fresh session might clear out the cobwebs and get things working again.

[ironman]

I assume you've seen this tutorial? http://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/3ds-max/surfaces.php

Ah yes, my favorite tutorial haha...Well, I did try it, but I will try again tonight, and I'll probably come back here crying haha...

So how do you do this, if you dont use shapemerge? You dont have to go into too much detail, I'm just curious.

[ironman]

Oh, and do the contour lines HAVE to be closed? I found one that was open, but I havent had the time to try it again...

[Cad64]

So how do you do this, if you dont use shapemerge? You dont have to go into too much detail, I'm just curious.

I guess I'm kind of old school in my approach. I like to do things manually, so I would use the cut tool to cut the shape out of the mesh, delete the unnecessary polygons and then make any necessary adjustments by pushing the verts around. This may take a little longer, but at least the result is exactly what I want.

[Cad64]

Oh, and do the contour lines HAVE to be closed? I found one that was open, but I havent had the time to try it again...

No, the contour lines don't have to be closed, but it's a good idea for them to be somewhat uniform as far as length is concerned. I usually try to make it so I end up with a square terrain, if you know what I mean.

[ironman]

What a surprise...I try it at home and it works the very first time...

Thank you for helping out!