From Topographical Survey to Civils 3D surfaces

I have only recently begun working on Civils3D, so forgive me if the solution is obvious.

I am wanting to create an existing layout of a long length of road in Civils 3D.

First off, I intend to use the points from an existing 3D topographic survey in CAD format to create the surfaces one by one (carriageway, central reserve, verge etc) The problem I am having is that all of the points (the crosses representing the ground levels) on the 3D topo are contained within the same layer, using the same block. So I cannot think of a way to grab all the relevant points at once (e.g all of the points relating to the carriageway elevation) so that I can then create a carriageway surface from a point group/file.

Do any of you know of a way around this rather than manually selecting every point/cross I want to include in each surface (which would take hours)

Thanks in advance,

Hi

Are there any unique attributes or group of attributes for the points you wish to use? Would a data extract to a .CSV not allow you to sort in Excel and isloate the relevant points?

No, that's the problem I am faced with. All of the points are the same block, on the same layer. No unique attributes. Is it a case of the survey data is not fit for purpose? I ask the question because I have opened another drawing, and the author (who has now left the company - so cannot ask ) has successfully created multiple different surfaces (carriageway,verge, central reserve etc) from the exact same survey type. Just 1 block type on 1 layer. So I figured it must be possible and I am missing something (surely he didn't manually go through them all did he? :/)

Welcome to CADTutor, and the world of Civil 3D.

If you could provide a drawing sample, or even a TOPO sample of both the ASCII? points file, and the resultant COGO Points, etc. perhaps we can better help you.

Cheers

You can make a selection set using the find command and isolate those points that contain similar descriptions to separate layers and then build your surfaces from those isolated points.

We are guessing a typical point would be ptnum X Y Z description, the key here is description, then you can join points.

   1000     266229.178     5774788.566      33.374     PLUG       SURVEY MARK      ALUMINIUM PLUG
   1001     266238.021     5774786.654      33.383     NAIL       SURVEY MARK      NAIL
   1082     266276.337     5774781.386      32.944     NAIL       SURVEY MARK      NAIL
   1083     266283.510     5774785.432      32.969     NAIL       SURVEY MARK      NAIL
   1225     266353.139     5774771.693      32.177     TBM        TBM             BENCH MARK
   1226     266331.063     5774778.606      32.297     TBM        TBM             BENCH MARK
   1257     266371.457     5774772.688      31.675     nail       SURVEY MARK      NAIL
   1341     266435.262     5774763.863      31.370     CC         OCC             CONC CUT
   1342     266433.042     5774763.697      31.154     PLUG       SURVEY MARK      ALUMINIUM PLUG