How to draw topography

[xueming]

Hello All,

 

I need to do a house foundation survey and draw a topography of the foundation.

 

What software I should use? Thanks a lot!!

 

Regards,

[ReMark]

If this is just going to be no more than a 2D plan view of the property depicting the location of the house it could be done with plain AutoCAD.

 

BTW...you draw the topography of the land. You draw an outline of the foundation.

[xueming]

Thanks ReMark for the quick response. I actually want to draw a 3D one to see if it needs a foundation repair.

 

For example, if one corner of the foundation drop to a centain degree due to the soil or bedrock movement ...

 

So I might just get about 40 points of data (x,y,z) and use some sort of software to draw me a topography.

 

Any suggestion? I have never used the autocad even though I have a engineer background, so the easier the better

 

Thanks a lot !

[ScribbleJ]

In order to use any data that you get from a survey Land Development Desktop would be a way to go. It will import your points and create a TIN (triangulated irregular network) of the points that will in turn allow you to display contours. But this software is very expensive. Otherwise you will need to import your points into AutoCad some how and interpolate them to create your own contours. I am quite certain this can be done but it can be tedious and time consuming.

[ReMark]

Sorry there xueming. 3D huh? Hmmm...better look at Civil 3D or like the gentleman above suggests LDD.

[xueming]

Thank you both!!

 

I will take a look at the Civil 3D and the LDD

 

Is LDD this "Autodesk - AutoCAD Land Developement Desktop" ? (I was not allowed to post link, so I just put the title here)

 

And just curious, compare these two which one is easier for this task?

[Jaelin]

You probably don't want to go with Land Desktop (unless LDD is different than the Land Desktop Companion that I have which I don't think it is). They are phasing LDC out with 2009. They are saying they're not offering LDC in 2010. They are moving everything over to Civil, Civil 3D or Map. For your purposes I say go with Civil 3D. It would be much easier for you to learn Civil 3D now than to pick up Land Desktop, learn it and just have to switch later I would think. We're switching to Civil 3D fully in the next release and I'm just hoping it works the same with the TIN as LDC does.

[CarlB]

If you're looking for something easy to learn just to draw topography, forget about LDD or Civil 3D. Not to mention what you'd have to pay.

 

You can download & use "Sitetopo" to createa TIN & contours. Free.

 

www.sitetopo.com

[xueming]

Thank you Jaelin and CarlB !!

 

Great advices, I will take a look and will report back what works for me to benefit others like me.

[rustysilo]

I'm with CarlB. Go with SiteTopo to get contouring. It is free and easy to learn. After that you can take it into regular AutoCAD to do further work. A seat of AutoCAD is $4,000 where a seat of Civil 3d is $7,000 + and they make you "subscribe" to it which is an annual fee of around $1,000.

[rustysilo]

And for the record Land Development Desktop is an old product. The name was changed to Land Desktop a few years back and then when they started Civil 3d they shipped Land Desktop with it calling it the Land Desktop Companion. It will not be available after 2009 as I understand as the phase-out will be complete and it will be replaced by Civil 3d. If you do wish to get an Autodesk civil/survey package you definitely want to go with Civil 3d. If too pricey there are certainly other options.

[ScribbleJ]

I almost suggested Civil 3D but was not sure if it would been too much cost. I have used Civil 3D for evaporation pond design cut/fill balance and being able to to go back and forth from Civil 3D to LDD or plain AutoCad is very easy. I agree that if you decide to go this route that Civil 3D is the way to go. It is 10 times easier to do designs, quantity calcs, etc than LDD.

 

The thing I find most difficult in Civil 3D is getting the scales and annotations to produce what you desire to see. It is by far the trickiest thing to do. The design part is not that much different from LDD and is very fluid.