Creating a basin from User-Defined Contours

Creating a basin from User-defined Contours can be fast and easy in Civil 3D. Here are the steps you need to take in order to achieve this:
The first thing you should do is to determine the location for your basin and decide what the pond edge elevation is going to be. In this exercise I will use the surface shown below and my edge elevation will be 184.35.

Next we need to create the User-Defined Contour for the Basin Edge.
To do this: Click on your surface and then select "Surface Properties". In the Surface Properties dialog box select the "Analysis" tab. On the "Analysis Type" Properties pull down select "User-Defined Contours". In the Number of Ranges type "1" and then select the Add arrow. After the contour has been added to your Range Details click on the "Elevation" and set it to your edge value.

*Note: Make sure your surface style has the User Contours" turned ON in the Display tab.

Next select your surface and select "Extract objects" from the Surface Tools panel. In the "Extract Objects from Surface" box, deselect all items except "User Contours" and select OK. After doing this you will have an elevated polyline of your pond edge. Select the polyline and then (on the Home tab) select "Feature line" and then select "Create feature line from Object. In the Create feature Lines box select your site and style and/or press OK. You now have a feature line you can use to create your pond. Now use your grading tools to grade inward to create the pond condition to meet your needs.

**Note: Don't forget to Create the infill to create to bottom of your basin.

***One last Note: If your unsure of your basin bottom elevation but know your capacity. Select your surface and expand the Analyse panel. You will find the "Stage Storage" tool. This tool has many options to help you calculate your basin. I hope you enjoy this. Check back again soon.

Pipe Crossings in Profile

Several people have been asking lately why pipe crossings look so bad in Civil 3D within profiles. Whenever they project a crossing pipe onto a profile it looks something like this:

Well there is a solution and NO you don't have to just "live with it". The answer is the create a ""Crossing Pipe Style". So here's how it works. Create a new (or copy an existing) Pipe style to be used just for your pipe crossings. In your style editor on the Pipes tab select "Draw to outer walls". You may also want to select "Hatch Walls". On the Display tab switch the "View Direction" to "Profile". In the Componenet Display section turn off all the "Visable" lightbulbs except "Crossing Pipe Inside Wall", Crossing Pipe Outside Wall", & "Crossing Pipe Hatch".

After you've completed this make sure that you set this to be the current style on all your crossing utilities. It will then look like this:

I hope this helps. Check back soon for more tips and updates.

Copying a Surface in Civil 3D

There are several ways you CAN copy a surface but what is the best way and what are the differences? In Land Desktop we use to be able to (in Terrain Model Explorer) just select a surface, right-click and select copy. Unfortunately that option is not available to us any more. Basically there are 3 ways to copy a surface in Civil 3D the first is WBLOCK and INSERT, the second is the old standard AutoCAD COPY command and the third is clipboard COPY/PASTE.

WBLOCK & INSERT: This is a great way to copy a surface if you plan to design or manipulate the surface (it's also great for merged surfaces, pasting design surfaces into existing surfaces). All of the data that's used to define the original surface gets duplicated along with the surface making it independent from the original surface.

COPY: This option will work but you need to understand the functionality of the new surface. The surface gets copies but not the design data that made up that surface therefore it is still defined by the original entites. Meaning if the original design entities are changed or removed, your copied surface will update to reflect the changes.

COPY/PASTE: This option actually invokes the WBLOCK command and stores the surface in a temp file and places the temp file name on the clipboard. The PASTE option invokes the insert command therefore performing the same task as option 1 but without you having to save and define extra drawings. Keep in mind that the PASTE option will use the limits of the surface as the insertion point so for optimal results, right-click select Clipboard, Paste to Original Coordinates.

So now that we know the ways to copy a surface, what is the BEST way?

If you want the new surface to reflect the changes of the original surface use the COPY command.

If you want an independent surface within your drawing, best practices suggest that you make copies of the definition entities from the original surface and then just build a duplicate surface.

If you want to create your new surface in a separate drawing use the WBLOCK command for best results.

Strange Blue dots???

I'm getting a lot of questions lately on "What are these strange blue dots that have started appearing all over my drawing ever since I upgraded to 2011?".

These are the new Geometric Constraints features. Constraints aren't new they were introduced in 2010 but weren't widely used (from what I've noticed). What these constraints will do is remember the way you have drawn or edited entities in your file. To put it simple, if you select the grip of an object and then use an "object snap" to snap it to a point on another object, geometric constraints will remember that you snapped it there and will from then on always remain connected at the point you snapped too.
If you don't want to use Geometric constraints and aren't sure how they ended up on your file it's probably because you inadvertently click the constraints button on your Drawing Settings Bar at the bottom of your screen.

By Right-clicking on the Constraints button you can also select "Settings", from there where you can better control your constraint settings (the same as you would Object Snaps). If you created Geometric Constraints within your draw and want to remove them just hover over the "Strange Blue Dot" until you see the Constraint tool button appear, Right-click on the button and select "Delete".

Then make sure you have the "Infer Geometric Constraints" turned off so that you don't keep getting them in your file.

Eliminate DTM spikes

Eliminating "0" spikes in your DTM's
Select your surface and select "Surface Properties",

Select the "Definition" Tab,
Expand "Build",
Find the variable that says “Exclude elevations less than” and set it to YES,
Directly under that find the variable that says “Elevation”, set that to 1.
Select Apply, OK
This will keep your surface from spiking to "0" elevations (or worse NEGATIVE).