Best Way to Create Terrain from Surveyor’s DWG Plan

[ananas]

Hello everyone,

What would be the easiest way to model terrain from a surveyor’s plan, where we have a DWG file containing point data (e.g. elevation markers)?

If anyone has time and is willing to help, I can also share part of the DWG file directly.

In the past, I’ve used the Mesh tool in Archicad and added points manually, adjusting their elevation one by one. But I wonder if there is a more efficient method.

I’m also open to using third-party software for terrain generation and then importing the result into Archicad.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Ricardo Lopez]

Hi @ananas 

If the survey points from the DWG file have elevation (z coordinate) you could export them following the step by step from this previous post: https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Modeling/Creating-Topography-in-Archicad-from-AutoCAD-Survey-Dat...

Kind regards.

[runxel]

I guess you've taken the project over? Can't you kindly ask the surveyor for a .xyz file?

Can't tell from your screenshot if the DWG is 3D or not. 🤔

If it actually is in 3D and with the points having their correct heights and you can not contact the surveyor: 

Well then I would write some Autolisp to extract the data from the model into a CSV-like structure. Change the filetype to .xyz and load it into Archicad with the respective command, or use Tapir.

[rakurs · Accepted solution]

If you have access to Rhino3D or a similar solution, it actually can easily export coordinates with desired precision into a txt file (same as xyz) - this can come in handy if you don't have a full AutoCAD subscription. LT does not have all the tools that the full one has and it can be somewhat difficult to go into LISP if you don't have experience with it.

Rhino has excellent solutions for all kinds of 3D issues one runs into, and is an excellent modelling program. Its SetPt command is fantastic, for example, because you can select many points and give them a value for the x, y, or z, or any combination of the three.

Even if you have an awful dwg where there are some (many?) rogue objects outside of the z = 0 plane, you can select all of them and SetPt their z to 0, and then export back to dwg.

[ananas]

Thank you everyone!
I forgot to mention that I do have a Rhino licence, but not Autocad, so the solution from rakurs will do.

[ananas]

Hi Rakurs! 

I tried your solution and works great if points are actually points!
But in our case they are not really the points unfortunatelly 😞

[Mathias Jonathan]

I made a script that works with some autocad files, not all unfortunately (i'll work on that). You can try: https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Collaboration-with-other/Extracting-x-y-z-coordinates-from-a-sur... 

[runxel]

Ah, well, Rhino! Even better!

Do you have some experience in Grasshopper? This could be an easy task; the heights seem to be correct so you could extract that even tho the symbols are not points. I can't really tell what it is; some are like "X"s and some look like small circles (?).

Hopefully they are seperated by layers already... (at least they have different colors assigned so not all is lost here :D)

[rakurs]

Have you tried ExtractPt command? It might help you - it creates points from objects, and then your workflow continues as needed.

ExtractPt