Importing / recreating 3D countour maps.

[Anonymous]

Hello all,
I've got yet another question for the elders (just to let you guys know, I think I would've been fired by now if it wasn't for all the help ) anyway, so heres my new question, we get our drawings from the land surveyors in 2D DWG format, what, in your opinions would be the best way to go about turning these contour lines into a 3D mesh ? I've included a screenshot of a typical contour drawing, as they are when I get them.

cheers,
Dan

[Link]

The one below was created using the mesh tool.

It's a bit of a long winded process, and you can't RTFM because it's simply not in there, but basically you need to:

Connect all existing imported 2D lines so that each contour has no breaks;
Magic wand splines over each one;
Create a mesh the same shape as the site boundary;
Select it and magic wand the splines to add contours to the mesh;
Set the heights of the mesh boundary nodes & each contour.

That's it in a (freakishly small) nutshell, and it does deserve a much more thorough explanation, but unfortanately I am sitting on a sidewalk in the town of Lewes, East Sussex helping myself to someone's unsecured WIFI access whilst instant messaging my wife and, quite frankly, my _ass_ is getting cold.

Never mind though, trial and error will be your best friend in keeping you from being fired - trust me.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

thanks a load mate, Thats just about the same method I was starting to figure out myself but you gave me some better ideas, and you're right it is longwinded... oh and yes, trial and error already have become my best friend (I was never trained on any CAD system, but I taught myself Architectural Desktop, and the new office I work for uses ArchiCAD.. which I actually am starting to like better) but regardless, you guys, at the very least speed up the trial process, and slow down the error process anyway though, keep your arse warm, and stay out the rain.

cheers then,
dan

[Anonymous]

Dan,
Some years ago, I made a list of things I had learned about the mesh tool
by trial and error. It is a little out of date in that, at the time, the polyline
tool did not exist. But as far as I can tell, the mesh tool itself has not changed since that time.
If you are interested I could upload it as a PDF.
Thank you,
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

That would be great, if you don't mind doing that I'd really appreciate it. The mesh tool (to me anyway...) is one of the most difficult tools to work with in archicad...

cheers,
dan

[Anonymous]

Dan,
Here it is. Hope it helps
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

thanks a load Peter, that will actually help me out a lot with what I'm trying to do. Thanks for taking the time to put that together, and the share it with me

cheers,
dan

[Anonymous]

Thanks indeed, Peter. I've printed it out and put it in my notebook of tips and tricks.

Philip

[Anonymous]

I've just actually found out through talking with my engineering company that when they draw the contour lines they use a programme called Land Desktop from autodesk, and then when they send the drawings to me in DWG format they actually explode them, to create the poly lines. I was wondering if anyone had ever heard of a plugin (I doubt it but its worth a shot...) that would allow archicad to import directly from the Land Desktop "civil contour lines" to a mesh.

any ideas? I'll dig around on the intraweb too...

cheers,
Dan

[Anonymous]

Daniel wrote:
I've just actually found out through talking with my engineering company that when they draw the contour lines they use a programme called Land Desktop from autodesk, and then when they send the drawings to me in DWG format they actually explode them, to create the poly lines. I was wondering if anyone had ever heard of a plugin (I doubt it but its worth a shot...) that would allow archicad to import directly from the Land Desktop "civil contour lines" to a mesh.

any ideas? I'll dig around on the intraweb too...

cheers,
Dan

If they can output XYZ points, ArchiTerra might do the trick.