Sloped Site Plan

[Anonymous]

Hi there!

I searched the forums for a while but did not find what I was looking for. Found a lot of similar issues, although nothing that really gets me where I'm trying to go.

I am working on a large, 2-story commercial building that sits on a sloped site. The north end of the site is 4' above the 2nd floor level, and we have an entry at grade at this level. The site continues to slope down to the south, and there is a first floor at-grade entry on the east side of the building. At the south end of the building, the site is 7' below the first floor.

I have an existing topo of the site already built as a mesh. I have the proposed civil grades and plan to build a new mesh, but in terms of creating my site plan drawing, is there any clean way to show these various levels on the site plan?

I was thinking of making 3 site plans, 1 of the north, one of the center, and one of the south, then arranging them on the sheet such that you can't really tell they are from 3 different drawings. Anyone got any better ideas than that?

Much appreciated! This forum community has really helped me in my learning process and I hope I can contribute back as my experience grows!

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

What is the important information you're trying to convey? For a site plan, it's the site first, the building as it relates to the site, entrances, exits, dumpster enclosures etc.

Consider creating the site plan as a separate file then importing a hot link of the building. Choose the level with the most relevance and add information for the other floors.

Your method would work, but would be hard to dimension and note over 3 separate drawings.

Best, Patrick

[Anonymous]

I think the most important stuff I'm trying to document is really the building entries. The rest of the site, I think I can manage with standard dimensions here and there to avoid the "view overlap" between the windows.

I will have ADA parking and entries at the 2nd floor and first, so my detailing and dimensioning is pretty important at these locations. I think I can compartmentalize the specific areas into the views I need and get the drawing to look the way I want, then throw standard notations into the sheet, rather than in the drawing itself.

I'm still open for other suggestions if anyone has any ideas...

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Based on tips from users, and some of my own preferences:

1) always keep an original untouched version of the existing mesh. Definitely use only one mesh for the site, if you begin to change the levels and they span the meshes, you will have created an unnecessary coordination issue. The choice of keeping the mesh in same file or not is a file size and machine memory issue.

2) I use Solid Element Operations (SEO) with the building elements as operators to cut away the site to fit the building, then, where you need to add dirt, I add back a mesh and use the original mesh as the operator in a SEO again. I avoid using the "hole" feature of meshes. You can have as many SEO's on the same target element as you need. Remember to set your mesh to solid, if not you can not use SEO's.

3) By following #2, you can now do dirt calculations by comparing the original volume of the mesh prior to and after SEO.

4) By using Meshes and SEO I can have all the drives sidewalks, garden walls, any hardscape in true position, etc. If you need help with roads on meshes, look here

5) Why I use SEO's and don't touch the mesh heights or use "holes": If you modify a mesh height data point and there is a hole anywhere on the mesh, the whole mesh can "readjust" itself and wreak havoc far beyond the data point you changed. All those roads, paths etc can find themselves floating above or submerged below the mesh.

HTH

Snap
PS my sites are usually less than 4 acres.