Will mesh tool interpolate spot elev points into countours?

[Anonymous]

I have a 1 acre site with spot elevations at 10'-0" o.c. (grid).
Before I start interpolating the points and creating contour splines, I thought I would post a few questions:

Is there an easier way to get from grid points
to even # contour lines in AC18?

Does anyone know which "best practices" lesson covers this? Or, if there has been improvements made to the mesh tool over the last few updates what would be the best source of instruction regarding everything MESH TOOL?
It has been a while since I've used it and I think I need to study up before trying to tackle this job.

I have had trouble with the edges in the past.
Rather than having the skirt from surface to some elevation, I think I would prefer to have just the surface so that it's like a sheet in the wind.

It's not a steeply slopping site, but I will need to do some grading and model it all accurately including a large circular driveway with some warp and cross slope for drainage. It just occured to me that maybe the annoying lines associated with this type of surface can be handled by turning off the contours in the open gl rendering window for the perspective view and the actual element can be placed on a different story for the plan view. Do those of you that are really good at this use a separate mesh for the different elements like: grade, driveway, curb, and street?

Thanks so much...Jon

[David Maudlin]

Jonathan wrote:
Is there an easier way to get from grid points to even # contour lines in AC18?

Depending on the data format, take a look at the Place Mesh from Surveyors Data... command.

David

[Anonymous]

David,

Each intersection of the 10' grid has an elevation (in feet and decimal inches)
above sea level. The client sent to me as a dxf so it's just lines and text.
My main question here is should I go ahead and interpolate the elevations to get to the even 1'-0" intervals and then create the mesh from magic wanding the splines, or go ahead and enter the elevations as they are into a mesh and then after the terrain is modeled do slices and establish the even interval contour lines after?
Can I turn a zero thickness mesh into a morph?

Thanks,

Jon

David wrote:

Jonathan wrote:
Is there an easier way to get from grid points to even # contour lines in AC18?

Depending on the data format, take a look at the Place Mesh from Surveyors Data... command.

David

[Barry Kelly]

Jonathan wrote:
The client sent to me as a dxf so it's just lines and text.
My main question here is should I go ahead and interpolate the elevations to get to the even 1'-0" intervals and then create the mesh from magic wanding the splines, or go ahead and enter the elevations as they are into a mesh and then after the terrain is modeled do slices and establish the even interval contour lines after?

I am assuming that the DXF file does not show contour lines - if it does then just place splines over them to match.
If not the you will need to interpolate their position.
Then magic wand the splines onto the mesh and set their heights.

Otherwise you could set the levels of the mesh with the spot levels and then slice as you mentioned or try the 'Contourmaker' that can be found in the old Depository ... http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/object_depository.php
In the GENERAL section.
Haven't tried it myself - it is old but should work in newer Archicads I think.

I would think using a spline and magic wanding will give you better looking contours.

Jonathan wrote:
Can I turn a zero thickness mesh into a morph?

You should be able too - it will be made from single planes for each polygon of the slopes - but all as one morph object.

Barry.

[David Maudlin]

Jonathan wrote:
Each intersection of the 10' grid has an elevation (in feet and decimal inches) above sea level. The client sent to me as a dxf so it's just lines and text.
My main question here is should I go ahead and interpolate the elevations to get to the even 1'-0" intervals and then create the mesh from magic wanding the splines, or go ahead and enter the elevations as they are into a mesh and then after the terrain is modeled do slices and establish the even interval contour lines after?

I would build the Mesh from the survey points, as those are the actual data, then interpolate the contour lines (which are intelligent guesses) from the points. Then you might add more points to get a Mesh that better approximates what you think the terrain is like. This is the thread that discusses the 'Contourmaker' Object that Barry mentioned:
Getting contour lines from a mesh

David

[Anonymous]

I guess sometimes my lessons are hard learned, but If I become more adept at the mesh tool it's well worth it. I went ahead with 3 or 4 hours of data input time to build this mesh and while it's pretty and everything it really does me no good in that it doesn't translate into good 2d documentation.
Going to do it over today with interpolated (intelligently guesstimated) splines at equal 1' intervals.

I guess I was thinking that there was a way to smooth out the mesh after creation. Like a sheet in the wind (curvilinear) as opposed to the faceted surfaces of a stealth bomber. Had this been possible with good results, I had envisioned morphing the mesh and slicing it horizontally into 1' contour sections. Maybe even 3" or 4" interval contours which might facilitate the new design in a situation like this where the site is sloped enough to require some grading but not enough to be easily visualized.

Does anyone know why some of the mesh nodes appear to be visible on the top and others on the bottom sides? Just curious as to what this might indicate. See screen shots.

You know what... I'm thinking go ahead and morph a copy of this mesh and see how it looks after being horizontally sliced into 3" contours.
Cant the morph of the mesh be smoothed out first? the results would have to be accurate enough I would think... Going to try this.

Thanks,

Jonathan

[Anonymous]

Bottom of the mesh screen shot

[Laszlo Nagy]

Well, the Morph Tool has a few editing commands that might work, like

Curve & Merge Edges
Smooth & Merge Faces
Modify Segmentation

When you try it keep in mind that you can select only a few Morph edges or only a few Morph faces and perform the command only on those. This may be useful info.

[Anonymous]

laszlonagy,

I did the entire morphed property at once (Curve & Merge Edges) and it seemed to work.
It's a one acre site and I did slices at 3" o.c. (see screen shot below)
It's not a very steeply sloping site (3' or so from highest to lowest points) kind of a sand dune in the desert sand belt. I'm amazed at how well the contours came out, will check the accuracy in the next couple of hours, but right now I'm thinking this is going to work.

Anyone have a comment regarding the partial visiblity of nodes from top to bottom?