Export CSD Surface To Civil3D

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Introduction

Civil Site Design creates and manages surfaces - CSD Quick Surfaces.  These surfaces draw very quickly and can update dynamically as changes are made to the models.  This provides significant benefits during the design process.  These models can be analysed, can be set to display contour labelling, and can be plotted.

In many cases it will be desired or required to create a Civil 3D surface from the CSD Quick Surface.  This is particularly useful if wanting to paste this surface into another Civil 3D surface and if there is more detailed analysis, editing or surface labelling required.

This command exports the surface information from Civil Site Design into Civil 3D by creating a Civil 3D Surface. 

Only design models (created from Strings) can be exported.  Other types of surfaces (such as those built with points and breaklines) can be exported to Civil 3D via the Export XML button on the Create/Edit Surface form.

When the CSD model/surface updates (a design change is made in Civil Site Design) this command should be re-run to update the surface with the changed breaklines/boundary/ies.

About Civil 3D Surfaces Created from the CSD Quick Surface

When this command is run a surface is created with the following name:

C3D-<Name of Surface>.

When the surface is expanded, it is noted that:

• A boundary (or boundaries) can be added to the surface definition.  In the case where boundary/ies have loops in them, a message will display to this effect and those looped boundary/ies will not be created.  A polyline will, however, be created, so the designer can fix the loops and manually add these as Boundaries to the surface.  If there are overlaps in the design models, then the boundary/ies may fail to apply correctly.  In that case, it is recommended to untick the inclusion of the boundaries and to add them manually in Civil 3D after the surface is created.

• A Breakline File is added to the surface definition (under Breaklines).  If it is desired to include these in the drawing (for example, breaklines in the drawing can be manually manipulated to edit the surface) then designers must:

  • Pick the AutoCAD layer they want them to go on, by setting that layer to be the current layer in AutoCAD

  • Expand the surface, then Definition, then Boundary.  Right click on the entry 'From File...' and select Insert into Drawing.  The breaklines will be added to the drawing as 3D polylines, able to be edited to adjust the surface.

Details

Upon selecting the command the following form is displayed.

Surface List	Lists CSD Surfaces that can be exported to Civil 3D Surfaces
Surface Name	List of CSD Surfaces
Select	Tick on to create a Civil 3D Surface.
Add Outer Boundary	Tick on for the software to create a closed polyline for the outer boundary and apply to the Civil 3D surface
Add Hide Boundary	Tick on for the software to create closed polyline/s for the hide boundary/ies and apply to the Civil 3D surface.
OK	Surface/s is/are created (or updated) with name C3d-<Name of Surface>, where <Name of Surface> is the name of the CSD Quick Surface at the time of export.
Cancel	Exit the form without creating Civil 3D Surfaces.