I'm trying to come up with thicknesses between 2 surfaces that we have created in Civil 3D. We need to make sure that the top surface meets the proper thickness and show it on record drawings. There are high and low points that we need to make sure we include.
Typically we compute this in Excel and then edit the description in the points to show the thickness. Due to the nature of this project, we were not able to certify the same point for each thickness.
Is there a way in can to generate this and be able to manually pick where you want to show the thickness? We can create the cut/fill(thickness) on grid, but unsure if you can manually pick points in-between the grid. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
The way I handle that in Carlson is to run a routine that writes the TIN difference (thickness) to a new surface, which is contoured to show the thickness. The contours are called isopach contours. They are what you see on ocean mapping.
You can then label spot elevations based on the new TIN.
I usually then layer that info onto a shaded slope map.
I don't know if Civil 3D has a routine like that.
On suggestion would be to add surface spot elevations on a grid to each surface (Annotate - Add labels - surface - spots on grid) , then you could export the points created on both surfaces to compare. Also, you could create a surface comparison using volumes dashboard, this will create a 3rd surface which you can render and show where the high and low spots are. I know C3D 2012 didn't have this feature but 2014 does.
Brad Luken
What you're looking for is a volume surface. When you create it the software will ask you to specify which two surfaces to compare. The elevations of your new volume surface will be the difference between them - note Cut is positive and Fill will be negative elevations.
Once you have that you can create surface labels which show the Cut or Fill.