Wednesday 19 December 2012

Creating a 3D Ground Model from AutoCAD Data

If you have a topo survey in AutoCAD format only then the following video demonstrates a workflow for creating a ground model from that data in Civil 3D.

It is best to tidy up your drawing first and hide or remove any AutoCAD objects that you will not be using to define the ground model. This may include any objects with zero elevation (lines, text, blocks etc), or any other objects that you don't want to include. Performing this step first will make the Civil 3D part much easier...

Watch on highest quality for best results...


Friday 14 December 2012

Windfarm Visuals from AIM

Have been busy using Infrastructure Modeller for visualisation... this one is for a windfarm in Northern Ireland...

Here's the rendered image...
Here are some snapshots of the model in AIM without rendering...




Wednesday 12 December 2012

Visualisation for Landowner Query

I have been using Autodesk Infrastructure Modeller (AIM) to create visuals for part of a proposed road realignment.

As part of the works a hill on the existing road will be flattened out to improve visibility  There will be two landowners whose access will be directly affected by the works. On one side of the  road a retaining wall will be required and this landowner was having difficulty understanding how the new access and retaining wall will impact on their property.

The design was already completed in Civil 3D so I was working from a completed design back to get a visualisation in AIM (whereas the software is primarily a conceptual design/visualisation tool and you would normally use it before finalizing the design).

Here are some of the before and after visuals...


Looking North - Before

Looking North - After


Looking South - Before

Looking South - After

Landowners Proposed Entrance View

Looking North at Retaining Wall

Looking South at Retaining Wall

The visuals aren't photo-realistic but they don't need to be either. (The inclusion of the sun isn't realistic either given that it is in Donegal). The landowner can clearly see the impact of the new road layout on their property. The effort involved to create the above was small enough to make it feasible for a landowner query - it took about a day. If you are proficient with Civil 3D then you should pick this up quite quickly....

Friday 7 December 2012

Civil 3D Usergroup Meeting Galway

At yesterdays Civil 3D Usergroup meeting in Galway we had a presentation from Reg Cowie from Mayo National Road Design Office. They have designed the new N5 Westport to Bohola road project using Civil 3D and have created visualisations of a number of sensitive areas for public consultation. This one involves an overbridge in a sensitive area where there are three historic structures in a triangular arrangement around the proposed new bridge. The visualisation helped with the public consultation process to alleviate concern over potential loss of visual connection between the structures. the visualisation can be viewed at the link below. A big thanks to Reg for an excellent presentation....




Thursday 6 December 2012

Importing Aerial Imagery

Below is a video I created showing a couple of methods of importing aerial imagery into Civil 3D.

The first method uses normal AutoCAD attach commands and results in the user having to specify the insert point, scale and rotation manually afterwards. This can be time consuming if you have many image tiles.

The second approach uses Map 3D commands to import and will automatically read information from a world file if it exists for the image. World files are usually provided with aerial imagery obtained from a mapping agency such as the Ordnance Survey Ireland. The world files contain information that place the image at the correct location, scale and rotation. Finally after importing a number of tiles we use Raster Design tools to merge the four images into one and then export this and create a new world file...

Watch it on the highest quality in Youtube for best results


Wednesday 5 December 2012

Prelim Visuals for Windfarm

Just starting to use Infrastructure Modeller(AIM) for creating some preliminary visuals for a windfarm project... Will be creating a more detailed model once I get CAD drawings, GIS and aerial photography...

Exported the topo surface from Civil 3D to LandXML format and brought this into AIM. Also exported internal road layout (polylines) and watercourse information (also polylines) to SDF format using the MAPEXPORT command. The SDF's and XML files are then easily imported and styled in AIM. It took more time tidying the linework in C3D than it did to import and style in AIM. It will be a good project to test the usefulness of conceptual design/visualisation software like AIM.