Show Terrain Data Lines In Render Views?


rwriem
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Not any way that I know of to do this in Chief.  Maybe someone else may have some ideas.  You could try converting the contour lines to polyline solids and setting the elevation and thickness.  Quite a bit of work to do this I would think, and you would end up with verticle edges instead of sloping, which to me looks better.  Come to think of it it might be worth a try to set the elevation and only give the polyline solids a very small depth.  Just make sure that you close the loop on the offset polylines.  Who knows, it might just get you what you are after.

 

Probably a few hoops to jump through to get the contour lines converted. You need closed polylines to be able to use the conversion tools.  A lot of programs will allow you to add thickness to a single polyline.  I can't think of anything in Chief though that can do that.  At least not right now I can't.

 

I have done something similar by exporting CA terrain and then converting it to a solid.  From there you can section and extrude steps using a custom draft angle.  You could supperimpose the contour lines as well if you wanted to keep the terrain smooth.

 

I have actually found that I like the terrain imported back into Chief a bit better after converting it to a solid.  Maybe a finer mesh?  I agree though that it would be nice to have a little more definition to the terrain.  The highlights don't print very well from my experience.

 

Edit:  I like Bill's idea of using sidewalks in Chief.  Should be a lot easier than making all of those closed polyline solids.

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This can easily be done with your contour lines copied and converted to very narrow sidewalks.  there are some downsides to this, but in general it should get the job done.

 

I'll try to post a picture of this when I'm on my main computer in the morning.

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No, you can't show contours in a 3D view.

Bill's idea of using sidewalks sounds interesting.

You can build a stepped or terraced terrain (as opposed to smooth terrain).

This gives the effect you get when you build a physical model out of layers.

No need to mess around with poly line solids though, you can do it with the terrain tools.

Instead of drawing elevation lines, draw a Terrain Break at each contour.

Place a single Elevation Point between each Terrain Break and assign an appropriate height to each point.

I am travelling at the moment and don,t have access to Chief, but you may have to use Linear and change some other settings. Have a play and see what works.

It would be a great feature to be able to display contours in 3D over the smooth terrain.

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This can easily be done with your contour lines copied and converted to very narrow sidewalks.  there are some downsides to this, but in general it should get the job done.

 

I'll try to post a picture of this when I'm on my main computer in the morning.

This works great with one point of clarification, when Bill says 'your contour lines' I believe he means 'your elevation data lines' as I was unable to select any of the CA generated contour lines. That said, and a Chief Guru should step in here, in the worst case, one could trace over a few of the major contour lines generated by CA if they are significantly different from the elevation data one entered and convert these polylines to sidewalks. If you have sufficiently accurate elevation data that the CA contours map your data, then Bill's approach is an excellent solution, IMHO.

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Here's a picture of the results

For accuracy you can use the contour lines that you have imported; copy them twice, once for the elevation lines, and once for the sidewalks

 

Notice also that I've used terrain features to show the taxlot, and also the neighboring structures.  All imported from city and county GIS.

post-62-0-79349400-1407258546_thumb.jpg

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This is great info guys.  I figured it might have to be something that followed the terrain, didn't think of sidewalks.  We're going to give it a go and see what we get.

 

Bob Riemenschneider

Chelsea, Mi

 

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Nick, isn't that what the little green up arrow is for?

 

Dang Bill, there you go again. So we need some contour lines, fine.

What tool shall we use? Of course, skinny sidewalks, how could we

be so thick headed? :rolleyes:

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