Difficult terrain situation, help with creating appropriate slope on driveway on project using GPS terrain data


TrimbachDesign
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Good afternoon Chief users,

 

All of our projects to date have been pretty straightforward terrain-wise, and despite spending way more time on this than I can to admit, and watching all of the tutorials I am still scratching my head. 

 

A little background:

The site for this home has a lot terrain character, swales, hills, etc. Due to this, we brought our survey crew out to GPS map the site. I followed the Chief tutorial to bring in the terrain data generated (very slick process). During the design of this home a goal was to minimize grading and to preserve the unique characteristics of the site. I decided to stick the uphill side of the home into the hillside with a taller retaining stem wall to "split" the grade over the width of the home. 

 

Struggles:

To get the site grading to mimic what we envisioned, I used elevation areas, some with "interior is flat" checked, a lot of trial and error during this process. One terrain modification I did was creating a flat area around the front of the home for the entry, and parking. Coming off this elevation area is where I am struggling. I have tried using multiple elevation regions and elevations lines to force the terrain to build at a gentle slope off of this pad. From my calcs we could easily adjust the driveway grade to have an appropriate slope. The problem area (directly off the flat parking area) is about 12 feet of rise over 80 feet of run (15% slope). I just want this area to be filled to allow for an even 15% slope. I have bumped up line weights, colored them red, and removed unnecessary information from the screenshot attached below for clarity. 

 

Do any of you terrain wizards have any advice for me? I am happy to attach the plan file if desired. 

 

Thank you all,

Austin

front perspective.jpg

screenshotterrain.jpg

terrain aerial.jpg

terrain.jpg

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47 minutes ago, TrimbachDesign said:

I just want this area to be filled to allow for an even 15% slope.

 

I looks as though you have made good progress with the grading but are having issues with just one area.  The most common problem people have with chief terrain is conflicting terrain data and placing things too closely together.   You really only need data for the top and bottom elevations if you are creating a consistent slope so unless you need to add extra data for a smooth transition you likely have too much data and if you are "filling" you need to remove or edit the original elevations.   Hope that helps.

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This comment helped jog my memory of the underlying terrain information that I had hidden in the plan... Such a simple fix. The contours that came in from our surveyor were hidden and I completely forgot about them. Turning that layer back on allowed me to manipulate (delete) these existing contours that were in the way to allow CA to build a reasonable slope through this area. Thanks for the help ChopSaw!

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1 hour ago, TrimbachDesign said:

I just want this area to be filled to allow for an even 15% slope.

 

A series of Elevation Lines should work ........say 14' apart with an elevation change of 2' per line ( using you numbers approx. I think :) )

and never allow Terrain data info to touch or cross each other , as you can see I use an orange fill in my regions set to 95% Transparency

(which looks darker when they overlap - 5%+5% = 90% Trans)

 

Similar to what I am working on today except I was pushing my terrain down at the driveway...

 

image.thumb.png.dd6d22696f02262eb76bf04746d5112d.png  image.thumb.png.c51a55d9a5832816b599832b701a9273.png

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Hey KBird, that's totally what I was doing and couldn't understand why the terrain wasn't building a smooth slope... the underlying problem (above^) was the culprit. I can't believe I forgot that I had the engineer's contour layer data hidden. Appreciate your reply!

 

Austin

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9 minutes ago, TrimbachDesign said:

Hey KBird, that's totally what I was doing and couldn't understand why the terrain wasn't building a smooth slope... the underlying problem (above^) was the culprit. I can't believe I forgot that I had the engineer's contour layer data hidden. Appreciate your reply!

 

Austin

 

Yes, that would have a (bad) effect if that Info is in Chief as Elevation Lines ( vs CAD line) , you will see all sorts of weirdness , with holes and spikes etc too possibly.

 

Mick.

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