In
Carlson
Civil, Surfaces can be written out as external files, but a lot of
design and
computations involving surfaces can also be accomplished directly
within the
drawing without writing out external files.
Triangulation surfaces can be written out as .tin or .flt and
grid
surfaces as .grd files. When an external
file is generated, a named Surface is also stored in the drawing. This named Surface is accessed through the
Surface Manager, where it can be edited.
The
main
Carlson Civil command for working with Surfaces is called Triangulate
and
Contour. It is a single dialog box with
four tabs, and covers the entire process of specifying the general
settings to
generate the Surface, creating Contours, generating Labels, and
specifying the
data source(s) for the Surface.
In
Carlson
Civil, Contours are generated as regular AutoCAD Polylines. Contours can be generated and automatically
labeled simultaneously, or labeled after they are generated. Labels can be generated with wipeouts to hide
the contour beneath them, and can also be slid along the contour to
easily
change their location.
The
Triangulation
Surface Manager has tools to edit, add and remove data points and
breaklines
and update the triangulation dynamically. It also allows you to change
the
display properties for the triangulation, contours and labels.
The
TIN Utilities function provides a powerful set of editing tools.