Carlson Civil includes a variety of tools to accomplish the task of grading, including point commands, 3D polylines commands, contour commands and a grading mechanism known as a Pad Template, which is essentially the equivalent of an LDT Grading Object. Pad Templates provide some significant improvements, however, such as the ability to have a separate surface for the area inside the “pad”, which moves horizontally and vertically with edits to the pad, and the ability to use a template for the side slopes, so they can project complex grading designs.