Contours with curves?

[longcrier]

I have drawn many contours using polylines with arcs in them. I have assigned the appropriate elevations to all these polylines. I want to create a surface with them, but it just connects the endpoints of the curve? If there is no way to create a surface with curved polylines is there a way to convert the curves to lots of little line segments?

[MaxwellEdison]

Do you have access to the drape command?

[BOB'27T]

You'll probably need to use the Lines/curves command. There are various ways of adding arcs to polylines.

[longcrier]

I'm not sure about the drape command? I'm using Civil 3D '09. Mostly I want my contours to label themselves instead of having to label them individually.

 

 

As a last resort I would like to eliminate arcs/curves from the polylines as opposed to adding them.

 

Thank you for your responses.

[lpseifert]

Are you defining your surface w/ Contours... look at this option (Toolspace > Prospector > Surfaces > Definition)

Try decreasing the mid-ordinate distance

[rustysilo]

Or try feature lines.

 

My recommendation would be to use one of the various lisps available to label the contours. If you're creating a surface from contours just so you can label contours then you're wasting time. Search for a lisp (there is one here). Label your fake contours. Be happy.

[longcrier]

I loaded the lisp through cui and appload. Is that overkill? Now how do I label the contours? I've never used lisps before.

[rustysilo]

For that one you would type in clbl and enter, but when I try it it appears to be looking for another lsp or perhaps an outdated command svlayr so not sure.

 

I thought you could label polylines as you would a contour, but I must be thinking of Land Desktop that allowed that.