Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Civil 3D 2012: Quick & Dirty GIS Surface Import

This Blog post stems from a support call I received yesterday. One of my favorite clients has recently upgraded to 2012 (yay!) and was wondering if there was a better tool than what 2010 had for GIS data import. I love it when I can say, "YES! It is SUPER easy now!" So I've recycled what I emailed to him into this post.



  1. Go to Surfaces and pick Surfaces from GIS Data


  1. Then you will go through all the steps of the Wizard.  Step 1 is where you give the surface a name.  Click Next.

  2. Change the data source type to SHP – that's the most common data type from ESRI.  Then you will browse for the SHP file.

  3. Click LOGIN and put a checkmark next to the item listed in this screen.  I used an example data file called Columbus.  Of course yours will have a different name.

  4. Click Next.
  5. Clear the checkbox next to Define Area of Interest by…  This is used if there is a smaller area you want to focus on.  By clearing this checkbox, you are importing the whole surface area.

  6. Click Next.
  7. Set the Elevation column from the GIS file (left) to be Elevation in the Civil 3D property (right).  You will probably need to make the columns bigger in order to see them properly.

  8. Click Finish and after a moment your beautiful new surface model shall appear.

Have a great week! -Lou

2 comments:

John said...

This sure beats the old Extract data points and sample out plines and fidget them into a surface method. Hope to be 2012 before 2014 comes out. :)

Brian M. Curran said...

Hello Lou,
I got redirected to your website from www.cadpanacea.com 's blog. Since you're kind of on the topic, would you know how to import data from here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bytes/applbyte.shtml

into regular AutoCAD? I own a seat of both AutoCAD 2007 and AutoCAD LT 2012, and would like to turn the data they provide in the link above into maps.

Thanks,
Brian