Surface Pad Design

This tool generates a 3D (building) pad from a simple polyline at the desired elevation, including automatic daylighting to existing ground. Simply specify parameters and select the geometry.

Keyboard Command: SurPadDes

Procedure:

1. Open the drawing to generate the pad in.
2. Verify the file has the desired surface defined.
3. Generate a pad polyline at the desired elevation.
4. Initialize this tool.
5. Designate desired parameters such as cut/fill slopes.
6. Choose the OK button.
7. Select the Pad Polyline.

Notes:

• The surface must already exist in the drawing before this tool begins.
• Vector Length is the maximum distance the tool will project out from the source pad polyline.
• Linear Spacing is the space along straight segments for projection lines.
• Angular Spacing (in degrees) is the increment for projection lines at corners.
• The Limit Points option can speed up processing when a large number of (or extremely long) contours are used to specify the surface. It generates a buffer outside the pad polyline envelope that is 1.5x the vector length and discards points outside that buffer window.
• The Interactive Mode allows you to drag your pad polyline and the projected slopes change as it's being dragged. If you plan to use this mode a high performance machine is desirable. If performance is still an issue, you may want to create a cropped copy using the Surface Trim Boundaries tool which helps speed the process.