Overview

While it's fun to play in fantasy land, designing in a void, at some point we have to get real to get things built. Once the survey has come in, the boundaries have been laid out, and the project has been defined, we have to start building a real model. One of the most primitive elements in a 3D model of any design is the surface. In this chapter, we'll look at various methods of surface creation and editing. Then we'll move into discussing ways to view, analyze, and label surfaces, and we'll explore how they interact with other parts of our project. In this chapter, you will learn to:

• Create a preliminary surface using freely available data

• Modify and update a TIN surface

• Prepare a slope analysis

• Label surface contours and spot elevations