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CI10424
Civil Engineering and Surveying Processes:
Autodesk® tools to help you accomplish more
Dino Lustri, P.E., P.S., ACI
D.L. Engineering & Surveying

Learning Objectives
 Learn how others start their base maps from scratch.
 Learn how others handle AutoCAD Civil 3D layering versus custom layers.
 Learn how others handle grading efforts.
 Learn how others bring together data from various sources to generate improvement plans.
Description
Attendees of this discussion will learn how others perform similar tasks during the day‐to‐day
operations of consulting engineering and surveying companies. There is always another way, and
perhaps the way someone else is doing it is better or more efficient than your way. The outline of this
discussion will range from using Infrastructure Design Suite software for conceptual planning efforts to
organizing your layers and detailed design efforts. Topics will include how we create our base maps from
scratch, how we separate our manual linework from AutoCAD Civil 3D software‐generated linework,
how we handle grading efforts, and how we bring it all together for plan production.
Your AU Expert
Dino Lustri, PE, PS, is a consulting water resources engineer and surveyor (licensed in Ohio and Florida).
He is also an Autodesk Certified Instructor. Dino first began using AutoCAD software in 1987 and has
experienced each progression relating to civil engineering and surveying, from DCA and Softdesk
software to Land Desktop software and AutoCAD Civil 3D software. His professional experience includes
hydrologic and hydraulic modeling (HEC‐2, HEC‐RAS, TR‐55, TR‐20, and so on), as well as contracts in
construction. He has acted in the capacity of city engineer for a number of municipalities, and he has
provided expert testimonial in legal cases. Dino has provided training for federal, county, municipal, and
environmental agencies. He also has guided major utility companies, private firms, and individuals. Dino
has authored a variety of training materials and best practices for numerous civil engineering and
surveying workflows. Dino is a past president of the Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio, Cleveland
Chapter. His latest passion is laser scanning.

CI10424‐R Civil Engineering and Surveying Processes:
Starting a base map from scratch. Base mapping: The beginning of everything.
Bringing in record map data using MAPIMPORT in Civil 3D.
There are a number of file types that aren’t native to Autodesk products that we might want to
utilize in our drawings. Some of these file types include…

*.TXT, *.CSV, *.ASC, *.NEZ, *.SDF, *.E00, *.SHP,*.GML, *.XML, *.GZ, *.MIF, *.TAB, *.DGN, *.CATD.DDF, *.SQLITE, *.FT

For this example we will bring in a DGN file used by a County to store tax map geometry information. In
this example, the data is stored in a different coordinate system than our working drawing. This
example will show you how to import the data, while simultaneously doing a coordinate conversion and
assigning unique layers to the levels established in the original file.
1) Launch a new drawing based on your template or a Civil 3D template.
a. Click on the QNEW button.
Or start by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 00.dwg

b. On the Settings tab of the toolspace, right click the
drawing name and then select Edit Drawing Settings…

c. Assign the Zone category as USA,
Ohio and set the Available
coordinate System as NAD83 Ohio
State Planes, North Zone, US Foot
(OH83‐NF).

Click OK when finished.

2
In lieu of the previous steps, start by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 01.dwg
2) Type MAPIMPORT in the command line.

a. Set the Files of Type to MicroStation
File (*.dgn).

b. Browse to the data files folder and
select 203p9.dgn.

c. Click OK.

3) In the resulting Import dialogue box, select Load under saved profiles and browse to the data
files folder and select Cuyahoga County DGN Import Settings USE WITH MAPIMPORT
COMMAND.IPF.

The benefits of loading this preconfigured file is the second column (Drawing Layer) and fourth column
(Input Coordinate System). In the drawing layer column, you can assign whatever layer you want to use
and import the source drawing levels into. And the Input Coordinate System column represents the
original coordinate system of the file you are importing (i.e. dgn). You will have to know what
coordinate system the source files are in order to populate this column with that information. In this
case Cuyahoga Regional Geodetic Survey (CRGS) is a local proprietary coordinate system developed by
the County before State Plane systems were commonplace.
a. After reviewing the dialogue and replacing any missing settings in the aforementioned
columns, click OK to import the data.

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4) Zoom extents to see the imported data.

5) The data is geospatially rectified, so if you
wish to take advantage of the GEOMAP
command and place aerial imagery in the
background, you can. Type GEOMAP in the
command line and select A for Aerial.

Please note that this command will only work if you
are logged on to Autodesk Cloud Services.

Q.E.D.
The final drawing in this example can be viewed by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 03.dwg

4
Generating Civil 3D Surfaces from LIDAR utilizing point cloud objects.
A large variety of resources can provide you with LIDAR data. For this example, we will use data
obtained from the Ohio Geographically Referenced Information Program (OGRIP). The link for this site is
below…. http://ogrip.oit.ohio.gov/ProjectsInitiatives/OSIPDataDownloads.aspx

On this website, you can click the data
downloads map application, see the
screen capture.

In the Map Application, use the zoom to
function or pick on the map in order to
navigate to the area of interest.
Click anywhere in the tile you wish to
download.

At the bottom of the dialogue, make
sure you are on the OSIP I tab and then
click on the LIDAR link in order to start
the download of your data.

A ZIP archive will be downloaded. Unzip
the contents to a location you can
retrieve in the next steps.

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b. On the Settings tab of the toolspace, right click the drawing name and then select Edit
Drawing Settings…

c. Assign the Zone category as USA, Ohio and set the Available coordinate System as
NAD83 Ohio State Planes, North Zone, US Foot (OH83‐NF).


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2) On the Prospector, right‐click Point Clouds and select
Create Point Clouds…

3) Change the Point Cloud Style
to LIDAR Point Classification.

Click Next to continue.

4) On the Source Data dialogue,
perform the following steps…

a. Set the Point Cloud File
Format to LAS.

b. Browse to your data
folder and select
N2125660.LAS.
(If you have not previously
unzipped the downloaded file,
do so in windows explorer
before this step.)
c. Click Next to continue.

7

5) Select Finish on order to process the point cloud.

6) While the data is being processed you will see a number of alerts letting you know the status…

a. The initial dialogue alerting you to the fact that you can
continue working while the data is being processed.

b. In the lower right corner of the screen, on the status
bar you will notice a cloud icon. A cloud popup will
appear initially to make you aware of this icon.

c. When the processing is complete a link will appear in the cloud
popup and by clicking on the link you will be zoomed to the extents
of the processed point cloud.

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7) By clicking on the point cloud object, a contextual ribbon will appear. On the ribbon select the
Point Cloud Properties button.

8) In the Point Cloud Properties dialogue, Information tab, expand the drop down next to the Point
Cloud Style LIDAR Point Classification. Choose Edit Current Selection.

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9) In the Point Cloud Style dialogue, perform the following:

a. Select the Classification
tab.

b. Click the ‘Uncheck all’
button.

c. Select the Ground
classification.

d. Click Apply.

e. Click OK.

10) Click OK to exit the Point Cloud Properties Dialogue.
11) By clicking on the point cloud object again, the contextual ribbon will re‐appear. On the ribbon
select the Add Points to Surface button.

12) In the resulting dialogue, perform the
following…
a. Provide a name for the new surface. E.g.
EG‐LIDAR
b. Assign a surface style. E.g. Contours 1’
and 5’ (Design)
c. Click Next to continue.

13) Click Next in the Region Options dialogue.

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14) Finally click Finish.

15) The surface will appear but you may need to press Escape to deselect the point cloud object.
16) By default the LEVELOFDETAIL system variable will be set to on. This means that in a zoomed
out state, you will only see a reduced amount of contours on the screen. As you zoom in, more
contours will appear. You can toggle this variable off by typing LEVELOFDETAILOFF at the
command line. Be warned that your computer needs sufficient power to show all contours in
some scenarios.

NOTE: This data set borders Lake Erie.
Typically point clouds do not show
returns on water. In this case it did,
possibly due to debris or rough waves.
Using standard Civil 3D surface editing
skills, creating a boundary or removing
triangles in these areas will clean this up.

17) A new Point Cloud Style can be
generated to ‘turn off’ the point
cloud. Or the layer assigned to
that data can be turned off or
frozen. Be aware that the data
must be present for the surface
to generate. If you freeze the
data or remove it, the surface
may revert to out of date and
not be displayed properly.
Q.E.D.

The final results can be obtained by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 06.dwg

11
Importing Contour Data with Elevations.
Many agencies provide contour data in a SHP file format. Many users of AutoCAD based products
simply import the linework because they are unaware of the methodology to assign elevations to the
linework during import.
The following example will take a large contour data set in SHP file format, connect to it by an
FDO connection, and then import a smaller area while assigning elevation data to the imported lines.


b. On the Settings tab of the toolspace, right click the drawing name and then select Edit
Drawing Settings…

c. Assign the Zone category as USA, Ohio and set the
Available coordinate System as NAD83 Ohio State
Planes, North Zone, US Foot (OH83‐NF).


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2) Turn on the Map Task Pane by typing MAPWSPACE at the command line, choose ON.
3) In the Task Pane, select the Data icon and then Connect to Data in
order to launch the FDO connection dialogue.

4) On the Data Connect dialogue
perform the following steps:

a. Select Add SHP Connection.

b. Click the SHP file browse
icon.

c. Browse to the data folder
and select Block12.SHP.

d. Click Connect.

5) Back on the Data Connect
dialogue, select Add to Map.

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6) The purpose of doing this rapid connect is to
establish a basis for which we will pick a smaller
area of interest. Draw a circle or polyline around
a portion of the data set that represents the area
of interest.

7) Type MAPIMPORT at the command line.

8) Change the Files of type to ESRI Shapefile (*.shp). Browse to the data folder and select
Block12.shp. Click OK to continue.

9) In the Import dialogue, click under the Data column heading and then click the ellipsis.

10) Perform the following steps on the
Attribute Data and Object Data
Mapping dialogues:
a. Select the Create Object
Data radio button.

b. Click Select Fields.

c. Note that Elevation is
checked and click OK.

d. Click OK.

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11) Back on the Import dialogue, select the Define Window
button under Spatial Filter. Then window the area
you delineated with a circle or polyline.

12) Back on the Import dialogue, click OK to begin the
import process.

13) You will see the results overlaid on the referenced data. If you LIST any of the new lines, you
will see the elevation assigned to the polyline.

14) At this point you can disconnect the data through
the Task Pane as you no longer need it. The data
was imported into your drawing and as a result your
drawing size will increase.

After creating a Civil 3D Surface from the resulting
import, you may want to data shortcut the surface into
a separate working drawing in order to reduce the file
size of your active working drawing.

The completed drawing can be attained by opening
CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 09.dwg

Q.E.D.

15
Performing grading tasks. Using Feature lines to assign elevations.
Creating a faux surface and using it to assign grades to complex geometry.
In this example, we are given a footprint for a parking lot and need to grade it
out.
1) Start by opening the drawing named CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 10.dwg.
There is a building footprint with a proposed parking lot adjacent to
it.

2) We are considering grading the lot so runoff goes in the direction of
the arrow.

3) Draw a rectangle around the entire area. There is no need to match
the edges of pavement, just make sure that all the pavement edges
are within the rectangle.

4) Convert the rectangle to a feature line by the following
steps:

a. On the Home tab of the ribbon, Create Design
panel, click Feature Line.

b. Then select Create Feature Lines from Objects.

c. Select the rectangle you just made and fill out the
dialogue according to the following:
i. Name: FG‐BASE
ii. Style: Basic Feature Line
iii. Check Erase existing entities
iv. Check Assign Elevations
v. Click OK
On the Assign
Elevations dialogue,
enter 100.

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5) Click on the Feature Line you just created and on the contextual
ribbon that appears do the following:
a. On the Edit Elevations panel, select
Quick Elevation Edit.

b. Move your cursor close to the feature
line and you will see a tooltip appear
telling you the current grade of the line and
its direction.

c. Make sure the grade arrow is pointing in
the direction you want, and then click on
the screen. In the command line specify
the grade, ‐2.00. (Be sure to include the
negative)

d. Do the exact same for the bottom feature line.

e. Press ESC to exit the command.

6) Rotate the feature line you just created 45 degrees
counter‐clockwise. Move the rectangle if necessary
so that the entire parking lot edge of pavement fits
within the rectangle.

17

In lieu of the previous steps, start by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri
11.dwg
7) Create a new Surface by following these steps:

a. On the Toolspace, Prospector tab, right click
Surfaces and select Create Surface…

b. Enter the following information in the Create
Surface dialogue:
i. Name: FG‐BASE
ii. Style: Contours 1’ and 5’ (Design)
iii. Click OK.

c. Expand Surfaces in the Prospector, expand the FG‐BASE
surface just created, and expand Definition.
d. Right click Breaklines and select Add.

e. In the Add Breaklines Dialogue, set the following:
i. Description: From Feature Lines
ii. Under Supplementing factors, check Distance
and enter 10.00’
iii. Click OK.

The reason for entering the supplementing factor is to give the
resulting TIN more calculation points. This will give better results
when applying this methodology to intricate geometry.

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f. Select the feature line in the drawing and
press enter. The surface should regenerate.


8) We will now grade out the parking lot edge by the
following steps:
a. Before proceeding, makes sure the parking lot
edge is a contiguous polyline by using the JOIN
command.

b. On the Home tab of the ribbon, Create Design
panel, click Feature Line.

c. Then select Create Feature Lines from Objects.

d. Select the parking lot edge line.

e. In the Create Feature Lines dialogue, enter the following:
i. Name: EOP
ii. Style: Basic Feature Line
iii. Check Erase existing entities
iv. Check Assign elevations
v. Click OK.

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f. On the Assign Elevations dialogue, assign the
FG‐BASE surface and check Insert Intermediate
Grade Break Points. Then click OK.

9) Click on the EOP feature line and see the number of vertices
that highlight.

Note: Only the outer edge of this parking lot has been graded, the
middle area needs better definition. Repeating the above steps, to add
the islands, will improve the effort.

This is a static effort. This means that if you decide to rotate the
original rectangle, in order for the EOP feature line to update, you will
have to select it and re‐assign elevations from the FG‐BASE surface.

The following example will illustrate how a dynamic solution can be
achieved.

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The final grading is accomplished by adding all the islands in the same way that the edge of
pavement (EOP) was added.
1) Create a new surface called FG.
2) Add the EOP figure line generated above as a breakline to the new surface. Use supplementing
at 2.0’.
3) Create Figures from Objects for all of the islands following the same steps as above.
4) Create EOP & island curbing by using the Stepped Offset command on the Edit Geometry panel
of the contextual ribbon.
5) Add the figures to the FG surface as breaklines by setting the supplementing factor to 1.0’.
Note: Whenever you have sharp curves, e.g. island curbing, you need to model the curves better
by lowering the distance between vertices.
6) There may be some minor Edge Swapping needed to refine the TIN.
Once the islands and grade break line are added to a new FG surface, the final graded lot will look
something like the following:

21
Creating Gutter/Top of Curb Surface Label Styles with expressions.
If your curbing is typical throughout your design, why spend the time labeling both top and bottom
when one will do both?
The following steps will illustrate how to create a surface label that will show both gutter elevation and
top of curb elevation based on a your design preference.
1) Launch the surface labeling tools by the following
steps:
a. Click on the Annotate tab of the ribbon.
b. On the Labels & Tables panel, click the
bottom of the Add Labels button.
c. Click Surface.
d. Select Add Surface Labels.

2) Set the following choices on the Add Labels dialogue:
a. Feature: Surface
b. Label type: Spot Elevation
c. Spot elevation label style: Elevation Only
d. Marker style: Basic X
e. Click the drop down next to the Elevation Only label style
and choose Copy Current Selection.

3) On the Label Style Composer dialogue, Information tab, provide the following:
a. Name: Gutter & TOC
b. Created by: <your name>
c. Description: Grade Label
with both Gutter and Top of
Curb Elevations.
d. Click OK.

22
4) Go to the following on the Toolspace Settings tab:
a. Surface > Label Styles > Spot Elevation >
Expressions
b. Right click Expressions and select New.

5) On the New Expression dialogue, perform the following
steps:
a. Name: TOC ELEV = Surface + 0.5’
b. Under Expression click the Surface data
button in order to add Surface
Elevation to the expression.
c. Then add a plus sign (+) and 0.5.
d. Click OK.

6) Back on the Add Labels dialogue click the Edit
Current Selection button next to Gutter & TOC.

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7) On the Label Style Composer
dialogue for Gutter & TOC,
click on the Layout tab, then
choose the Contents value
ellipsis.

8) In the Text Component Editor,
perform the following:
a. Click in front of the existing surface elevation dynamic text.
b. Change the properties to the expression created above, i.e. TOC ELEV = Surface + 0.5’.
c. Set the precision to two decimal places, i.e. 0.01.
d. Push the expression into the label editor.

9) Add the following text to the label around the dynamic text:
a. TOC=
b. GUT=

c. Click OK.

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10) On the Add Labels dialogue, press the Add button to add labels to
your drawing.
a. Select any part of the showing surface. If it isn’t displayed,
press the Enter key in order to choose your surface from a
list. (Select FG)
b. Add labels around an island by using snaps or just picking.

NOTE: The label style can be customized to include an arrow with the TOC above and Gutter below.

Q.E.D.

The completed exercise can be obtained by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 15.dwg

25

For the following exercise, start by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 16.dwg
Create a ‘floating’ island that will dynamically regenerate if you change the design by use of
corridor modeling.
When grading out a parking lot with islands, it is typically the islands that give us the most grief once the
perimeter is established. Islands are easy the first go through, but then if you need to make an
adjustment, the effort of regrading all the PC’s and PT’s or grade breaks becomes a challenge.
The following steps will illustrate how to
create an island that will change whenever
you change the underlying surface.
1) We need to create an assembly for
a standard 6” x 18” wall curb.
Perform the following:
a. On the Home tab of the
ribbon, Create Design panel, select the Assembly pull
down and choose Create Assembly.

b. Provide a name for this new assembly; 6 IN Wall Curb.
c. Click Ok.

d. An assembly marker will appear
on your screen.

2) Turn on your Tool Palette by either clicking the icon on the Home
tab of the ribbon, Palettes panel, or by typing CTRL‐3.

26

3) In case the tool palette is set to a different collection, set the Civil
Imperial Subassemblies by performing the following steps:
a. Right mouse click the tool palette mast or top bar depending
on if the dialogue is docked or not.
b. Select Civil Imperial Subassemblies.

4) Click on the Basic tab for a list of basic subassemblies.

5) Choose the BasicCurb subassembly and click the assembly marker in the
drawing area of your screen. You will see the BasicCurb appear
attached to the assembly marker.

NOTE: You can add some LinkWidthAndSlope subassemblies to help in the
appearance of landscape mounding.

6) Create an alignment from the perimeter edge of pavement by performing the following steps”
a. On the Home tab of the ribbon, Create Design panel, click the pull down for Alignment.
b. Choose Create Alignment from Objects.
c. Select the perimeter polyline. (Before performing this step, make sure the perimeter
edge of pavement line is joined to be a single contiguous polyline.)
d. Press Enter to accept the alignment direction.

27

7) Assign the following to the Create Alignment from Objects
dialogue box:
a. Name: Parking Lot EOP
b. Alignment Label Set: _No Labels
c. Uncheck Add curves between tangents
d. Uncheck Erase existing entities
e. Click OK.

8) Create a profile of the alignment
Parking Lot EOP by preforming the
following steps:
a. Home tab of the ribbon,
Create Design panel, select
the Profile pull‐down.
b. Choose Create Surface Profile.

9) In the Create Profile from Surface
dialog perform the following:
a. Click on the FG‐BASE surface.
b. Click Add >>
c. Click Draw in profile view.

28
10) In the resulting Create Profile View dialogue, simply
click Create Profile View and bypass the individual
setups along the left side. (A different style can
always be assigned later.)

11) Create a corridor model of the perimeter curbing by performing the
following steps:
a. Home tab of the ribbon, Create Design panel, select Corridor
and perform the following:
b. Name: EOP
c. Alignment: Parking Lot EOP
d. Profile: FG‐BASE‐Surface (1)
e. Assembly: 6 IN Wall Curb
f. Click OK.

12) In the resulting Baseline and Region Parameters dialogue, click OK. A
warning may pop up, simply click Rebuild the corridor to continue.

29

13) Following the same steps for the perimeter EOP, create alignments, profiles and corridor models
for each of the islands.
NOTE: If the curbing appears on the ‘outside’ of the original curb line, thus making the
parking space less than the minimum width required, simply reverse the island’s
alignment and rebuild the corridor. The curb model will reappear in the ‘inside’ of the
island footprint. (Or you can mirror the assembly to the other side. Beware that if you
already used the assembly elsewhere, it will change your previous work).

NOTE: If your corridor model does not regenerate the stations properly, simply
eliminate the corridor model and recreate it after reversing the alignment.

Q.E.D.

The results of the previous steps can be obtained by opening CI10424‐R Dino Lustri 18.dwg

Once corridor surfaces are generated, they can be pasted into a single composite surface representing
all the parts. The benefit of this methodology is that you can make changes to the underlying surface,
i.e. you can change the slope, make numerous grade changes and the resulting islands will regenerate
creating a functional final design. Labels will automatically update as well.

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