Feature lines are used for numerous things in Civil. They are structural component in Gradings; they are used to control EG and FG surfaces, and can be used to modify each other.
They are also a convenient general purpose tool. Learn how after the jump.
We needed to straight grade a wall footer from one controlling location to another. The controlling locations were already graded by the Manufacturer based on our construction plans, but the intermediate P.I. stations along it’s perimeter did not correlate to anything on the base line. The site contractor was waiting on the phone…
While the project manger ran for his calculator, I drew polylines over the perimeter of the footers, and created feature lines from object with default settings. By this time he had returned, and quickly ascertained that I was almost done in Civil.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my calculator (and apparently that project manager did not. They see RPN format and run). However some things are just gonna be faster in Civil 3D.
I did not use Edit Elevations to apply the control elevations to the Feature Line. Instead I went straight to Grade between Points, selected each feature Line, picked the grade start point and typed in the control grade. Then selected the grade end point, hit ‘E’ for elevation, and gave it the final elevation. (I always forget the ‘E’, and get some pretty wacked out results).
Then I picked the Edit Elevations function, and read off the grades as we indexed each vertex along the feature.
While the Civil features are fabulous design tools, they can also perform calculations that might take numerous steps otherwise. If it is faster to calculate something with a Civil Entity, why not.
Tell me we can grade a F.L. to a surface.
Bill