Is a point file with over 100,000 points too much for Civil 3D ?

[JRBOURNE]

We have a survey with 230,000 points. It is a text file that gets imported into Civil 3D, our CAD guy says the machine usually starts struggling with files around 40k-50k and i have witnessed this from over his shoulder.

I have come across people saying they have surveys with over 100k points, but I dont understand how they are able to do this.

our workstation is-
windows 7 - 64 bit (pro)
core i7-3770 (up to 3.9ghz)
16 gb RAM
AMD radeon 6800 series with 1gb memory(gddr5)

What are other peoples experiences?

[Tom Beauford]

What are the points for? For surface definitions I'll use a data clip boundary and it will only bring in the points in the file that fall into that boundary, but 230,000 would be ok. If you're talking about importing survey data for trees, roads, utilities, etc... then yea that's a really really big file.

[Tom Beauford]

For a surface expand definition and right-click Point Files. then pick Add and use the dialog box that pops up. To use a data clip boundary it must be added before the points though.

[JRBOURNE]

Its a hydrographic survey, so the boat cruises along back and forth in a bunch of parallel lines, then does the same thing perpendicular to the first set, making a grid of survey lines. As it drives along it takes a point reading every foot or two.

This giant list of points gets turned into a text file which is imported into civil 3D with the IMPORTPOINTS command, a surface is created with contours, but it is merely bringing in all the points that Civil gets slow. After they are brought in the contours get generated and a surface boundary is made but the surface boundary only cuts off at most 10% of the total points, prob less though.

Is our process not the best way to do this?

[Tom Beauford]

Never tried it that way, but the dialog box looks the same. Try just adding the points to the surface definition. You can see them, but they're not actually in the drawing. The point file names are displayed below when Point Files is selected in the surface definition.

[Opie]

Another option would be adding those points to a point cloud. You could then add those points to a surface. This would keep the actual points in a database and not in the drawing.

[jpaulsen]

Try just adding the points to the surface definition.

Tom correct me if I'm wrong. But I think you wanted to say "Try just adding the point file to the surface definition."

[Novarese]

"Try just adding the point file to the surface definition."

I guess the correct way would be saying: "Try just adding the point group to the surface definition."

[MHultgren]

I think the Point Cloud approach would be the most effective way to deal with this number of points. You can create the database in the project folder so it is available to everyone working on the project and select a format consistent with your point file format.

[Tom Beauford]

I guess the correct way would be saying: "Try just adding the point group to the surface definition."

No,

Tom correct me if I'm wrong. But I think you wanted to say "Try just adding the point file to the surface definition."

is what I meant as I described in posts 2 & 3 above. Of course while data clipping from a large group of points works well for my situation, Opie's suggestion to add those points to a point cloud would probably work better since JRBOURNE needs all the points in that file.