Duplicate points

[rmk]

I'm trying to create contours on a parcel of land that has a large drainage ditch running thru it. we have cross sectioned the ditch every 50'. When selecting the top bank of the ditch as a breakline, it displays a dialogue box with numerous points saying they are duplicate points and are not added. and the contours are definitely not displayed correctly. any ideas?

[rkmcswain]

Duplicate points are not necessarily a bad thing.
What makes you think the contours are not displaying right?
Have you looked at the triangles?
Can you post a screenshot or even the DWG file?

[rmk]

the contours are crossing over the breakline (TOB). I've tried uploading a screenshot and a dwg, but it gives me an error message.

[rkmcswain]

Contours can cross breaklines. Triangles can/should not.

Are you using this button to select and upload the image?
Maybe the file is too large?
Crop it/scale it if necessary.

uploadimage.png

[rmk]

Hopefully I got it uploaded this time. I didn't see any of those icons.

[Opie]

If they are not displaying as you need them to, spend a little time massaging the triangles by swapping edges until your contours are displaying correctly.

[Iceberg]

You should have 3 to 5 Feature lines used in your TINN as Breaklines, depending on the slope. 2 Breaklines for the top of the bank, 1 breakline for the centerline, and 2 more for the bottom of bank.

If it was me, I would delete out the breaklines from the TINN and recreate them. I am assuming that the tan lines are your top of bank breakliknes? Another observation, it looks like the surface would benefit from some additional grade shots along the swale to help it model better.

[rkmcswain]

Agree with all of the above.

Yes, the contours do not look right if that is supposed to be a swale, but it's impossible to do anything but guess w/o seeing how the surface is triangulated.

[rmk]

Attached is the dwg file in question. any advice or help would be appreciated. new to civil 3d.

thanks.

[rmk]

Yes, it's thanksgiving morning and I'm on here.....Back in the summer, the company i worked for closed its doors after 16 years. Fortunately after only a few months, another firm hired me. They were looking for an experienced C3D person, which i am not. I do however have 35 years in the surveying and engineering field, which is why they took a chance on me. I am thankful for the opportunity, but part of the job requires me to become proficient in C3D. I have been learning some basics and have a pretty good handle on the basic things. But contours seem to be a real thorn in my side. I am committed to learning this new software to the best of my ability. I have been an Autocad (vanilla) since Rel. 9 and briefly dabbled in Eagle Point with Rel. 12 & 13, but only for boundary surveying.

As you can see in the attached drawing above, the property has roads on 3 sides. on the west side, there is a roadside ditch that fades into a large swale along the main hwy. on the south. On the east, there is a street with curb & gutter. A large drainage ditch runs across the property with an intermediate culvert. Also, in the middle and to the north is a large irregular mound of spoil. My task is to create a topographic survey of the property and to determine the amount of dirt in the mound.

I know the contours should show up inside the bank of the ditch reflecting the bottom and side slopes, but can't seem to get them to work. And the other contours are just plain ugly. I've tried breaklines, feature lines, boundaries, tweeking the grid spacing of the tin, swapping sides, weeding factors and supplemental factors, you name it and I've pretty much tried it.

I have watched countless youtube videos, purchased books, but nothing beats real world experience from daily users. Any help, tips, tricks, guidance or assistance to learn the procedure to produce better contours would be greatly appreciated. I have relied on members of AUGI since i joined back in 2002. Y'all have been most helpful over the years.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to all.