Best strategy for urban topography?

[hhouen167446]

I am working on a project that is located in the center of a city. So it is all roads, pavements and a couple of important underground parking entrances around my building.

I have a dwg (flat, no meta-info, just the lines) with the outline of the roads and pavements.

The area is pretty flat.

Does anyone have suggestions for how I should approch this?

Making a toposurface might be the obvious choice, but with only asphalt and concrete I thougt maybe making a mass could be an option. I would like to have different height between the roads and pavements, and the ramps down to the parking garages should also be modelled.

All suggestions are very welcome!

Best regards, Hawk

[ejburrell67787]

I haven't done it, but I would be very tempted to model the topography as floor slabs actually. That way you can lock different elements together (in their sketch view probably best) and have more control than with a topo element.

[SCShell]

Hey there,
If topographic elevations are basically not an issue, I might model all of the roadways, sidewalks, ramps etc as "Floors". You can set them all to the proper elevations relative to your Finish Floor Level. This will give you very nice control and is really easy to work with.

I also like all of the possible ways to use the materials for your presentations.
One example is to set all of your "floors" for site context to a "monochrome dull white", such as a painted material. Then, all of your new work is modeled correctly with your materials. If you add trees and shrubs (assuming you are still using RAC2008), you can get some nice looking renderings which resemble a photo of the models which we built in the "old days".
I like to use this method also for Master Planning. When you don't really want to get into too much detail, because it is for basic lot splitting and overall site layout to show potential developers how a site could be used. The proposed buildings are just masses, set to a monochrome material, in order to help visualize the layout. The idea comes from the old saying: "It's easier to revise that visualize". (I like that one personally)
Below is an example of this technique. It also helps to give the Client an nice image to put on the project site signs...which this was for. I just didn't post the sign since it has all of the contact info for my clients.

There are so many ways to approach and present a project. No "one" way is the best....this was just one my ways.
Hope it helped.
Steve