Feature lines, corridor, surface, and point data can be exported with Export to Civil View for 3ds Max Design.
Sites
- Grading Feature Lines
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All grading feature lines are exported as 3ds Max Design shape objects. A 3ds Max Design shape object may contain multiple splines, with each spline consisting of a continuous sequence of linked points.
Any feature lines within an individual site that use identical feature line names will be exported to a single 3ds Max Design shape containing multiple splines. All feature lines within an individual site that do not use feature line names will be exported to a single 3ds Max Design shape containing multiple splines. This approach is essential to allow Civil View to retain a unique reference from each shape object created from imported feature line geometry.
Corridors
- Corridor Baselines
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A corridor baseline is exported as a 3ds Max Design shape object containing a single spline.
In AutoCAD Civil 3D, corridor baselines are derived from AutoCAD Civil 3D alignments and profiles. If two or more corridor baselines are references to the same alignment, a baseline will still be present in the VSP3D export file for each baseline definition.
- Corridor Feature Lines
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All corridor feature lines are exported as 3ds Max Design shape objects. A 3ds Max Design shape object may contain multiple splines, with each spline consisting of a continuous sequence of linked points. One 3ds Max Design shape object will be generated for each unique feature line name per corridor region.
If multiple feature lines using common feature line names exist within a single corridor region, resulting splines will be ordered firstly by start station/chainage, and then by sequence from left to right across the corridor assembly. This consistent use of spline ordering is essential when imported feature lines are used as the basis for constructing swept objects in Civil View such as bridges, tunnels, and retaining walls.
- Corridor Surfaces
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Export to Civil View for 3ds Max Design generates its own corridor surface mesh based on the raw contents of the AutoCAD Civil 3D model.
It is not therefore necessary to manually generate a corridor surface in AutoCAD Civil 3D in order to export corridor surface geometry to Civil View.
VSP3D generated corridor surfaces are split by corridor region, which allows individual portions of a corridor to be imported into Civil View.
This approach means that far more information can be considered when constructing the export mesh. For instance, station, offset and elevation data for each mesh vertex is used to apply independent alignment-aware texture mapping to each subassembly or link when imported into Civil View (see the following illustration).
VSP3D generated corridor surfaces are written to the export file but are not actually created in the active DWG file.
If traditional corridor surfaces do exist in the active DWG file, they should not be selected for export to avoid the possibility of duplicate corridor surfaces being written to the VSP3D file.
- Offset Assemblies
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Corridor surfaces and feature lines derived from offset assemblies are treated in the same way as normal corridor feature lines and surfaces except that one surface / feature line definition (per name) is created per offset assembly rather than per region.
In AutoCAD Civil 3D, offset assemblies cannot be divided by region.
Surfaces
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Surfaces are always exported to 3ds Max Design as editable mesh objects regardless of the surface style which has been applied in AutoCAD Civil 3D.
It is usually necessary to generate hide boundaries in existing ground surfaces to cut holes in the surface where corridors have been designed. This is particularly vital if the designed corridor passes below existing ground level.
Hidden portions of AutoCAD Civil 3D Surface objects which have been created using hide boundaries will be ignored upon export to VSP3D files.
Point Groups
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Point groups are exported to Civil View Point Systems. Point Systems in Civil View are derived from the standard 3ds Max Design Particle System functionality.
Civil View supports point groups containing up to 1000 points.