Use watersheds to analyze how water flows along and off of a surface.
Surface TIN lines are used to calculate the areas that water would flow along the surface. From these areas, the drain targets and watersheds are determined.
Different drain targets are calculated for watersheds. For example, some watersheds include a boundary point as a drain target, which is the point where the channel of water would drain off the surface. Other watersheds have depression areas that the water flows into, while some watersheds are defined as boundary segments where the drain target includes the boundary of a surface. For more information, see Types of Watersheds.
If AutoCAD Civil 3D determines that water from one surface triangle could flow into more than one watershed, then it splits the TIN triangle to make two triangles. This ensures that each watershed consists of complete triangles, and that the boundary of each watershed consists solely of TIN edges.
Tutorial Exercise: Creating a Watershed and Water Drop Analysis
Topics in this section
- Types of Watersheds
Watershed types are based on the type of drain target the watershed has.
- Generating and Displaying Watersheds
Generating and displaying watersheds on a surface is a flexible process.
- Viewing Watershed Properties
After you have created a watershed analysis on a surface, the watersheds are added to the surface Watersheds collection in the Prospector tree.