Use the water drop utility to trace the path that water takes across a surface.
The utility draws a 2D or 3D polyline that represents a flow of water and also marks the start point of the path. If a channel splits, then new polylines are drawn to follow each water drop path.
For example, multiple water drop paths can be drawn from a contour line to illustrate the water flow at different points along the contour:
You can use either a 2D or 3D polyline to draw the flow line. The line type that you use depends on your analysis requirements. Following are usage examples for each line type:
- 2D polyline. Delineate an area that represents a drainage area for water runoff analysis. You create a closed 2D polyline using AutoCAD editing commands. You can use the resulting closed 2D polyline to query the area and perform other analysis.
- 3D polyline: You want to perform visualization and drape the lines over the surface. You can also create grading feature lines from the water drop lines for grading purposes.
Tutorial Exercise: Analyzing Surface Water Runoff
To perform water drop analysis
- Click Analyze tab
Ground Data panelFlow Paths Water Drop
.At the Command prompt, enter CreateSurfaceWaterDrop. - If more than one surface is available in the drawing, click the surface on which to perform the water drop analysis or press Enter to select a surface in the Select A Surface dialog box.
- In the Water Drop dialog box, in the properties grid, click the Value column for the Path Layer property. Enter a name for the layer on which to draw the water drop polyline or click
to select a layer. For more information about layers, see Object Layer Dialog Box. - To specify the type of polyline to use for the water drop path, click the Path Object Type field. Select the type.
- To specify whether to draw a marker at the start of the water drop path, click the Place Marker At Start Point field. Select either Yes or No.
- To set the style for the start point maker, click the Start Point Marker Style property. Click
in the Value column. - Click OK.
Note
To be certain that any changes that you make to the water drop settings persist, ensure that the drawing setting Save Command Changes To Settings is set to Yes. For information, see Specifying Ambient Settings
- Click a point on the surface for the start of the water drop path.
- Click another point to draw another water drop path or press Enter if finished.