Creating a TIN Volume Surface

2012-03-14

Product Documentation

Intermediate

A TIN volume surface is a composite of points in a base surface and comparison surface .

A TIN volume surface provides an exact difference between the base and comparison surfaces. Therefore, the Z-value of any point in the volume surface is precisely the difference between the Z of the comparison surface at that point and the base surface at that point. This is true whether the comparison and base surfaces are both grid surface, both TIN surfaces, or one of each.

A volume surface is a persistent surface object. Therefore, you can display cut and fill contours, cut and fill points, and add labels to it. You can view volume properties (cut, fill, net) of a volume surface by selecting Surface Properties. For more information, see Editing and Viewing the Surface Definition.

If you want only to query and obtain information about a surface volume or bounded volume , use the Volumes and Bounded Volumes utilities.

To create a TIN volume surface

Click Home tabCreate Ground Data panelSurfaces drop-downCreate Surface.At the Command prompt, enter CreateSurface.
In the Create Surface, in the Type list, select TIN Volume Surface.
Click to select a layer. For more information about layers, see Object Layer Dialog Box.

Note
If you do not select a layer, the surface is placed on the current layer.
In the properties grid, click the Value column for the Name property and enter a name for the surface.

Note
To name the surface, click its default name and enter a new name, or use the name template. For more information, see Name Template Dialog Box.
To change the style for the surface, click the Style property in the properties grid and click in the Value column.
The Select Surface Style dialog box is displayed. For more information, see Surface Styles and Display.
To change the render material for the surface, click the Render Material property in the properties grid and click in the Value column.
The Select Render Material dialog box is displayed. For more information, see Assigning Render Materials to Objects
Click the Base Surface property to select the base (bottom) surface. Enter the surface name or click to open the Select Base Surface dialog box where you can select the surface in the list.

Note
Select a surface in the drawing by clicking and following the instructions at the command line.
Click the Comparison Surface property to select the comparison (top) surface. Enter the surface name or click to open the Select Comparison Surface dialog box where you can select the surface in the list.

Note
Select a surface in the drawing by clicking and following the instructions at the command line.
Click OK to create the surface.
The surface name is displayed under the Surfaces collection in the Prospector tree. For information about adding data to the surface, see Adding and Editing Surface Data.