terrain import

[latunn]

Hi, I am new to Home Designer and am having a problem importing my terrain.  I purchased the Architectural version in order to have more terrain tools and the ability to import, as I have hilly topo on my land. The steps I am taking are:

-Open a new plan and select "Landscape & terrain" and then "Design your own"

-US (inches) units are chosen

-once open, go to File/Import/Terrain Data

-Choose to import from a csv

 

When I push "OK", the wizard closes and nothing appears to happen.  I check the 3D view and the lot looks flat.  The data I have came from a topo DWG (lines) that was then exported to a csv file.  The XYZ values are decimal degrees with the lines separated by a newLine and the XYZ separated by commas, like this:

-105.2183517007,39.5813716627,2163.475
-105.2183713845,39.5813567599,2163.475

 

There is only one point per line.

 

I see that the XY of the frame does not appear to be in decimal degrees, so I have tried looking into ways to change it...but I see no way to do this.  All of the google searches on this topic seem to highlight tools that are available in the PRO version or in Chief Architect, but that are not in the Architectural version.  What do I need to do to import the terrain?  The DWG came from my engineer, but I have ArcGIS and AutoCAD Civil at work and so can do some things with the DWG, if needed (I'm not that good with CAD, but I can google!!).  Any tips, tricks, or instructions to get started would be great, as I cannot design a house until I get this topo in! 

Thanks!

[DavidJPotter]

It sounds like to me you should have used "comma delimited" as the import criteria instead of CSV, try that and if still no joy, call Tech Support for a clarification of procedure. Frankly, I never use that method because terrain planes created via data import do come in as intended by the surveyor but also oft times the resulting terrain object is so many-faceted that most PC's have difficulty parsing 3D views of such objects due to their resulting 3D face count.

 

What I prefer to do is to import as a graphic 2D dxf file and then trace over the elevation lines with elevation splines, lines and regions to get a result, it is not necessary to duplicate every shift in elevation and makes a topo that a PC can more easily handle.

 

DJP

[latunn]

Thanks for your quick response!  I have been playing with different ways to export the data with my other programs in hopes that I would find something that would import...no luck!  I also saved the terrain as an image, metafile, and pdf and they were all really small for some reason.  EIther way, I found ANOTHER pdf of the area and am attempting to use it to trace the elevation lines.  However, now I am having trouble understanding how to trace.  It seems Home Designer Architectural has 'line', 'point', or 'region' choices for elevation.  I have set my site to a height of 7008 ft, which is where my building pad will be.  The next elevation is 7010.  The line is not straight, but instead has multiple curves to follow.  Is there a way to insert multiple vertices in an elevation line in order to trace the terrain?  I don't necessarily have to do this on ALL of the elevation lines, but would like to do it on the area around where the house will be.  I am trying to figure out approximately how much of the hillside I will need to dig into.  It is very difficult topology.

 

I do not seem to have the option to import a dfx.  Am I missing something?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

 

[DavidJPotter]

Your tool of choice should be Terrain Splines which can be edited to closely follow graphic terrain lines of elevation.

 

DJP