Import Terrain Data From Illustrator / DXF?

[Stage5]

Hi Everyone, I'm really new to Home Designer. I come from a graphic design background and I've used different vector applications for decades. I drew the terrain contours of our house in Illustrator. Is there a way to import these into the app? I still need to add the footprint of the house to have a flat area. I think these contour lines (shown in red on the pdf) are 10' spans. 

 

I tried to draw the contour lines in Home Designer, but couldn't figure out how to make them curve. Plus it was easier for me to create a template to trace over in Illustrator. So I'm obviously doing something wrong inside the app and I need to watch more tutorials. I tried this several months ago, but I think I was able to import the DXF file, but I couldn't figure out how to scale it and then apply it to the terrain.

 

Thanks for any help or specific tutorials anyone can point me towards. 

 

 

Contour Lines.pdf

Contour Lines.dxf

[djkoell]

I was able to take a PDF of my survey which listed property boundaries with line lengths and angles.  There's a YouTube video that shows how to turn survey information into a site plot within HDS.  You should then be able to scale your PDF drawing to your plot and then trace the terrain lines.

[DavidJPotter]

This tutorial is done in Chief Architect but the Terrain tools are identical in Chief and HD PRo.

 

DJP

[Stage5]

5 minutes ago, DavidJPotter said:

This tutorial is done in Chief Architect but the Terrain tools are identical in Chief and HD PRo.

 

DJP

Thanks for the tutorial video! I’m sure it will help a lot. I should just watch all of the ones you’ve made as I can learn a lot from them. Cheers,

 

Simon

[Stage5]

41 minutes ago, djkoell said:

I was able to take a PDF of my survey which listed property boundaries with line lengths and angles.  There's a YouTube video that shows how to turn survey information into a site plot within HDS.  You should then be able to scale your PDF drawing to your plot and then trace the terrain lines.

Thanks for the info. I’ll look into that as well. 

[Stage5]

Hi David, I watched one or your videos on YouTube "A Terrain Tutorial (done in Home Designer Pro 2016)". The tools show that you have an option for "Elevation Spline", but I can't find a tool named that anywhere. Is this not an option in the Architectural 2020 version? The only options I see under Terrain > Elevation Data are: Point, Line, & Region. For the life of me I can't figure out how to draw curved lines so I can recreate the contour paths. I looked in the help file, but I can't find anything telling me where this tool might be.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to help and the nice tutorial videos. 

[DavidJPotter]

3 hours ago, Stage5 said:

Is this not an option in the Architectural 2020 version?

Sadly, yes, to achieve curve like splines you would have to use the "Line Break" tool from your "Edit Toolbar" when you select an elevation line. Adding breaks in a straight line allows one to somewhat emulate the curves of splines available in Pro and Premier.

 

DJP

[Stage5]

Thanks for confirming that that tool isn’t in the version I have. Odd that they left that one out if the mid-tier version. I’ll make do with the tools available then.