Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond

the Roads
Brian J. Hailey, PE CAD-1

CV214-3P Residential subdivision grading can be a tedious task. Learn how to use the tools in
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 to make this process faster, better, and less prone to errors. You will also learn to
grade a detention pond that doesn't have a flat bottom.

About the Speaker:

Brian is a Product Support & Training Specialist for Cad-1 in Denver, Colorado, where he trains
customers in Civil 3D, Land Desktop, Map, and AutoCAD and assists companies in Civil 3D
implementation. Prior to working for a reseller, Brian was a soldier in the Army. He then graduated from
Colorado State University in 1998, and for the next 8 years worked as a civil engineer, earning his
professional engineering license in the state of Colorado.
 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

Introduction
This 90 minute course will provide an in-depth look at the grading tools available for a standard
residential subdivision design. It will guide attendees through the process of using feature lines,
surfaces, and labels to grade the building sites, using the grading tools to design a detention
pond, and using the surface analysis tools to perform a watershed analysis. This will allow the
design professional to grade a site faster with fewer errors.

Overview
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 has a complete line of tools that can be used in the design of a
residential subdivision as well as just about any other site. The style-based approach allows the
user to quickly design the site and consequently make changes. During the design process, the
labels for the grading are dynamically updated to the new design so the user can see the effect
of the changes.

FeatureLines
WhatareFeatureLines?
Feature lines are Civil 3D objects that are used to model the grading of a site. In essence,
feature lines are 3d polylines on steroids. Like 3d polylines, they can have different elevations
at each of their vertices; however, there are many advantages to using feature lines instead of
3d polylines.

First, feature lines can have curves. 3d polylines can approximate a curve by placing vertices at
an interval along the path of the curve; but this is just an approximation. If the elevation of the
polyline needed to change, all the vertices would need to be updated or it would have to be
recreated. With Feature Lines, since there is only two vertices for the curve, editing the
elevations is a simple procedure (See Figure 1).

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

Figure 1 The difference between a Feature Line and a 3d Polyline

Next, feature lines have more robust editing tools than 3d polylines. There is an entire toolbar
for editing and creating feature lines (See Figure 2). These tools vary from the Elevation Editor
to the tools for placing high/low points and setting the grades.

Figure 2 Feature Lines Toolbar

Feature lines can have grade break points between the Points of Inflection (PI). When editing
the feature line, these points allow a change in elevation; but they cannot be moved horizontally,
except along the feature line itself.

Finally, feature lines know what is happening in all the other feature lines in the site. If two
feature lines cross or share a vertex and they reside in the same site, they cannot have a
different elevation. Editing the elevation of one feature line will result in editing any other feature
lines that it crosses. In contrast, if two 3d polylines cross, both polylines would need to be
edited, introducing the possibility of error.

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

UsingFeatureLinestoGradeaSubdivision
CreatingtheFeatureLines

Sites
Sites within Civil 3D are used to collect things which relate to each other. The most common
and well-known use of sites is for parcels. The parcels within a site have a relationship with
each other. If one parcel line is moved, all affected parcels are updated. This same concept
applies to feature lines as well.

Feature lines within the same site are all linked together. If a feature line is added to the site or
if a feature line within the site is modified, all the other feature lines conform to those changes.
When dealing with parcel segments, these changes affect the horizontal layout of the parcels;
however, with feature lines, the vertical geometry is what is important (See Figure 3).

Figure 3 Feature Lines that cross in the same site cannot have different elevations at their
intersection.

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

Feature lines should be grouped together by the surface they will reside in. For example, if
Block 14 of a site is being graded and a surface that is specific for that block will be created, the
feature lines for that surface should go into a site for that surface, such as Site Block 14.
Keeping separate sites like this will prevent geometry (feature lines, parcel segments, grading
groups, and alignments) not intended for that surface from interacting with those feature lines.

Rules
When working with feature lines, there are several rules to follow. Probably the most important
is to have good, clean geometry. For example, if a feature line ends at another feature line,
have it end exactly at the intersection of the two lines. If the feature line extends beyond or
ends short of the intersecting feature lines, it may be difficult to edit them (See Figure 4). One
of the greatest, underutilized tools that come with Civil 3D is the Map Drawing Cleanup tools.
These tools will take geometry that is close to being precise and make it precise. Use this tool
on polylines prior to converting them to feature lines because the Map tools only work on native
AutoCAD objects and not on Civil 3D objects. Remember, we dont have to be as precise with
feature lines as we do with parcel segments. If a feature line is off by a couple hundredths of a
foot (a couple millimeters), its no big deal. The guys grading the site with a front end loader
cant get that precise anyway. Whats more important than being exact with the horizontal
location of the feature lines is that the geometry is clean.

Figure 4 Before and after Map Drawing Cleanup.

Along the same lines, whenever two feature lines cross, we want to have a PI (Point of
Inflection) at that intersection point. Remember, when two feature lines cross they will have the
same elevation at that crossing point. If there is no PI at the intersection, it can be difficult to
determine the elevation at that point. The rule of thumb in the situation when two feature lines

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

cross without PIs is the last one modified wins (See Figure 3). This can be difficult to work with
at times. If both feature lines have a PI at the intersection, it makes editing the elevations much
easier.

Process
Typically, when grading a residential subdivision, the locations of the lot lines and building
envelopes have already been determined. This geometry can be used to create the feature
lines. Either trace over the existing geometry with polylines or copy the geometry if already in
polyline form. When tracing the geometry, it isnt necessary to place a vertex at each crossing
of the polylines. This will be taken care of in the next step. Just make sure all the needed
feature lines are represented by polylines. If some are missed, they can be added later.

Once all the polylines are created, the geometry needs to be inspected. Remember the rules
from earlier. The easiest way to make sure the geometry is clean is to use the Map Drawing
Cleanup routine. Run the routine and select the polylines that will eventually become the
feature lines. The cleanup methods to use are Delete Duplicates, Break Crossing Objects,
Extend Undershoots, Snap Clustered Nodes, and Erase Dangling Objects (See Figure 5). The
routine may have to be run more than once to get the desired results.

Figure 5 Map Drawing Cleanup Tools

Now that the polylines have good clean geometry, they can be converted to feature lines.
Remember that all the feature lines for a given surface need to be in the same site. If they

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

arent, the feature line editing tools will not work as well. When converting the polylines to
feature lines, elevations can be assigned to the feature lines from an existing surface (See
Figure 6). Depending on the situation, this can be a good idea because this will put all the
feature lines at an elevation in the vicinity of the project. In addition, there may be a corridor
that models the roadway and the feature lines representing the Right-of-Way may need their
elevation determined by the corridor.

Figure 6 Adding elevations from a surface to feature lines.

CreatingasurfacefromtheFeatureLines
Once the feature lines have been created and have an initial elevation applied to them, its time
to create a surface. In the case of residential grading, there may be several blocks of lots to
deal with. For this example, Block 14 will be graded. The surface will be called Block 14 FG.
Once the surface is created, simply add the feature lines to the surface as breaklines (See
Figure 7). Because the surface for an individual block is typically small and simple, setting the
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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

surface to Rebuild -Automatic can speed up the design process. Any edits to the feature lines
will be automatically reflected in the surface. Although not explained here, one approach is to
create a surface for each block and then combine all the individual surfaces together to create a
composite finished grade surface.

Figure 7 Add feature lines to a surface as breaklines.

LabelingtheDesign
Once the surface is created, labels can be added to display the design a bit more precisely.
There are two different types of labels that can be added: line and curve labels, and surface
labels. The line and curve labels will display the grades and elevations of the feature lines
whereas the surface labels will display the grades and elevations of the surface created by the
feature lines. In this example, surface labels will be used.

There are two surface labels that will be used, spot elevation labels and slope labels. The spot
elevation labels are simple and can be created by anyone with a basic understanding of label
creation or one provided in the templates that ship with Civil 3D can be used. The slope label is
a little different. By default, the slope arrow for a slope label points in the same direction the
points are picked. For instance, it points from the first point to the second point no matter what
the slope value is. The sign of the label is also dependent on the order the points were
selected. For instance, labeling the slopes between point 1 (el=5180) and point 2 (el=5182).
Picking point 1 first will have a label with a positive slope value and an arrow pointing to point 2.
Picking point 2 first and then point 1 will have the arrow pointing to point 1 with a negative slope
(See Figure 8). In many areas, the standard way of displaying slope is to have the arrow
pointing downhill and have the label not display a sign. A label can be created to display this
way.

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Figure 8 Slope Label Example.

Add spot elevation labels at the intersections of all the feature lines and add slope labels
between all the spot elevations. This will show the design in greater detail than simply viewing
the contours of the surface. If the surface is set to Rebuild Automatic, when a feature line is
edited, the labels will immediately reflect the changes.

EditingtheFeatureLines
Civil 3D has a very robust set of tools for editing the feature lines. The ones that will be most
commonly used in a residential subdivision design are Elevation Editor, Quick Elevation Edit,
Set Grade/Slope between Points, Insert High/Low Elevation Point, and Insert PI.

ElevationEditor
The Elevation Editor edits the elevations of feature lines using a tabular interface (See Figure
9). There are tools: to raise and lower the elevations of all or a select few of the feature line
points incrementally; change the elevation of a point based on a slope from an adjacent point; or
specify the elevations individually.

Figure 9 Elevation Editor

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QuickElevationEdit
The Quick Elevation Edit tool is a must have for anyone using feature lines. This tool provides a
graphic on the screen to show what feature line point is being edited. The elevation of a point or
the grade between two points can be edited. When editing the grades, the arrow indicates
which vertex will be edited (See Figure 10).

Figure 10 Using the Quick Elevation Edit

SetGrade/SlopebetweenPoints
The Set Grade/Slope between Points tool edits the grade or slope between two points on a
feature line. Where the Quick Elevation Edit tool edits the grade between two adjacent points,
the Set Grade/Slope between Points tool can span multiple points. Because of this, feature
lines should not have unnecessary breaks in them. For example, when modeling a swale, it
would be a good idea to have the flow line of the swale as one feature line instead of multiple
feature lines connected end to end.

InsertHigh/LowElevationPoint
The Insert High/Low Elevation Point will insert an elevation point between two points on a
feature line. When using this tool, select the two points to place a grade break point between
and then specify the grade ahead and back from each point. To insert a high point, use a
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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

positive value for both slopes and for a low point, use a negative value. To insert a grade break
that isnt a high or low point, use a positive and negative value for the grades (See Figure 11).

Figure 11 Insert High/Low Point

InsertPI
Sometimes it is necessary to add additional points to a feature line. To do this, use the Insert PI
tool. Simply run the command, select the feature line, and select the location for the new PI.
The program will place the PI between the nearest two points on the feature line.

GradingObjects
WhatareGradingObjects?
Civil 3D has some very powerful tools to calculate grading solutions. These solutions can vary
from simple to complex. These solutions are calculated via Grading Objects. All grading
objects in Civil 3D have three components: the baseline, the target line, and the projection lines.
The process outlined here will grade the interior portion of a pond from the top to the outlet.
Most exercises and examples of ponds have flat bottoms, but in real life, there are few ponds
with flat bottoms, so this pond does not have one.

UsingGradingObjectstoCreateaPond
Modelingthetopofthepond
The top of the pond can be simple or complex, depending on the design criteria and site
constraints. Feature lines are used to model the top of the pond. Set the feature line at the
appropriate elevation and geometry.

Modelingthebottomofthepond
The bottom of the pond is typically more complex. Use feature lines to model the bottom of the
pond. This can include the location for the outlet, a sump at the outlet, trickle channels to the
outlet, and any other feature needed. Create a surface from these feature lines. The limits of
the pond bottom should extend to just beyond the limits of the pond top. This will ensure that
the pond top will be able to target the pond bottom.

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Gradingthepond
Once the top of the pond and the bottom of the pond have been defined, the final grading
solution can be calculated. Typically, ponds are defined by a set side slope. Use this slope in
the final grading solution to determine the side slopes of the pond.

Once the parameters for the grading have been completed and the pond sides graded out,
create a surface from the grading group for the pond. This surface will be used in the next step.

Figure 12 Cross Section view of Pond

Finalpondcombination
Now that the top of the pond, the side slopes of the pond, and the bottom of the pond have been
calculated (See Figure 12), they can be combined together into one surface to represent the
entire pond. To do this, create a detached surface from the grading group. This command can
be found on the Grading Creation Tools toolbar in the stack under the Grading Volume Tools
(See Figure 13). Now, trim out all the data from the pond bottom surface (if the grading tools
were used, create a detached surface and then insert the breaklines into the drawing) to the
limits where the pond sides grade into the pond bottom. Now simply add this data to the
detached surface created from the pond side slopes (See Figure 14).

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Figure 13 Creating a Detached Surface

Figure 14 Final combination of pond components

WatershedAnalysis
Whatarewatersheds?
Once the grading of the site has been completed, an analysis can be conducted to determine
the watersheds. Watersheds show the area of the site that drains to the same location. This is
done to calculate the runoff from the site to size culverts, swales, storm sewers, and
detention/retention ponds (See Figure 15).

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Figure 15 Watershed Analysis Example

UsingCivil3D2008todelineatewatersheds.
Civil 3D 2008 can perform an analysis on the surface to determine the watersheds. The first
thing required is a surface to perform the analysis on. The next thing needed is a style that will
display the watershed areas. This is set up on the display tab of the surface style (See Figure
16). The final thing needed is to run the analysis. In the surface properties, on the analysis tab,
set the analysis type to watersheds. There are some options that can be set, such as merging
adjacent watersheds and setting the minimum depression area (See Figure 17). Once the
analysis has been run, the watershed boundaries can be extracted from the surface for use in
other programs or to be manipulated by core AutoCAD commands using the Extract Objects
from Surface command in the Surface->Utilities menu (See Figure 18).

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Figure 16 Surface style setup to display watershed information

Figure 17 Watersheds are computed in the Surface Properties.

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 Subdivision Grading Made Easy: Grading Beyond the Roads

Figure 18 Extracting objects from a surface

Conclusion
With a solid understanding of the tools available in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008, the designer for a
residential subdivision can quickly and efficiently grade a site, create complex detention ponds,
and determine the drainage patterns for the site.

It is worthwhile to invest time into learning about and practicing the use of these tools. It can
save hours, or even days, during the design process.

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