InfraWorks – Working with Land Areas

By David Crowther

When delivering Cadline’s InfraWorks Essentials training course I am often asked how can you define an area of land and change the terrain solely for that area without affecting the terrain in the rest of the model?

Many people simply use the Coverage Areas tool which will generate a generic slope as you raise or lower the coverage area.

When you use the Shape terrain option both the Coverage Area and a large area of the surrounding terrain is also edited at the same time.

Instead you could use the LAND AREAS option which allows you to manage the SLOPE and WIDTH of the GRADING around the land area that you draw.

The Land Areas tool is accessed via the Create Conceptual Design Features menu….

.. by choosing the Land Areas button.

Choose a specific style for the Land Area – e.g. maybe it’s an area of grass or hard standing and then left click in the map to digitise the extents for your Land Area.

Tip – why not use a georeferenced site plan to more easily digitise around a specific building plot.

Once the Land Area is drawn, you can then right click on the plot and choose its Properties, where you can now edit the Manual Grading style that is used.

There will be some default Grading options e.g.

But if you use the STYLE PALLETTE button first…..

…you can find the default GRADING styles and use the Green Plus button at the bottom to define your own Grading style.

If you choose the Grading Method to be Fixed Slope – you could choose a Cut Slope and Fill Slope value to define your grading.

However in this example we will set the option to be Fixed Width and choose 0M, which will create a new Grading Style of 0M.

By simply dragging your new Gradient Style from the Style Palette and dropping it onto the LAND AREA this will then apply a 0M grading either side of the land area that you digitised.  

Thus allowing you to elevate…..

… and lower the terrain for a specific area without affecting the terrain in the surrounding parts of the model.