Civil 3D - Simplify a Surface

By David Lewis

After enjoying one of our many ‘how to’ videos on Cadline community, a customer asked whether it was possible to reduce the number of points in a surface. In response we have put together a quick step by step in answer to this question.

Step 1

Create the surface.

Step 2

Access the Edit surface Tool by selecting the surface and taking advantage of the contextual ribbon.

Step 3

From the Edit surface drop down menu choose Simplify surface.

This will open the simplify surface wizard.

Step 4

For the simplify method choose the point removal option and choose Next.

Step 5

For Reduction Option move the slider to select the percentage of reduction. In this example I will use 95% to demonstrate the impact on the surface. I will also change the maximum change in level to 0.5 so the change is clear.

Note: This is an extreme example of the use of the tool in this situation and not necessarily the percentage and level changes that we would advise.

Step 6

After the values have been defined in the Simplify Surface: Reduction options select apply then Finish to view the results.