User Defined Contours in AutoCAD® Civil 3D®

I have recently been getting the question on how to create user contours in Civil 3D. Most are just needing to figure out how to gather an area of a specific elevation and are having some troubles. Let me be the one to tell you that this is very easy, but is done a little different than in the past. Let's take a look at a way this can be done easily and quickly.

Obviously we are going to need a surface to start as this functionality lies in the Analysis tab of the surface properties.

Once we get to the Analysis tab of the surface properties we can actually choose a User Generated Contours option from the available types of analysis.

When we choose this type, the next step is setting up how many ranges we want. This actually means the number of contours to be generated. We will set the number of ranges to the number of desired contours and choose the arrow in the dialogue to load the ranges.

Notice two ranges are used and the elevations are set to 700 and 715, meaning these are the elevations set to have these contours generated. Once we hit apply, you will see the contours generated as in the picture below.

Now most are looking to gather areas from these contours. The easiest way to do so is to extract the user contours from the surface. This is very easy. All you have to do is select a surface and then choose Extract Objects from the contextual ribbon.

Now we will hit the OK button and we now have free standing user generated contours.

Hopefully this will provide some of you with the little bit of know-how you need to gather a lot of valuable information!

This page last edited on Monday, February 14, 2011