Opening the surface tree (by clicking the + icon to the left of surfaces) allows each of the surfaces to be accessed individually. To create a surface, you can also right-click on Surface and choose "Add surface", which will create a blank surface. Selecting a specific surface and right-clicking on "Add" will duplicate the selected surface.
The elements that constitute a surface are: Outline, points, breaklines, holes, and triangles. When you select a position on a surface, you see different interfaces separated into tabs, which are needed to manage the surfaces.
The “Load Surface” and “Unload Surface” buttons make it possible to manage which surfaces are loaded in order to free up system RAM and accelerate certain processes.
The main tab “Surface”, makes it possible to consult and manage the surface. The statistics indicate the number of points in the surface, outline points, breaklines, breakline segments, holes, and triangles according to the latest triangulation.
Concept of layers: A surface may have multiple layers, each with its own preferences. It is easy to copy the layers with XY and/or Z translation. To be brief, in surfaces of Civil module, an XY coordinate may have different Z coordinates in the same surface concept, which is useful, for example, when checking a road project on the driving surface or under the foundation.
Data can be imported or exported using the LandXML language. With this language, you can work with known XYZ points, different surfaces with outlines, breaklines and holes, as well as alignments, sections, etc. The XML language is a tagged language mainly used for transferring information between similar software, as with .DXF files for example. An .XML file can be dragged to "Internet Explorer" in order to view it. Here is an excerpt:
Several other applications use LandXML such as Civil 3D and InRoads as well as some fieldwork tools.
Each surface can be manipulated by the tools to the right of the statistics:
Button | Description |
|---|---|
Save | Saves the surface. Note that if you don't save a change, like a triangulation, the software will not ask you to save before exiting. |
Move | Moves the points with XY and/or Z translation; the Z affects only the chosen layer's elevation and must be executed when new layers are created in order for them to have an elevation. It will be based on the first layer's elevation. |
Copy points to COGO | Sends changes to the points to the Vision database, which will create points for virtual surveying for every point in the surface. Thus, it is not recommended to do this for surfaces containing a large number of points. |
Synch. COGO | Looks for matches of names or XY coordinates between the Vision database points and those of the current surface. It will then add the information about name, PCode and set the Z in the surface to the point found for XY concordance, or if the concordance is with the name, the XYZ coordinate will be updated. |
Validate | This button performs a function that validates the surface in different ways. It checks for point duplicates compared to the coordinates, and erases them from the surface. It also validates the intersection of the breaklines and asks to add a point at the intersection, halfway between the two elevations. |