In addition to points, you can also build surfaces from DEM files (Digital Elevation Models), contour, breakline,

and boundary data. You can have the contours treated as individual points where the contour vertices are used as surface points, or you can have the contours treated as breaklines that prevent triangulation lines from crossing the contours. Surface TIN lines typically do not cross contour lines. To build a surface accurately, you must provide more information than points and contours. For example, to prevent surface triangulation across features such as roads or streams, you can define breaklines. Breaklines are constraint lines used by the model that represent abrupt changes in the surface. TIN lines can be drawn to and from breakline vertices, but they do not cross the breakline. By including boundaries in the surface definition, you can control how the surface extends to its outer limits, and you can hide internal areas to prevent triangulation from occurring.

Working with the Terrain Model Explorer

The Terrain Model Explorer consolidates all the surface creation and management features in one place. You can use the Terrain Model Explorer to create, open, build, and view surfaces. The left pane of the Terrain Model Explorer contains a Terrain and a Volume folder. To create a new surface, right-click the Terrain folder and choose Create New Surface from the shortcut menu. After you create a surface, a surface folder with icon is created below the Terrain folder. Click the surface icon to display the surface data icons. You can access commands by rightclicking the icons to display a shortcut menu.

Working with the Terrain Model Explorer

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Use the shortcut menus to add the surface data to the surface folder, and then build the surface. The Volume folder in the left pane of the Terrain Model Explorer contains information about grid and composite volume surfaces that are created from the volume calculations commands on the Terrain menu. Use the Terrain Model Explorer to view properties about the volume surfaces, as well as open, close, and view volume surfaces. You can keep the Terrain Model Explorer open while you use other commands. Use the buttons in the upper-right corner of the dialog box to minimize, maximize, and close the Terrain Model Explorer.

Creating Surface Data

Before you can build a surface, you must create surface data in the Terrain Model Explorer by using the shortcut menu commands, such as Add Point Group.

When you add the surface data into the Terrain Model Explorer, you are determining the objects to include in the surface. These objects can be point groups, point files, points, DEM files, breaklines, contours, and boundaries.

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Chapter 4

Working with Surfaces