Surfaces are basic building blocks in AutoCAD Civil 3D. You can import surface information from LandXML, TIN (triangulated irregular network), and DEM (digital elevation model) files, and use points, point files, DEM data, existing AutoCAD objects, contours, breaklines, and boundaries to create surfaces.
A surface is a three-dimensional geometric representation of an area of land, or, in the case of volume surfaces, is a difference or composite between two surface areas.
You can create a surface that comprises a combination of points, breaklines, boundaries, and contours.
You can edit and add data to a surface after you create it.
Identify and troubleshoot errors or problems with a surface, or its data components.
Edit surfaces using data edit operations, which are added to a surface definition as edit operations and not to any of the existing surface data components.
You can use several methods for removing data from a drawing, surface definition, or from both.
Use masks to block out areas of a surface and prevent them from being displayed or to render a section of the surface using a specified render material.
Use watersheds to analyze how water flows along and off of a surface.
You can manage instances of surfaces in the Surfaces collection in the Prospector tab and surface settings in the Surface collection in the Settings tab.
Use surface utilities to query composite and bounded volume differences between surface.
Use surface label and table styles to control the appearance and behavior of surface-related labels and tables in a drawing.
You can perform many types of surface-related analysis, including contour, directions, elevations, slopes, slope-arrows, watersheds, and water drop path.
You can export an AutoCAD Civil 3D surface from a drawing to a DEM file compatible with either USGS or GeoTIFF formats, enabling you to use the surface in applications that support these formats.
You can use commands to access surface functionality quickly.
