CGTalk - Arch: Site plan

castroman

05-14-2007, 06:47 AM

I am having trouble making a siteplan to use in my project. I received a dxf file which shows a section of town, this contains lines for properties, roads, contour and so on. some lines are planar while other are projected like in real life, I am trying to optimize it so I can make 3d of it all, roads, properties and all the houses in this section. I tried to import into sketchup, but I am having trouble since all the lines are in bits an pieces, making it hard to make a closed surface out of them.

I wanna use cinema, but the architect wants the file back so he can use it in Revit, don't know if anybody has used that route before?

I wish I could upload the file or images, but I am under NDA :(

anybody has any good tips for me?

chris_b

05-14-2007, 02:53 PM

There are some good articles on creating site-plans here:

http://cgarchitect.com/upclose/VI/default.asp

In short.... crap in, crap out. My experience with ACAD plans is that they are generally a huge mess with lots of layers and disconnected line-segments. Your first step, before diving into 3D will be to optimize and clean up the plans in ACAD or Rhino. From there you can export to illustrator 8 and import into C4D. My recommendation is to break the plans, by later, into surface types (i.e. roads, pavers, curbs, turf...etc) and then import into C4D one layer at a time and build out in 3D....

Also... unless there is extreme topography, or the architect requires it, keep the site model 2D. Small and gradual surface changes won't really be noticeable in a rendering anyway. If you do have to work the site in 3D, projected splines and boolean cuts will be necessary to get the plan lines into 3D space...

georgedrakakis

05-14-2007, 08:24 PM

Also... unless there is extreme topography, or the architect requires it, keep the site model 2D.

this is a good way to get the site info into the 3dproject.
it worked fine for me, under tight deadlines:
http://georgedrakakis.cgsociety.org/gallery/440319/
(http://georgedrakakis.cgsociety.org/gallery/440319/)

castroman

05-15-2007, 01:49 PM

thank you guys for the input,

@chris_b
I actually visited and downloaded that information from cgarchitect, but totally forgot about it. thats what happens when you are too busy and the harddrive is too full of stuff.

I guess I have to go in and work with the hundreds of layers and try to sort it out. I noticed that some sections are on different layers, and all in disconnected segments. I guess I have some work to do, luckily I have until june to get it ready.

about the 2D plan I wish that would be possible, but this project is in North of Norway so there is nothing BUT extreme topography.

@georgedrakakis
thats a good idea, maybe I will throw in one of those as well if time permits it.

now back to acad :(

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