Big trouble with terrrain...

leminilab

Hi,

I need to make a detailed terrain from Autocad level curves.
A friend of mine already converted the curves to a mesh with 3DSMax.

But now I need to add details to this mesh (grass areas, sand, water...) using Autocad layers.
I used the Drape command from the sandbox tools but it erased some of the geometry.
It seems the missing geometry is located at places where the cad countours are dirty (I can see double contours sometimes...).

I have no idea how to clean this.

Anybody can help?

EarthMover

I would make sure you clean up the CAD layers. Delete the ones that aren't necessary, moving them to the default layer and then rebuild the layers as applicable to Sketchup. Try using ThomThom's Cleanup tool to erase stray lines and close small gaps.

Regarding the Drape tool. You can also try TIG's Super Drape plugin. (Check plugin index) Personally I gave up on Drape a long time ago. I use another method that I found to be much more reliable and faster.

Try this instead of drape -

Copy the outline edges of the surface to be draped.
Create (if not already) a group of the terrain to drape onto
Open the grouped terrain
Paste in place the outline edges previously copied
With the outline edges selected use "Extrude Edges by Vector" (TIG's Extrusion Tools) and extrude the edges on the blue axis until they completely penetrate the terrain.
Hit the space bar to exit the tool and on exit choose to keep the extrusion grouped.
Right click on the group and choose Intersect > "With Context"
Delete the Extrusion group and you should have remaining a drape of the original profile.

I've done this hundreds of times with zero bugsplats, whereas Drape seems to splat or loose geometry 50% of the time.

leminilab

Thanks a lot, I'll try your method right away!