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Use of 3D

Roads and Intersections

The strength of Gemini Terrain is that we can also perform complete design of roads and intersections with calculation of cut and fill volumes.

If we have regulated centerlines in the layer Rp45_Linjer_punkt_og_påskrift, we can create SFI models directly from these. The function Create line definition from line in application layer can be found in the context menu.

Road models generated from centerlines in the zoning plan

If we choose to perform a 3D design of the roads, it may be beneficial to perform this in a separate drawing. When the design is complete, we can copy all lines in the road system to the application layer Rp45_Arealformål.

Warning

During design, we must check that the option Extra profiles at curve points is checked (note that this is the default setting). This setting is necessary for the parallel lines (shoulder edge lines/road edge lines) to also be correct (mathematically correct lines without breaks).

The procedure for complete design of roads and intersections is described in more detail in the chapter on Roads and Intersections.

After copying the lines from road and intersection objects, we can sort these by the property Line type. This property indicates whether the line is a road edge, fill toe, cut top, and so on. It is then easy to perform massive deletion of lines in the list, for example if you only want to include road edges in the further plan construction.

Cut and fill marking is normally not included on the zoning plan map. This data can optionally be placed on an illustration layer.

Buildings and Outdoor Figures

Various 3D figures are useful in connection with 3D visualization of zoning plans.

Buildings can be obtained as VEC files from DDS ArkPartner or as IFC/3DS from other architectural drawing programs.

Gemini Terrain also contains a number of outdoor figures (playground equipment, benches and chairs, trees, and so on) that will help provide a good illustration of the plan.

Use of inserted figures and presentation rules

For cars and people, we recommend using 3DS figures. We can find many figures that can be downloaded freely from the internet.

Figures are described in more detail in the section Insertion of Figures.

Draping Image of Zoning Plan

In many contexts, it is desirable to drape an image of the zoning plan on the terrain surface.

Example of zoning plan draped on terrain surface

This can be done using bgr application layers. Before we can create the bgr layer, we must create a georeferenced image file of the zoning plan.

Procedure

Create image file:

  1. Turn off display of all layers you do not want in the image
  2. Open dialog for Drawing Settings
  3. Click Locate... and specify new terrain model area around the plan
  4. Select Zoom all - exact (2D) from the Window menu
  5. Select Export to image file from the File - Export menu. Save the file as Regplan.bmp in the current project directory, for example. The export also creates a georeference file (mmm file) with the same name

Run 3D view of plan:

  1. Select Terrain model calculation of area from the Calculation menu
  2. Open 3D view from the Window menu
  3. Select Show application layer from the View... menu in the 3D window

Create bgr application layer:

  1. Create a new application layer of type bgr
  2. In the dialog for the bgr layer, browse to the image file we created earlier
  3. Click OK to create the layer

The bgr layer will now be visible in both 2D and 3D views, and the zoning plan image will be draped on the terrain surface in the 3D view.

Tip

For best results, ensure that the terrain model calculation covers the same area as the zoning plan image before creating the bgr layer.