Surface Modeling for Infrastructure Design
Overview
Knowing when to use the right tool for the job is key to graphical and data-rich civil drawings. Learn how to create surfaces from a variety of data points, including boundaries, contours, and elevations. Create existing ground surfaces, work with different surface build options and surface styles, apply surface labels, and add boundaries. Focus on detailed design for corridor surfaces, including cut and fill analysis, before you create feature lines, sites, and grading groups. You’ll wrap up by creating a finished ground surface.
After completing this course, you’ll be able to:
- Understand surface objects and create surfaces from a variety of data.
- Add breaklines to a surface.
- Apply surface build options and surface styles.
- Analyze surfaces.
- Apply surface labels and boundaries.
- Create data shortcuts from surfaces.
- Create corridor surfaces.
- Perform a cut and fill analysis.
- Create and edit feature lines.
- Create a site and grading group for a building pad and retention pond.
- Calculate cut and fill volumes.
- Create a finished ground surface from existing ground, corridor surfaces, and grading group surfaces.

Course modules
Getting started
Discover how surfaces in Civil 3D are used when establishing existing conditions in a civil project. Create a 3D representation of the ground as you create and modify surfaces.
Civil 3D contains robust tools for designing corridors and corridor surfaces. See how to leverage surfaces from corridor models to display road grades and contours, analyze cut and fill volumes, and discover how you can use the surface volume tools for your designs and implement them for corridors.
Learn about the relationships between sites, feature lines, and grading groups. Create feature lines to build grading groups then use those groups to model site features such as ponds and residential grading.
Course challenge
Final test
Announcements
This course will retire December 13, 2023
This course will retire on December 13, 2023 — but great news! You'll find our latest tutorials on Autodesk.com/learn. Be sure to complete the course and download your certificate of completion by December 13th or your progress will be lost.