Why on this blue green planet do they not use feature lines?
you don't use points?
If I am doing site grading design and a lot of other grading design....NO.
Here is the Rule I present to substantiate my position:
Engineers whilst doing design should not 'set points'
Surveyors in the process of staking the design set those points.
So if one is doing design the vast majority of the time NO POINTS are used...It is all feature lines.
Need a ow spot for a drainage grate - use rectangular feature line to set the grades....this way when you do pipes the inlet is at grade and creates a semi-automatic (dynamic) pipe design process as well.
Need a flow line....use a feature line
There are very rare instances where one may want to use a(n) individual point to control grading, however
you will discover that a 10X efficiency is gained by NOT using points to define design surfaces.
Later when it's time to build the surveyors can worry over setting ONLY those few points they need to give the contractors what is needed to construct. Or as the case with most of our designs, they simply use the feature lines (exported to 3d polylines) and let the grading equipment do it's job. No Points required.