Topic: ( C3D ) Number of points

[Cathy]

We have offshore surveys with millions of survey points in them.  Does anyone know if C3D can handle that many points?  What is the maximum number of points you've worked with? 

[Guest]

We have offshore surveys with millions of survey points in them.  Does anyone know if C3D can handle that many points?  What is the maximum number of points you've worked with? 

Offshore?? As in, the water??  How does one survey WATER??

Millions, huh?  That would definitely bog down any computer.  How do you feel about point groups?  Its been a while since I've even LOOKED at C3D - it does have point groups, right??

Do ALL of the points need to be visible?  I'm thinking point groups and layers to control what you want to see and when.  Still though... MILLIONS???

[Mark]

I'm willing to try it! Can you send a file with that many points in it?

[Dinosaur]

I think that you have way too many points for Civil 3D to use efficiently even if it did not immediately choke.  Is there any logic to the points numbering that they could be isolated into smaller areas?  These smaller regions could then be tied with references as needed.  You could then also eliminate areas that were not needed from the data.

[Cathy]

Offshore?? As in, the water??  How does one survey WATER??

They are surveying the sea floor.  I think they do it with sonar; usually with a underwater device that looks sort of like a torpedo that they drag behind them from a boat. (I am sure that someone who really knows how they do it would laugh at my description )

I'm willing to try it! Can you send a file with that many points in it?

 
Thanks Mark -- but not sure I can send one.  I think bringing in anywhere near that number of points is impossible, but I was able to create a surface from a DEM file with 1.5 million points.  I think we just need to be able to create the surface -- to get contours and be able to drape a polyline on it.  Of course, I kept running out of memory and being thrown out of Autocad.   

[mjfarrell]

Kathy,

Your option is to use the Surface Collection>POINTS>>External Project Points Database for any point file that exceeds 100,000 points.  At least this  was the governing criteria for points databases within Land Desktop. Given that Civil 3D and Land Desktop are both published and programmed by Autodesk this rule most likely still applies.