It is necessary to have a defined surface in order to execute this process. Firstly, the command displays the following window:
The Surface button allows one to select a surfaces file other than the current file. The options relating to layers are set out below. The layers where minor contour lines will be drawn can be specified. The Clean Layers box eliminates all objects from the layers selected to contain the contours
The dialog box also allows one to change the Minimum to Maximum height range to be contoured (by default this is set as the whole surface), in addition to the height intervals for Minor and Major contours to be applied when the contouring performed.
The contours may be drawn with three kinds of different objects: CADPolylines, a proprietary MDT object (Contours) or CAD lines. This first is the most common option. The second option allows the contour lines to be labeled without splitting the polylines and it is also possible to move the labels along the polylines. One drawback is that edit operations with CAD commands are not possible. Lastly, drawing the contours solely with lines has the advantage that the process of automatically editing the contours is quicker using the point and/or surface editing operations.
Apply Colors will enable us to assign a range of colors to the contour lines in accordance with the height of the contour line. We can choose from different palettes of colors.
The Smoothing Factor option ensures that the polylines generated include arch segments in order to look better. The greater the parameter value, the greater the arch introduced. Initially, it is not advisable to smooth contours since the number of vertices is quadrupled as is the amount of information that the computer has to process, thus slowing down subsequent processes. It is therefore recommended that smoothing should only be performed for the purposes of final presentation and not while working.
The Configuration button allows you to modify the default options used by the application, such as layer names and parameters for smoothing contours. In the case that a mesh is used as the current surface, in this dialogue box you can modify the parameters to control how it is generated.
TcpMDT
