Bentley - What happened to allowing the end user to define a minimum contour area when viewing contours? It was always available in GeoPAK and InRoads (under View Surface > Contours > Advanced Settings) when defining contours before generating them. This was a very helpful tool, especially when generating contours from remote sensing data sets (like LIDAR) where there was a heavy point density and in relatively flat terrain where changes in elevations between defined contour intervals occurred frequently within small areas. Is this option gone forever? Did it get looked over when developing OpenRoads? Is there plans to put it back in soon? Or is it still there, just under a new name, feature, ribbon or something?
I really hope Bentley adds this feature back into OpenRoads as soon as possible.
Hi Timothy
You can use the "Max Slope Value" to prevent very dense contour lines in very steep areas:
docs.bentley.com/.../GUID-8B656E0E-A125-7773-4025-2F2EEF529F80.html
Not the same.
In flat areas, the issue is not "max slope value". The issue is that very few areas are ACTUALLY flat, but have small variations. Often these variations don't actually have any real effect on the overall terrain, but they are enough to generate random small contours. If you think about a large, flat plowed field, the general terrain does not have much relief, but there will be many spots that could vary by 8" or so. A little hump here, a small divot there, and an area that has very little practical relief is pockmarked with tiny contour rings. I work in Indiana, and there are a lot of field terrains that end up with contours looking like the surface of the moon.
The "Minimum Area" setting was perfect for dealing with this because we could easily eliminate small, isolated contours without the need to manipulate the LIDAR data itself. I'm sure there is processing and filtering that can be applied...But it was a VERY easy process to simply "not display" contours delineating an area no bigger than my living room. There is a lot to know to effectively and accurately filter and process LIDAR data. This setting was a checkbox.
I agree - this option should be possible, somehow. I'm sure it has been removed.Accuracy is important, but beyond a certain threshold, true accuracy is simply more noise.
MaryB
Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918Power InRoads 08.11.09.918OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2
Exactly. I am just trying to reduce the overall noise when viewing and plotting. I don't want to modify or delete points out of a surface to make it less noisy.