CDS makes Contours easy!

Contour routines in CDS allow you to:

• Use random points and breaklines to form a triangular mesh (TIN)
• Form contours at any intervals you choose
• Annotate index contours quickly and easily
• Design sites with automatic 'catch points'
• Interpolate profiles and sections
• Calculate volumes.
• Form a DTM of the surface
• Generate a 3D view
• Export to external CAD and rendering programs.

Click here to see the CDS Contouring process

You may select the points you need from the database by any combination of point number, height, point code or layer, or you can define windows or polygons of interest on the screen using the mouse.

The points you select are assigned to a particular surface, and you can use multiple surfaces within the one job for maximum processing flexibility.

Once you have defined the surface to model, CDS forms triangles using the Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) method. This method uses only the points you have defined in the field to form the model - points are not interpolated on a grid or otherwise, as is the case with many competitive products.

The contours are plotted at the interval you specify, and you can control the degree of smoothing used to ensure the final plan best represents the surface .

You can place labels on index contours, or on all contours if you prefer, and you position the labels easily with the mouse to suit your requirements.

You can introduce Design Surfaces which can be contoured, and merged with natural surfaces where needed to allow you to produce "As-Built" drawings easily.