In this example, I'm working with an alignment that crosses both an existing ground surface (EG) and a finished ground surface (FG). I've already created the alignment and I've added both surfaces via data reference. Here's how it looks so far:
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Now, the pipes in this drawing will need to stay a minimum distance below the existing ground surface (EG) until the alignment crosses into the finished ground surface (FG). At that point the pipes will need to stay a minimum distance below the finished ground surface. So how can I do that? I'm going to make a surface that is a combination of those two surfaces.
The first thing I'm going to do is create a surface called ComboSurface. In this case, I don't need to see the final product of the combined surfaces, so I'm going to set the surface style to _No Display.
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Now I need to add some substance to this surface. I'll do that by pasting the existing ground surface (EG) and finished ground surface (FG) into the new ComboSurface.
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It's okay to select both surfaces at once.
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When pasting surfaces into another surface, ORDER IS EVERYTHING! That means I need to make sure that the order is correct. Open the Surface Properties for the ComboSurface and select the Definition tab.
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Next, I need to make sure that this surface is set to Rebuild Automatically. To do this, I select the surface in toolspace, right click, then look for a check mark by Rebuild - Automatic. If there is no check mark (
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Now I have a surface that can be used for all the pipes and structures in my network!
In Part 2 of this series, I'll show you how to use this new surface in your pipe network.