Workflow to create designed topography

Hi all,

I’ve been working with Rhino for awhile but never work with topography (because here in Flander the surface is most of the time flat). Now I am running to a project with interesting topography and I am learning how to use SubD to generate the topography that I design, however I couldnt find the good work flow for this. I woould appreciate a lot if somebody can share their experiences about this matter. I have been looking all over youtube but most of the time is to generate topography from existing contour but non talks about modelling a designed landscape topography.

I also added my file here so it will be more clear. The building is laying at level 0, mesurement is in mm. Thank you
Workflow to create designed topography.3dm (179.9 KB)

i would not use subd for a terrain, definitely not when it has to be accurate. you can convert the result to subd if you like later on but in this case i would start drawing the lines in the height you need and use patch to create a surface.

Hi @minhha2001,

Mostly meshes are used to generate a terrain.
I added a gh script to gerate a terrain.
Workflow to create designed topography.3dm (185.5 KB)
TERRAIN FROM LINES.gh (9.2 KB)

1 Like

Hi @minhha2001
Also check out @Holo’s great terrain plugin TerrainMesh. You can get it through the PackageManager.
HTH, Jakob

2 Likes

Hi Erik,

The result is brilliant!!! However I would like to ask if the terrain is generated in mesh meaning other elements that following the terrain such as roads, pavements, etc? would be best to be modeled in mesh? Or they should be modelled in Nurbs => converter to mesh => use the converted mesh to subtract aways from the terrain => delete the converted mesh? Just thinking out loud about the workflow.

Thank you very much for your GH script

Thank you Jakob, I will have a look onto it

I would say the last option is the most practical. Meshes are not that easy to modify. Best is to generate a surface or brep and convert it into a mesh. You can also have a look at the Bison pluginn. This one is designed for terrain operations.

https://www.bison.la/
TERRAIN FROM LINES.gh (16.2 KB)
Workflow to create designed topography.3dm (183.3 KB)