Smooth the Polylines of the Imported Terrain Contours

Smooth the edges of your contour lines for better visualization

There are cases where imported contour polylines created may appear to have "sharp edges". This is attributed to the contours being created based on the grid of elevation points that are imported. Therefore, the grid dictates the jagged edges.

Fortunately, there are 2 ways you can achieve this: 

• Use Plex-Earth's built-in Contour Smoothing

• Use CAD tools to smooth the polylines

  1. Insert the dynamic terrain as a static CAD object as contour polylines

  2. Explode the polyline block

  3. Smooth the polylines using PEDIT

Method 1. Use Plex-Earth's built-in Contour Smoothing

Once you create your terrain model, go to the Collection Manager -> Terrain tab -> Edit the respective terrain.

From the menu that  will appear, click on the "Terrain" tab, and enable the Contour smoothing, as shown below:

Here is the result with the contour smoothing disabled:

And here is the result with the contour smoothing enabled:

Method 2: Use CAD tools to smooth the polylines

The steps below also present a solution that will smooth out jagged contour polylines.

Step 1. Insert the dynamic terrain as a static CAD object as contour polylines

Step 2. Explode the polyline block

Step 3. Smooth the polylines using PEDIT

Step 1. Insert the dynamic terrain as a static CAD object as contour polylines

In the Terrain Editor, click on Insert and select Contour Polylines.

Step 2. Explode the polyline block

If the contour polylines were generated through Plex-Earth, the lines will most likely be inserted as one grouped object. To smooth out the contour lines, the object has to be "exploded" by selecting it and then typing explode on the command line. This will instantly separate the grouped contour lines into individual objects and it will now be possible to proceed with the next steps.

Step 3. Smooth the polylines using PEDIT

1. On the command line, type PEDIT and hit Enter.
   

2. Select Multiple or type "M" and hit Enter, or right-click and select Multiple.
   

3. Select the contour polylines.
   

4. Select the Spline option, either by typing "S" then Enter or by right-clicking and selecting it.
   
   The result should be as shown below, with the edges of the contour polylines smoothed out.
   

Ultimately, the best possible visualization of Plex-Earth's contour polylines can be achieved which will perfectly accompany anyone's presentations. This will allow any professional to make the greatest impressions, as in our field, attention to detail is a factor always taken into consideration which in return elevates work to a higher level.

We hope that you have found this tutorial on how to smooth polylines of the imported terrain contours, helpful. Feel free to contact us at support@plexscape.com for any questions you may still have.

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