HOW TO OBTAIN AND IMPORT USGS GIS DATA INTO

CIVIL 3D
Cody J. Roberts

1) Open you r web browser and go to The National Map viewer and download page found
at:
https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic/

2) Enter the name of the area you wish to Sample from in the search bar:

3) Use the Mouse to pan and zoom to your specific area of interest.

4) Select the Box/Point option. Then click and drag your mouse to make a rectangle
covering your area of interest.
5) On the left side of the screen select “Elevation Products (3DEP)”. A drop down menu will
automatically expand. Select “1/3 arc-second DEM”. Then click on the “Find Products”
button.
6) The Data you want is the “USGS NED n##w## 1/3 arc-second…” Click the Add to
Shopping Cart Button. Then Click the “View Cart” button.
7) Click on the hypertext reading “Download” to start downloading the DEM zip file.

8) Your DEM zip file will begin to download.

9) Place the Downloaded Zip File into the appropriate Project Job Folder. Then Unzip the
Zip File by right clicking the Zip File and selecting “Extract All”

10) Launch AutoCad Civil 3d.

11) Open a new Drawing.
12) Save the Drawing to the appropriate Project Job Folder
13) Launch the Civil 3d Tool Space by entering the command “Prospector”. You may have to
do this twice.
14) Select the “Settings Tab” on the Tool Space panel.

15) Right click on the Name of your drawing appearing in bold at the top of the settings
panel and select “Edit Drawing Settings” from the right click menu to open the Edit
Drawing Settings Window.
16) In the Edit Drawing Settings Window select the appropriate coordinate system for your
project.

19) Geo-locate your drawing by first selecting “Edit Location” pull down menu and then
“From Map”
20) At the next window, simply select the “next” button.

21) On the next screen simply select the “next” again. The coordinate system you previously
assigned will automatically be highlighted in blue.
22) Your command prompt will then ask you to select a point for coordinate location. Just
press “Enter” key without inputting anything into the command line

23) At the next command prompt to select an angle for north. Enter “90”.

24) Zoom out until you can see the map. Then zoom in and select your area of interest.
25) Zoom out until you can see the map. Then zoom in and select your area of interest.

26) Turn the Map Off

27) Go to the Prospector Pane and select “Create Surface”.

28) Select a surface style that will have all display options turned off. Typically this style is
called “No Display”
29) Once you have created a surface draw a poly line around your area of interest and add it
as a “Data Clip” type of boundary to your surface. ********THIS STEP IS VERY
IMPORTANT!!! THE FILES YOU ARE IMPORTING ARE HUGE AND WILL CRASH AUTOCAD
IF NOT DATA CLIPPED AHEAD OF TIME!!!!!!********
30) In the prospector expand the Surface Menu then Expand the Surface you just created
then expand the “Definition” menu and right click “DEM Files” then choose “add”.

31) Click the button to browse for your DEM file.

32) Open your downloaded and unzipped USGS Data folder and select the folder that has an
N and W value in the folder Name

33) Inside that folder select the “.adf” file with the most KBs. Make sure you are selected to
be searching for ESRI Binary Grid (.adf) type of files.
34) Once you have selected the appropriate ADF file you will be returned to the DEM
interface window and you can now enter the coordinate system for the DEM data you
are importing into your surface. Do this by clicking on the right side of the “CS Code”
bar. A second window will appear that will let you select USGS 1/3 arc-second data is in
generic UTM format. This means that you should select as a category “Lat Longs” (This
will automatically make your projection “LL”), and as an available coordinate system
select “NAD83 datum, Latitude-Longitude; Degrees”

The Add DEM File window will now be populated with information. Click the OK button.
35) AutoCad Civil 3d will now take a nap while it process the data. You will notice a blue bar
in the lower right corner sweeping from left to right while Autocad inserts points into
your drawing.
36) Your DEM surface should now be created. However you will notice that the elevations
are in meters. Right click on the your surface in the Prospector pane. Select edit Edit
Surface Style. Under the “Display” tab select only triangles to be displayed.

37) With only the triangles being displayed explode the surface. (Autocad will behave better
if you select the surface using the right click menu from the Prospector pane.)
Your triangle surface is now a block. Open the Properties window and select the block of
triangles. In the properties widow change the Z Scale from 1 to 3.28084.
 Now explode your block of triangle once more and you will have a lot of “3D faces”.

38) Create a new surface named the same as the one exploded in step 37. Then expand the
surface in the prospector tab to display Surface Definition. Right click on “Drawing
Objects” and select “add”.
You will now presented with a window titled “Add Points From Drawing Objects”. In the
“Object Type” pull down menu select “3D Faces”. There is now a check box in the
window for “Maintain edges from object”. Check this box. Add a description.
You will now be prompted to select objects. Select all of the 3D faces. Your surface now
has definition from those 3D faces. Turn on your surface major contours to ensure your
surface has been created. Now delete all of the 3D Faces from your drawing. You are
done.