Creating a TIN surface from LandXML file

By Partha Sarkar

In AutoCAD
Civil 3D we can use the LANDXMLIN command and import a LandXML file to create
Civil 3D objects like Surface, Alignment, Pipe Network etc. Sometime ago, a
Civil 3D application developer asked me about how do I create a Surface from a
LandXML file using API ?

Civil 3D has
the following COM API to create a Surface from LandXML –

IAeccSurfaces::ImportXML() -> Given the specified surface name and XML file,
it creates a new surface from the imported XML data, adds it to the collection,
and returns an instance of the new object.

.NET equivalent of this COM API is not yet available (in the
current release), however, we can use COM Interop and create a .NET
application. Here is a relevant C# code snippet –

public static void Civil3DImportLandXML(String filelocation)
{
  //get editor and database 
  Editor ed = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;
  Database db = Application.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Database;
 
  //start a transaction 
  using (Transaction trans = db.TransactionManager.StartTransaction())
  {
    AcadApplication oApp = (AcadApplication)Application.AcadApplication;
    string sAppName = "AeccXUiLand.AeccApplication.10.0"; // Civil 3D 2013
    AeccApplication aeccApp = (AeccApplication)oApp.GetInterfaceObject(sAppName);
    AeccDocument aeccDoc = (AeccDocument)aeccApp.ActiveDocument;          
 
    // Get the AeccSurfaces object
    Autodesk.AECC.Interop.Land.AeccSurfaces oAeccSurfaces = aeccDoc.Surfaces;
 
    String landxmlFile = filelocation;        
    oAeccSurfaces.ImportXML(landxmlFile);
 
    // Call AutoCAD COM API ZoomExtents to see the Surface object 
    oApp.ZoomExtents();
 
    trans.Commit();
  }
 
}///

Here is the
result of calling the above function in Civil 3D 2013 [I used Civil 3D tutorial
dataset here] –

While trying
this in Civil 3D, I was thinking how about keeping my LandXML in Cloud storage
and using it from anywhere, anytime ? Does it sound interesting ? I will
continue this to see how we can store Civil 3D LandXML files in cloud and use
them whenever and wherever I want to create a TIN surface.