About Grading

Use the grading tools and commands in Autodesk Civil 3D to design finished ground surfaces.

You create grading projections by applying grading criteria to a footprint. The grading objects are grouped into named collections to create your final surface designs and compute volumes.

A grading object normally consists of the footprint, the daylight line, the projection lines, and the face.

The footprint can be an open or closed figure. The footprint must be either a feature line, a lot line, or the resulting daylight line of another grading.

The face is the area bounded by the lines that define the grading. It is marked with a center marker.

The target for the grading can be a surface, a distance, an elevation, or a relative elevation.

Plan view of grading object

You can also use the feature lines commands to create and edit 3D feature lines. Feature lines can be included directly into surfaces as breakline data, or you can use them as grading object footprints.

Before you start grading, you must configure settings and establish criteria such as the following:

The list of grading objects defined in the drawing appears in Toolspace, within the Sites collection on the Prospector tab.

Grading styles and Grading Criteria Sets appear in Toolspace on the Settings tab.

Grading Workflow

Grading Tutorials

Grading Best Practices