Do you ever dream of planting 3D trees and houses on your site? 

How about if you import some blocks that have a Z value buried in their attributes somewhere?  Wouldn’t it be nice to extract that information and use it for surface building?

A word about my screen captures: It appears that I have somehow mistakenly installed the British version of 2008.  Everything I point out appears in the same location in the North American Version, it just might have a slightly different nomenclature.  We at Civil 3D.com try to speak all languages and assist the world.  Just doin’ my part for world Civil 3D unity.

I have a series of tree blocks that are also 3D.  You can get blocks like these from the design center online, or whole CDs full of all kinds of trees, light posts, etc. super cheap.  Just search google.  You can also check under your Civil 3D install folder and there are multiview tree blocks that install as samples.  You can use any blocks at all, but if you want them to look like anything in 3D, try one of the above sources.

Right now, I placed them in at zero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I use the Surfaces>Ultilies>Move Blocks to Surface

And when I switch into isometric view…. tada!

With realistic visual style applied. This screen capture also shows off something else new to 2008, Corridor Rendering by Code.

More on the moving blocks to their Z attribute later…