Grading for landscape

Everything here is graded into the proposed surface with the same grading as pads and corridors. The existing ground is never changed, and Earthwork counts it all. The Grade menu is in the Landscape group.

Platforms

Grade › Platform, then click the corners and press ReturnEnter. The platform starts at the mean ground elevation under it; type an Elevation to set it, or empty it to follow the ground again. A Fall in % and Falls towards in degrees (0 = east, 90 = north) tilt it. Its sides are graded out to the ground at the Cut slope and Fill slope (horizontal to 1).

Slopes per side and retaining walls

Under Sides and retaining walls in the Properties of a pad, a platform or a berm, each side can be graded its own way. Side 1 runs from the first corner you clicked to the second, side 2 from the second to the third, and so on.

• All sides: Sloped uses the cut and fill slopes above on every side; Vertical: retaining walls puts a wall on every side.
• Per side: Slopes above, Its own slopes (type a cut and a fill slope for that side) or Vertical (retaining wall).
• Type a slope as 3 or 3:1 (horizontal to 1 vertical), 33% or 18.4°; it is shown as H:1. The pad's own Cut slope and Fill slope take the same.
• A vertical side has no embankment: a retaining wall runs along the edge, from the pad down to the existing ground (in fill) or from the ground down to the pad (in cut). Wall thickness (0.3 m or 1 ft to start with) is how far the ground steps from the pad edge to the existing ground. Cut and fill volumes leave out the embankment that side no longer has.
• Where a wall meets a sloped side, the slope wraps round the end of the wall; two walls meet in a mitre.
• Under the fields: the walls' length, exposed face (height × length), tallest and average height.

The plan draws each wall's outer face with short ticks across it and its height at both ends and at its tallest (on the retaining walls layer, which also goes into DXF and DWG). The 3D view shows the walls as solids (Show › Retaining walls), and GLB, OBJ and USD exports include them. Sections across the edge show the step.

Warnings (in Properties, and in the Problems panel): a wall higher than Warn above a wall height of (1.0 m or 3.3 ft to start with) "may need an engineered wall or a permit; check local rules", and, when you type the Steepest slope the soil stands, any side whose cut or fill slope is steeper than that. They are warnings: the grading still builds. Every change is one step for ⌘ZCtrl+Z.

Berms

Grade › Berm: a mound whose top is its Height above the mean ground under it, its sides graded out.

Swales

Grade › Swale, then click along the swale the way water runs and press ReturnEnter. Set its Depth, Bottom width (0 for a V) and Side slope. With no Fall, its bottom follows the ground, its depth below it, and never runs uphill; type a fall to give it a steady one from its start.

Spot elevations and contours

1. Grade › Grading area: click the outline of the area you want to shape.
2. Grade › Spot elevation: click inside the area. Type its elevation in Properties, or use the ▲ ▼ buttons.
3. Grade › Edit a contour: click a contour inside the area to take it as a line you can reshape.

Select a spot or a contour and drag it (or its points) on the plan: the surface follows when you let go, one undo step. Inside the area the ground is rebuilt from its edge (where it meets the existing ground), the spot elevations and the edited contours.

Cut and fill, live

Every grading object's Properties show its Cut and Fill and the whole site's, by the grid method Earthwork uses, as you change it. Problems (off the surface, an outline that crosses itself) are listed there.

Grading checks

In the Grading checks section on the left:

• Slope analysis colours the surface by gradient: up to the gentle limit, between, and steeper than the steep limit (5 % and 33.3 % to start: the usual 1:20 for accessible routes and 1:3 for mowing). The legend says how much of the area falls in each. The steep areas print on sheets too.
• Flow arrows and ponding draws which way water runs and rings every place it would pond, with its depth; the section says how many places, the deepest and how much water they hold.

The checks read the proposed surface when anything is graded, else the existing ground.