TerrafoldGarden: terrain and grading
A garden starts with the ground. Terrafold builds terrain as a mesh of triangles in a group, lets you shape it by hand, and grades level or sloped areas into it while it measures the soil you dig out (cut) and bring in (fill).
You find these tools on the Terrain ribbon tab, and in the Draw ▸ Sandbox, Tools ▸ Sandbox and Tools ▸ Garden menus. When you select a terrain, the green Terrain tools context tab appears.
Create terrain
- Draw ▸ Sandbox ▸ From Scratch makes a flat grid of terrain. Click a corner, then set the width and depth. Type the grid spacing first to change it.
- Draw ▸ Sandbox ▸ From Contours stretches a terrain surface over contour lines. Draw or import the contour lines at their heights, select them, then run the command.
Both create a terrain group. The garden tools also accept any other group of faces that forms a surface you could walk on, such as imported terrain.
Shape terrain with the Sandbox tools
Open the terrain group (double-click it) before you use these tools.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tools ▸ Sandbox ▸ Smoove | click a point and move up or down to raise or lower the ground smoothly around it; type the radius first to change the area |
| Tools ▸ Sandbox ▸ Stamp | press a shape into the ground: click a group with a flat base above the terrain, then the terrain, then move to set the height of the pad |
| Tools ▸ Sandbox ▸ Drape | project edges onto the terrain: select edges above it (a path outline, for example), then click the terrain |
| Tools ▸ Sandbox ▸ Add Detail | click a triangle to split it, or select an area to refine it all at once |
| Tools ▸ Sandbox ▸ Flip Edge | click the diagonal between two triangles to turn it the other way |
Sculpt the terrain
The sculpting brushes paint changes onto the ground. Press and drag over the terrain; when you release, the stroke is applied as one step you can undo. A click without dragging makes a single dab. Type radius,strength to change the brush.
| Tool | What it does | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Sculpt ▸ Raise / Lower | raises the ground under the brush; a negative strength (such as -200mm) lowers it | a height (200 mm by default) |
| Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Sculpt ▸ Level | flattens the ground to the height under the first point, or to a height you type | 0 to 1 |
| Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Sculpt ▸ Smooth | evens out bumps | 0 to 1 |
| Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Sculpt ▸ Relief | adds natural-looking unevenness | a height (300 mm by default) |
| Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Sculpt ▸ Relief in Area | adds relief inside an outline: click its corners and close it | a height |
The brush fades out smoothly towards its edge. Where the terrain is too coarse for the brush, Terrafold refines the triangles under it first, so the shape of the stroke shows. After each stroke, the status bar shows the cut and fill volumes. They are also added to the earthworks in the quantity report.
Grade a slope
Tools ▸ Garden ▸ Grade Terrain shapes a pad: a flat or evenly sloped area such as the base for a patio, a lawn or a shed.
- Before you start, type the batter if you want something other than the default, for example
1:2. The batter is how steeply the ground slopes back from the pad's edge to the existing ground (1 up for every 2 across). - Click the corners of the pad. Close the outline by clicking the first point again, double-clicking, or pressing Enter.
- Move up or down to set the pad's height, and click. Type
0.3mto raise it by an exact amount, or0.3m,2%to raise it and slope it by 2 percent.
Backspace removes the last point and Escape starts over.
Inside the pad, the ground takes the pad's surface. Outside, the ground slopes back at the batter until it meets the existing ground again. Ground that is already within reach of the batter is not changed. The pad's outline is drawn as hard edges, and the regraded part joins the untouched terrain seamlessly.
Cut and fill
Every grading operation records how much soil is removed (cut) and added (fill). These volumes are calculated exactly from the terrain before and after the change, not estimated by sampling. Each grading is stored with the terrain, and the quantity report adds them up, together with the net difference.
Which terrain is used
The garden tools work on the terrain you have open. If no terrain is open, they use the terrain group found straight below the outline you draw. Paths, lawns and other garden elements that already lie on the terrain are looked through, so you can draw a path over a lawn.
Limits
- A pad must lie over the terrain. A pad that crosses the terrain's edge is refused.
- Around a pad's outer corners, the batter is approximated with mitred corners rather than a perfect cone. The volumes are exact for the terrain that results.