Creating the Animation PathStart in AutoCAD Civil 3D.Make sure that in AutoCAD Civil 3D, your model is georeferenced to the correct zone.First create two layers; one called FlightPath in a color other than white and another called FlightPathPts in a color other than white. Make the FlightPath current. Also, use the Command PTYPE since points will be drawn ( a necessary step later). Change the style to anything other than the first two shown and click OK.

Command: SPLINEDraw a spline, clockwise, around the hospital or your zone of interest but stay about 300 m away. Counter-clockwise is OK too but the setting may be opposite for the animation (i.e. angles may be – when the example is + and vice versa). The move is played in the reverse order of what you draw.

Hit <enter> when done. Turn off the GEOMAP or If the spline becomes invisible, hover over it and it will “blink”. Select it. Now we can edit its shape with SPLINEDIT.Use E for Edit vertex

Use M for Move

Note that the first point you clicked on to draw the spline is highlighted:

If you want to move this one up, the follow the steps below. If you want to instead move another one, use the Next option by typing in N for NextType in N <Enter> until the point you want to move is activated:

Then to move the point down, type in @0,0,-# <Enter> where # is actually a distance (in metres) that you want to move the camera downwards. Example: @0,0,-30 drops the camera downwards towards the ground by 30 m. To move the camera up 30 m use @0,0,30If a point has been moved, only that point moves; the ones after and before that point stay still, SO if you want to change the next

one too, type in N <Enter> and the use @0,0,-30 (or some other number) <Enter>.To stop the function, the letter X is used to eXit three times in a row ( X <Enter> X <Enter> X <Enter> )Now the whole spline will be moved upwards higher than the elevation of the highest building in the area which is about 260 m . We will use 400 m.Type in M for MOVE and then select the spline. Type in <Enter> to indicate no other objects will be chosen. Click the screen ANYWHERE to indicate a BASE POINT and then type in @0,0,400 <ENTER>

DRAWING the required POINTSMake the FlightPathPts the current layer.

Change the OSNAP setting to NEAREST only:

OK

Make sure the running Object Snap mode is on with F3

To create many points in sequence, first type in MULTIPLE as a command and the POINT as the command to repeat.

Click on the line near where you started and keep digitizing points at fairly regular intervals until you reach near the end of the spline; hit <ESCape> to stop.

Now the points have to exported to SHP or SDF format (for example). The SDF format will be used here since it creates one file and not several like a shape file.Use MAPEXPORT.Name the file FlightPath in folder than can be found later.

On the Selection tab, limit the selection to the FlightPathPts layer;

In the Feature Class tab set the Geometry to Point

You may want to save the AutoCAD drawing as FlightPath in case you have to go back and make modifications. Close AutoCAD.In Infraworks, activate the Storyboard:

Add a new storyboard:

Import a Camera Path

Find the FlightPath.sdf fileWait a few moments.

When appears:

changing the Expression to a positive # will move the whole camera path up higher and a minus number will move it lower.

And

-45 is OK for what was shown above but you may wan to try other values.

Set the above to 3 seconds. This is usually OK.

Wait a few moments.

Play the movie.Add a Title and Captions as shown above if you want. Save the entire video as shown above or:

If the results are as desired, save the video in a portable format.

The Windows Media Video works well.