AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2012 Essentials: Autodesk® Official Training Guide: Essential

Automating Field to Finish

The term field to finish refers to the process of transforming raw survey field data into a finished drawing representing the topography and surface features of the land. Before computers, the point data collected in the field was plotted on paper by hand, and draftspeople skillfully connected the dots and employed other methods to create the desired topographic map. The process was manual in the truest sense of the word. Next came the first CAD programs in which points could be plotted on a computer screen and the dots connected using primitive entities such as lines, arcs, polylines, and blocks. This is what many would now refer to as a “manual” process.

Topography can be thought of as 3D mapping: the 2D outlines ...