How can I define a plane in ArcMap?

MiguelSilva3 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 21:38:48 GMT

Hello;

Can anyone tell me how can I create a reference plane that is not necessarily parallel to the surface?

I have an irregular terrain in which I need to build a steel structure.

This structure will consist of a 3mt x 3mt grid of steel columns (~600); all columns have the same length.

There is a min and max distance from the ground that applies to all columns. The top of all columns must be within the same plane.

The plane defined by the top of all columns has a tolerance to N-S slope (Max 7%)

Can anyone suggest how should I tackle this problem using ArcMap and ArcScene? I thought about the following steps:

Use contours to create DEM
Overlay columns grid onto the DEM
Define two planes: one for min elevation above grade and another for max
Calculate distances from locations for each column to min elevation and to max elevation
Move the planes within the +/- 7% slope tolerance in order to try to find the larges number of columns that would meet this requirement
Find a solution for the columns that will not meet

Does this make any sense??

Thanks in advance for your help

Miguel

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