Develop a section from Contour Lines

To watch the video got to ‘Develop a section from 'Contour Lines’

So now that we know what Contour Lines are how can we use them to get an accurate picture of the site that we are working on.

The first thing that you need to do is select the area of the site that you want to create a section of and draw a line through that area on the Site Plan .

Then below the Site Plan draw a Base Line, this line should be given the R.L. of the lowest point on your site.

Now wherever the first line you drew intersects with a Contour Line develop a line straight down the page to the Base Line.

For the Vertical axis of your section you will need to draw in Horizontal lines to represent the Contour Lines R.L.s on the Plan.

So now we need to draw in the slope of the ground. The line that I have drawn on the site plan starts approximately halfway between the 11.428 and the 11.928 Contour Line so on the Section we can start half way between the 11.428 and the 11.928 horizontal lines.

Now all you need to do is connect the intersecting lines on the Section View where the vertical line crosses the horizontal line with the corresponding R.L. on the Site Plan.

For the last point you will again have to estimate where it will end.

What you end up with is a section view of what your block of land looks like along the line that you selected at the start.

This is particularly handy if if you need to calculate the amount of excavation along a trench or pipe line.