3d chart question

[themastertaylor]

I work for a construction company and have stumbled across half a way
to perform a task faster! basically when building roads we're given the
levels (height in relation to a fixed point) for the road in cross
sections at 10 metre intervals along its length. we also have the
levels for the ground "as is" i.e. before construction - as such
sometimes the ground needs to be dug out to reach the proposed level
and other times filled in or built up to the level.

i had the levels in a worksheet and thought that if i produce an xy
scatter graph of the road levels and ground levels the chart would
basically be a cross section view of where the road will be and where
the ground is now. sure enough this worked fine, the problem is that
we are given the figures at various points along the length of the road
so in effect on my current project i have 9 cross section charts.

what i want to do is basically make the 9 cross sections into a 3d
picture of the road by linking them together. Basically with the
intention of being able to get a visual picture of the amount of build
up or cut that is needed and ideally to automatically calculate the
volume.

any ideas if this is even possible?!

 

[David Biddulph]

You can get a 3D picture with a surface chart, and you can change many of
the parameters to get the sort of view you want.

 

[themastertaylor]

The surface chart gives the effect i'm after but only for 1 cross
ssection. If you imagine the a chart with 3 axis ideally i want the x
axis to show the points across the width of the road and the y to show
the level at that point. then on this would be the 2 series, existing
ground level and proposed groundlevel, making it easy to see the
difference. the main effect i'm after is to have the z axis say 10
different points on it with each one displaying a cross section, i.e.
to show the cross sections in the order they apear on the road. then
one step further if possible i'd like the cross sections to link and
produce a 3d image of the whole road rather than a cross section
through it