Overview
Smoothing is the balanced setting of the Grading dialog in PVX.AI. It reshapes the site to your slope targets as one continuous buildable surface with the least cut and fill, so cut and fill volumes stay equal and no soil has to be imported or exported.
Prerequisites
A terrain surface must be loaded, and a PV area or other closed boundary must exist to grade within.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Open the Grading dialog
Click the Civil Analysis group button on the PVX.AI ribbon to open the Civil sub-tab, then click Grading on the Earthworks panel. Opening the Earthworks panel also thaws the terrain layers for editing.
2. Select the grading area
Click Select Area and pick the grading boundary.
3. Enter slope targets
Set the maximum slopes for the North-South and East-West directions, then choose the Slope Transition Mode, either Soft or Hard.
4. Balance cut and fill
Expand the Cut/Fill Balance section and set Method to Cut/Fill Ratio. Leave the slider centered at 0 for the classic smoothing result. A live cut/fill diagram shows the effect as you move it.
5. Enable options and build
Enable Keep Original Terrain to preserve the original surface, Show Cut/Fill Map for color-coded cut and fill per mesh triangle, and Show Slope Analyzer to update the slope table. Click Build. PVX.AI reports the total cut and fill volumes.
Tips & Recommendations
- The separate Leveling menu is retired. Smoothing and biased grading are now two methods inside the same Grading dialog.
- A centered slider minimizes imported and exported soil. Drag toward more fill or more cut only when the site demands it.
- Keep Original Terrain writes the untouched surface to its own layer, so you can toggle layers to compare before and after.
- Set the slope targets from the limits of the rack type you plan to place.