There's many different options for display, including Civil3d. Those pics were from sketchup, but just happened to be ones I had on my home computer. I've thrown in a few other examples from sketchup to give you some ideas. The first one shows how you can use transparency and colours - perhaps to show new pipework required, etc. The second one shows how a structure can be inserted into the topography and just add some flat planes to represent u/s and d/s watersurfaces.
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If you were intending to show internal pipework, ground contours (rather than say an draped aerial photo), different grading options, etc. and calculations on volumes, etc. then I'd do it in Civil3d. Sketchup was initially produced to mass architectual models and hence is good for quick representation of mass models (e.g. dam model, topography, water surface) but get more and more limiting when getting into the detail. For pseudo releastic renderings, programs such as Blender (or extension for sketchup) are often used. I mention these because you can download and try them out for free. If you have other autodesk software - explore that. I only use Revit, but others here have more experience with other software and may advise.
To create a water surface is probably the easiest part. In Civil3d just draw a big horizontal rectangle for the dam storage, set the elevation of the rectangle to be the same as your full supply level, then add this rectangle as breaklines to a new civil3d surface, this will create a 'smart' surface that can be used to compare to your ground surface for computation of dam volumes, etc. if needed. You can add boundaries (shoreline/dam wall) to the surface. Other options are to create a solid cube (coloured with a watery material) with the 3D tools, and place it in your model along with the 3D topography and dam model. Another option is simple draw a flat object representing the water surface and trim it where it intersects anything (i.e. the shoreline and dam wall). There are so many ways to do it that you really need to work out what your ideal outputs look like (what is the audience for these outputs) and then plan an approach.
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Regards
- Mick
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