This question has come up a few times recently so here are basic details of how to create shaded surface areas in Trimble Earthworks machine control systems.
The Earthworks system uses a DSZ design file that comprises the SVD / SVL files where SVD is the Surface and SVL is the linework information. For the shaded area workflows in plan view of Earthworks, the shaded areas have to be defined as polygons with shaded fills. I am told that a transparency of 80% and setting the polygon line color to black works well in the machines.
So how do you automate this?
Currently if you use the Takeoff work processes to assign Site Improvement areas, you can run the Validate Site Improvement Areas command to create the filled polygons for each of your Site Improvement Areas on a single layer in the VCE project. If you then select those polygon areas as part of the linework selected for export to the machine files, then the shaded polygons will show up on the machine control box when using Trimble Earthworks. Note that the polygons are all 2D i.e. have no elevation, so they will work well for the machine plan view, but not so well in the machine 3D views.
If you are not using the Takeoff workflows to assign site improvements, then you can draw filled polygons on one or more layers that cover the areas that you want filled polygons in the machine files. You can use the Append Tracked command to rapidly trace parts of your design linework to create the polygon areas while using the Create Polygon command.
I am told that linestrings that are filled do not work on the Earthworks System, the lines have to be filled polygons.
Alan