March 26, 2026 (Updated April 19, 2026)Michael Kinnear/4 min read

Creating a Feature Line for a Retaining Wall in AutoCAD

Retaining Wall Feature Line

Draw Polyline

Trace the top of wall in plan view.

Convert to Feature Line

Modify > Feature Lines > Create Feature Lines from Objects.

Set Elevations

Top of wall elevation at each PVI.

Create Bottom Feature Line

Offset and lower elevations for bottom of wall.

Master Civil 3D at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Civil 3D Certification Course teaches surfaces, alignments, profiles, and corridor modeling.

This lesson is a preview from our Civil 3D Certification Course Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in this course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.

This AutoCAD tutorial walks through creating a feature line for a retaining wall in autocad, covering essential tools and techniques for your projects.

So in this video, we're going to go ahead and create another feature line based on an object. This time though, I'm going to be creating a polyline that is going to approximate a retaining wall that we're going to be building for this project.

So I'm going to go ahead and do PL again. I know that these sites, since they're level and this is kind of sloping off, that I'm going to have to build a retaining wall or do some Grading into this area for these sites, because I want them to have a view over to this side of our development. I don't want to cause to have any additional Grading on here.

So I'm going to be building a retaining wall. So this retaining wall is going to start around here, which is what our Pad elevation is. So I'm going to start by picking in this corner of this Parcel.

And then the retaining wall is going to run along the back of the parcels until we get to this corner here. So I'm going to go ahead and select here, and then I am going to pick the endpoint of that line. I'm going to switch to arc.

I'm going to pick this point here. I'm going to switch back to line. I'm going to pick this point here.

Now, because this curve is not tangent to this line, if I switch to arc, it doesn't really matter. So I'm going to go ahead and go to line. I'm going to click to this endpoint here.

And then I know that I want this retaining wall to come back up to somewhere in this area over here. So I'm going to go ahead and shift right click. I'm going to select nearest, and I'm going to pick a point somewhere over here.

I'm going to hit space to get out of this command. I'm going to grab this polyline. I'm going to do a double CTRL to get to arc.

I'm going to shift right click, and I'm going to choose Midpoint. Since I'm doing the entire arc, I can make sure that I hit the Midpoint of that arc. And then I am now good with having this polyline on the Property boundary.

Now, if I wanted this retaining wall to be fully on these sites, or if I wanted to be fully off, then I would offset it either direction by whatever distance I want it to be. Since this is a theoretical Site, and not something that's actually going to get built, I'm fine with it being exactly on the Parcel boundary. So I'm going to go ahead and leave it as is.

And we're going to convert this into a feature line. So I'm going to go ahead and jump up to Feature Line, drop down, select Create Feature Lines from Objects. I'm going to select this polyline, and I'm going to go ahead and hit ENTER.

Now from here, I'm going to go ahead and leave it as Dev Branch for the Site. I am going to change the name. I'm going to change it to Rear Ret Wall.

I'm going to go ahead and leave it as style Grading Design. I'm going to leave it as I am going to erase existing entities. And this time I'm not going to assign elevations.

I'm going to go ahead and click OK. And now that we've created this feature line, we're going to save the drawing and I'll meet you in the next video where we'll talk about editing feature lines.