Profile from Surface 

The tool creates a profle "linestring".  It gets the horizontal vertices from the horizontal  element and creates vertical vertices from the controls in the top group of the dialog.

The Profile from Surface dialog has three important Modes:

Point Selection - Where do you want controlling vertical elevations?

• All - every time a terrain triangle is crossed, a vertex is added to the profile: you get a profile that mirrors the terrain
• Vertices - elevations are computed only at the horizontal vertices: good for ditches with single grades between bends
• Ends - the terrain is read only at the two horizontal end points: good for a ditch with a single grade over the entire length
• Centroid - the centroid is found, the surface elevation read at that point, the profile is assigned that constant elevation

Profile Adjustment: do you want the line to be a constant elevation at the highest or lowest found elevation?

• None - the computed vertex elevations are not adjusted.
• Maximum - the highest found elevation is assigned to all vertices. easy to get a level building pad NOT in cut.
• Minimum - the lowest found elevation is assigned to all vertices.

Vertical Offsets: this value is added to the vertices values calculated by the above settings.

 The settings shown is good for a building pad.  It will place a level profile 1 foot above the highest ground elevation found at the corners of a horizontal shape.