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1. Material List

A Civil 3D Material List is a set of cross-sectional areas.  Each cross-sectional area represents a type of Material.

Material Lists are defined under Sample line group properties.  If a Sample line group is deleted, its Material Lists will be erased.

A Material lists contains:

• (1) Material(s) and Material items

Or

• (2) Material(s), Subcriteria(s) and Material items

Material items: such as some TIN surfaces or subassembly shapes are used directly to define a Material.

Subcriteria: is an intermediate object, which is used to calculate complicated area formed by 3 or more surfaces;  or to combine areas from different groups of surfaces into one Material. If a material has 2 or more subcriteria, Material area is equal sum of all Subcriteria’s area values.

Hint 1: If you want to add more than one Material Lists for a Sample line group, you should click the “Import another criteria”

Hint 2: Each time user open then close the Sample line group properties dialog, Material Lists are automatically calculated/updated.   It’s not necessary to call an additional _ComputeMaterials command

2. Quantity takeoff Criteria

A Quantity takeoff Criteria is a "predefined" Material List  or  a template for Material List definition.  A Quantity Takeoff  Criteria is very similar to Material List, except the surface names, or shape codes in Quantity Takeoff  Criteria are pseudo values.  They need updating to match real surface names or shape codes when becoming a Material List.

3. Understanding Above, Below condition of a surface

We should understand the word "Above" or "Below" this way: They describe position of the AREA relative to the surface

For more information, please refer to the next article: P05: Section view Quantity Tables