Couple of questions to the community

1

Please post responses to the questions here - interested in gauging your responses in relation to some work that we are doing currently. Any / All feedback welcome.

  1. What settings do you use for Display in Plan or Display in 3D View for different types of surfaces i.e. Wireframe, Shading Method, Color, Slope Arrows etc. - i.e. if you could pick a set of defaults what would they be? How would they vary from Surface Type to Surface Type?

  2. What Color do you use for

Existing / Original Surface
Finished Design Surface
Subgrade Surfaces
Overex Surfaces
Work In Progress Surfaces
As Built Surfaces
Topsoil Strip Surfaces
Demolition Surfaces

  1. Out of the Surface Classifications do you use any of the following ever

Mass Earthwork Prepped
Mass Earthwork Finished
Stockpile
Depression

I can see daily use of Original, Design, Work In Progress, As Built, Unclassified, Stockpile, Strata, Difference Model - would you agree that the others are rarely if ever used. If you do use them, when do you use them?

  1. When you add Dates and Times to a Surface Model, what is truly necessary in the Time Field - Nearest Hour or Nearest Minute or Nearest Second - my gut tells me that 10:00am would be close enough, we could go to 10:25am but I don’t think Seconds is necessary - is that fair?

  2. If you could Group Surfaces - what Groups would you want as defaults in every project. What variations could you see yourself using?

  3. If you could decide by default that surfaces would be Rebuild By User vs Auto - when would you use Auto vs when would you use By User - how would you choose to set that up?

  4. If Quick Contours could be built automatically as a part of Surface Creation, what defaults would you use for Major / Minor contours, how would you organize the layers that created for each set of Quick Contours (naming of layers, Grouping of Layers, bearing in mind that you will likely be creating many sets of contours for many surfaces so they cannot all end up on the same layer. What surfaces that you create would you want Quick Contours created for as an automatic function. Also remember that Contours get rebuilt each time you rebuild a surface, if your surfaces is set to Rebuild Auto, that will slow you down etc.

2

  1. Plan View - Everything Yes except for Shading
    3D View - Backfaces, Wireframe, Breaklines, Slope Arrows, Shadows = Yes;
    Shading By Elevation
    Only variation is for pavement/parking lot surfaces to be shade by slope range and set that at 0 to 0.5% to identify flat areas for drainage

  2. Existing - Browns
    Finish - Greens
    Subgrade - Oranges
    Overex - Reds
    Work in Progess - Greys
    As Built/Topos - Purples
    Topsoil Strip - Yellows
    Demolition - Not Used
    Structures - Blues

  3. Do not use surface classifications - accept default

  4. Do not use dates/times - accept default

  5. Groups: Original Ground, Finish Grade, Subgrade, Underground, Structures, Topo, As-Built

  6. Default is Auto and change when reload becomes frustrating. Typically the surface that is a combination of several corridors is set to Rebuild by User.

  7. Do not typically generate contours. Usually only done when trying to analyze topo surveys or pavement drainage. Usually create a seperate layer for each surface that needs contours (with the surface name in the layer name)

3

Thanks for the feedback Shaun - appreciate that

Alan

4

  1. Plan View – Wireframe with slope arrows for Finish Grade for sure. It would be ideal if the automatically generated takeoff surfaces showed up in 2d view by default.

    3D View – Wireframe, Slope Arrows, Shade by Elevation for Finish Grade.
    Shade by Surface Color for existing.

  2. What Color do you use for

    Existing / Original Surface – Dark Green
    Finished Design Surface - Green
    Subgrade Surfaces - Yellow
    Overex Surfaces – Cyan

  3. Beyond the takeoff surface automatic categorization, we typically leave surfaces unclassified and focus on giving them meaningful names, then analyze very specifically.

  4. Nearest Minute is a big thumbs up

  5. Surface Groups
    Cut-Fill
    Existing
    Finish Grade
    Subgrade

  6. I say Auto Rebuild is the default, except when a surface meets a certain performance threshold (number of triangles?), a dialog box pops up asking if you want to set it to By User or leave Auto. My favorite is when you run a volume involving a huge point cloud surface and it creates an Isopach in the background, then you go to make a slight change somewhere and you go get a coffee while you wait for the Isopach to automatically rebuild unintentionally. Maybe a dialog should pop up ANY time the system wants to rebuild a surface over a certain performance threshold?

  7. Quick Contours – 5’ Major, 1’ Minor – I’m picturing an updated Create Surface command with a choice of whether to create quick contours or not, then a pre-filled but editable layer name field that by default says “[Layer Name] Quick Contours”, then click on the correct layer group in a list.

5
  1. I have used, or do use, most of these settings but predominantly 3D wireframe in both plan and 3D views. Slope arrows I use to check surfaces that I have had to design (most often I am provided with design surfaces). I almost never use shade by elevation in 3D view instead I choose by surface color. Just the ability to pick persistent defaults would be a fantastic feature. The ability to have the Isopach surface turned off by default and NOT in the Choose Surfaces list for cutting sections… The ability to have the ‘live’ plan view surface auto-selected for the surface trimming feature would also be nice.
  2. EG/OG: Olive Green
    Stripping: Lime Green
    Subgrade: Red
    Overex: white
    As-Builts: various
    Finished surfaces: usually a shade of blue, but not too bright.
  3. Rarely use classifications because I tend to use colors but see a use for them.
  4. Never use Date and Time stamps as most work we do is not that dynamic. Our reporting is generally by date, not hours.
  5. I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO GROUP SURFACES… Freestyle grouping would work best for me (similar to, dare I say it) the Layer Manager in TBC. This past season I had hundreds of surfaces to deal with and had to come up with naming conventions based on the area of the project they were in just to be able to find them in the list.
  6. I usually use the default auto for rebuilding unless the surface data is large enough to make that too slow.
  7. Truthfully, I rarely use contours for anything. Not that I never do, but so infrequently I wouldn’t be the one to ask. If I have to ‘fix’ designs and return them to the engineer (small ‘e’ engineers as opposed to good ones LOL) then I use contours to make them look pretty. They tend not to understand TIN models as is.
    Happy New Year Alan.
    Marshall
6

Thanks Marshall for your feedback

We are real close on most fronts - I figured that display controls would be quite varies and need to be user defined, we plan to provide defaults as a start point that can be easily modified. We are creating Styles and you can have as many styles as you want for each type of surface - so if you have some specific settings types that you want while you are editing a ssurface you can use one style and then when ready to Plot or use for viewing you can switch to another style easily.

Our defaults for Groups and Styles are going to be based on the Classificaton Types ie Original / Existing, Design/Propsed, AsBuilt, Work In progress, Trench, Corridor, etc. so that the Classification, Style and Group are basically the same for the default classifications, however you can also create your own Groups and Styles or modify the Defaults.

Groups is going to put all surfaces of a specified classification together automatically, you can override it and move surfaces between groups as needed. You can have as many groups as needed / wanted. Groups can be named as you want them.

Contours will be an optional feature of a Surface Style - they can be auto generated if needed for any surface that takes that style.

I think we are very close to what you guys wanted here - keep an eye out in the next few weeks!

Alan

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  1. Plan View Surface: wireframe, vertices, breaklines, and drapelines are almost always on. Shading I use rarely in plan view. Slope arrows I turn on and off as needed…would be awesome to have a quick switch for that.
    In 3D view backfaces, wireframe, breaklines, and shadows always on, and shading is usually by elevation.
    Rebuild method is mostly set to Auto, I do use “Show Empty” a fair bit, but I never ever ever use “By User.” That feels far too dangerous to me. I am too worried I will make a change to a surface and send it to the field and have forgotten to rebuild it. I also wish there was a quick flip button to switch the rebuild method. I keep large surfaces as Show Empty to save space and to save rebuild time if I am making changes but I always seem to waste a few seconds trying to find rebuild method in the properties pane.

  2. Surface colors I use are:
    Original Ground - Medium Green
    Alternate original ground from a 2nd source - green
    Stripping/Demo - red
    Finish grade - Cyan
    Subgrade - Blue
    Overex/undercuts - Orange
    Structural excavation - Red
    Trench Excavations - White
    Work In Progress (WIP) - Brown
    Asbuilts - White
    Top of Subbase Gravel - Magenta
    Surcharge embankments - Yellow (These are becoming very common)
    Top of Load Transfer Platforms - Magenta (also getting very common)

  3. I use mass earthwork prepped and mass earthwork finished all the time. Mass earthwork prepped is original ground surface with topsoil stripped, existing features demolished, undercuts removed, etc. Mass earthwork finished is Subgrade surface. I hardly ever use Stockpile or Depression. I have stockpile and depression surfaces but I just leave them Unclassified…maybe I should classify them as such?

  4. Agree

  5. I was hoping this is what your questions were leading up to!! Also would love to be able to nested surface groups.
    DOT/Engineer Supplied Surfaces
    Original Ground
    Proposed
    Surfaces Created by me (I use my initials)
    Original Ground
    Proposed
    Finished Grade
    Subgrade
    Work In Progress
    Asbuilt
    Phase 1
    Phase 2, etc.
    Structural Excavations
    Unused (for things like big flat planes created for using a surface tie while building weird surface features)
    Superceded (for old surfaces prior to revisions)

  6. I use Auto rebuild by default. I never use By User and I wish that wasn’t even an option. I find it far too dangerous to have possibly made a revision to a surface member and send it to the field thinking the surface was updated. I change surfaces to Show Empty frequently when they are large for two reasons: 1. saves hard drive space and also does seem to reduce load time 2. When the surface gets large enough for the rebuild to take more than a second or two it gets very cumbersome to be making a lot of changes either to the surface members directly or to template instructions in a corridor.
    Completely agree with other user that the Isopach needing to rebuild can be a big unforeseen time suck.

  7. Interesting question, my gut reaction is I wouldn’t use that feature very often. If I did I would want the contours to be on a layer with the surface name " - Contours" and I would want 1 foot minor contours in grey and 5 foot index contours in white with thicker lineweight. Or 0.5 foot contours in Cyan and 2 foot index contours in Blue with thicker lineweight. Ideally this feature would somehow be nested under the surface itself rather than on a layer in a layer group.

Cheers.