Siteworks, VCL Support and Android OS

Some of the latest controllers from Trimble have moved to the Android OS. In doing this the PRO support for Roads is lost in Siteworks and you need to start using VCL files to get a similar degree of Roading functionality.

Here is a quick summary of what I believe is supported in the latest version and below you can find a detailed doc sent to me by Trimble staff that covers how VCL is used / supported on Android and Windows Platforms.

  1. If you send a Surface TIN plus a HAL or multiple HALs then you will get the ability to pick the HAL in the field to provide Station and Offset and the Surface will be used for Elevation but you will not get a Section View in the field - only Plan and 3D

  2. If you make a Corridor Model in TBC and add the surface as a surface instruction and send the corridor to the field as a VCL you will get the Alignment for Station and Offset, The surface for Elevation and you will get the Cross Section View, the section will strip out extra nodes (on flat surfaces like pavement) and pick out the key elements (EOP, FL, TBC etc.) and give them to you as Nodes to stake, but they will have no names on the nodes

  3. If you create a corridor from instructions like Offset Slope etc then you will get the node names as well as the corridor and sections etc. (The best solution)

If you have one TIN and multiple HALs and want section view then you will need to create a Corridor for each HAL that has the same surface as a surface instruction - then you pick the appropriate design and you will get what you are looking for - it is more work than with the PRO file but it does work.

The VCL corridor does not pick up on Breakline names used to form the surface that is then sliced up in the corridor model - I have not tried this but I am pretty sure it will not work - and that is to add the 3D strings as Reference lines to the corridor and maybe they will show up as nodes you can select for Staking - I doubt that it is supported as it seems that they really only pick up on the surface “Layers” in the corridor, and not the nodes defined in the corridor.

Siteworks VCL Support Product Bulletin (1).pdf (938.6 KB)