Good day all,
I have been experimenting with exporting design models from TBC to use on our 3D laser screed. I have successfully gotten them into the Somero ‘data collector’ with useable control points, but am going to have to do some work making the surfaces more manageable for the potato hardware that runs the 3D system. Was planning on playing around with break lines and surface triangulation settings to see if I could get a model that doesn’t bring the tablet to its knees.
Has anyone tried running the 3D system on local grid site coordinates/elevation? When you make an infield model with the Somero program it makes its first control point at 0,0,0 and bases everything off of that. It even makes negative points and elevations if you aren’t careful.
I’m interested if anyone in the community has any experience with this workflow, any thoughts would be appreciated.
My long term goal is to have a system where all of the machine control on our jobs is done (more or less) off the same model. Currently that is CAT Grade control, Somero laser screed, and Topcon stringless curbing, and dude with a rover.
You are outputting a NOD file from TBC right?
That is the Somero format
Alan
Sheet 100 to the end of the manual explain everything you need to know. All these can be found in the help folder C drive>Users>Public>Software on your tablet.
There were some glitches and bugs that were fixed in several of the version 16 releases that would always be caused by exporting from the computer so you have to watch how you create your surface or mesh because the 3d profiler software would create duplicate points so we just moved forward with the surveyor import inside your pour and then shoot the forms or whatever else your matching on the outside. Example of this if you have a linestring for the perimeter and then draw a breakline to a grade break in the pour the 3d profiler software would create two points (or Nodes) at that location and the software would create its own mesh rather than duplicating exactly what you did on the computer and you would get spots where triangulation would cross causing issues that do not exist in Business Center, when they exceed 3/8" I believe, then it would not let you continue in my experience.
Somero recommends doing separate jobs if the pour exceeds 150,000sf.
If you export out of Business Center you can try typing in your setup points to in the NOD by opening it up in notepad if you know what you’re doing otherwise typing them in the software is what I have always done, if you have more than two control points you have to edit them to s nodes so you can use them (tools>edit> check box convert to s node) to use for setups. As long as your model is clean your guys can always delete all surface and recreate the mesh as well.
I have done the same with XML import and just added the control points in the 3d profiler software.
The export out of Siteworks was metric only, I have not tried in version 1.7 to see if that has changed.
You can put the 3D Profiler software on your computer and eliminate all issues of incompatibility between software’s. Desktop software was included our purchase but can also be purchased. This is the route I have taken and as long as you understand the 3D profiler software you can make any way work and use within any coordinate system you would like.
Several things will cause issues that you will never see in your grading equipment, also the upgrade from the Kenai Tablet to the T100 made a performance difference for us.
780301104-04 Business Center Export to Somero nod.pdf (1.7 MB)
780301149-01 Siteworks Somero NOD Export Instructions.pdf (1.6 MB)
somero_manual_0.pdf (9.1 MB)
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Sorry for the late reply I have been in the field since I posted this
Thank you very much, that’s everything I was looking for. I will have to get my 3d profiler updated I think. I already noticed the duplicate nodes doing goofy stuff with the mesh, I like that solution of just in-fielding the permitter instead of trying to delete the other nodes.
I did not know that .NOD files were just a text file. That is 100% what I will be doing instead of suffering trying to input numbers on the tablet, which is how I did the control points during my experimenting. I will have to see if we have the desktop version of the profiler as well so I don’t have to check the file on the tablet.
We have a T100, and it still is painfully slow for my tastes. I don’t even want to think about how the Kenai handled it.
Again, thank you much! That makes me feel a lot more comfortable using TBC for the model