3D Earthwork Tool, Asking for user input

Hi Todd,

You are making progress. I really like where it's heading. One thing I would ask is if you could vectorize the plans so you only have to grab the contour line once to place the elevations, instead of tracing. I'm also very interested in the underground utility option as one of my priorities with ZZ.

Hi Todd,

looks fantastic, it would be good to have an option for keeping working space separate for the likes drainage runs and reduce excavation quantities

Todd,

I'll skip the love comments and go right for the feedback so:

I'm a Agtek super user........(for dirt, not utilities)

1) PLEASE make the existing lines green by default and the proposed lines blue. I know Agtek thats the way, and believe Trimble does it too.

2) Need to auto-trace the contours and ability to quickly assign contours to elevation. Agtek has the F8 key that is my hero, that automatically increments the contors up or down so you can auto assign in a flash.

3) Do you understand the context of multiple surfaces? Agtek works on 4 primary surfaces, and its critical the volumes are calced from existing stripped vs proposed with subgrade adjustments.......... engineers always F it up and just give us volumes from existing vs proposed and try to do some monkey math to account for all the sections. (kind of like what you did with stripping)

MVP from a GC perspective I need:

1) Volumes broken out by any section/region/area we need.

2) Report that includes all area breakouts....heck just use agtek's report as a baseline as that thing is gold.

PS this is awesome!

Thanks Kyle, the line coloring is a good idea, I was going to change it to match the 3d contour lines. But I like idea to stick to an industry standard.

We will see what we can come up with on the other suggestions.

Steve Jobs yelled at me to post this here instead of the email I sent.

1. Be able to report the pipe broken out by burial depths (reference AGTEK UG).
2. We would need it broke down by: Pipe material then by burial depth of pipe.
3. Give the user the freedom to adjust the burial depth range.
4. This is where AGTEK FAILS BIG TIME!!!!!

                                                             i.     Show the user the pipe that is in a fill area versus a cut area.

1. Breaking that down one step further:
2. Show the user the pipe depth from the trench they need to excavate whether that is from the existing grade (fill area) or the design grade (cut area).
3. IE: A fill area of 5’ may show a pipe that is buried 10’ deep. However, this would imply that the pipe is 5’ below the existing grade with 5’ of fill on top of it. We would like to be able to see that as just 5’ of burial depth, because we may want to lay that pipe before the fill is placed. AGTEK cannot do this currently and it is a pain in the ass.
4. Focus on a way to take away the manual tracing of contours. This would immediately rule us out from using it.
5. Tracing is good for small areas, but not for civil contractors working on 30+ acre projects all the time. We’d be tracing contours for hours.
6. Are they working on being able to read a CAD file or can we vectorize the PDF to grab the lines from the PDF and mass just assign them as contours?
7. They need to consider a stripped site versus existing contours.
8. They need to consider subgrade cuts versus design contours finished grades.

Hi Spencer, that is awesome, I met with Chris from an excavation company in Georgia asking for the same information. I am working on it now, and it seems to be plausible, We will need a way of marrying it up to the earthwork tool.. it is a workin progress, but thank you for the input!

The rest of the group hit the major high points from my perspective. But somethings that i feel weren't covered.

Autotrace - All of your civils would love it, not sure if its feasible in web format. We get a ton of difference in plan quality that really CAD is second to none in my opinion on this topic.

Report Regions - being able to isolate cut and fill calculations as a subset of a larger region without applying sectional depths. This is very valuable when looking at any earthwork job.

Structural or Staged Excavations and Backfills - Footings/Structures/Abutments all things that need separate modeling typically with different scenarios shored, laid back at user defined slope to be able to calculate excavation and backfill requirements.

Some of these have been discussed in other posts above, and also in other questions/requests, but here are the highlights.

• Vectorizing and Autotrace
• I want to clarify that while it may be people using features like this in AGTEK or TBC who are asking for it, it would speed up everyone's 2D takeoffs.
• Importing a CADD file (when you are fortunate enough to get one).
• This has also been discussed in other posts. Being able to assign objects (Linear, counts, area, etc.) to different takeoffs/templates)
• Importing TIN surfaces
• AGTEK struggles with these on medium-sized (50+ acre) sites
• TBC does well here
• Importing Scanner files (Points)
• I've seen files in the GB realms
• Stitching images
• Also discussed elsewhere, but to bring all sheets together, especially when using a CADD file = epic.
• Align by rotating, and scaling all at the same time......
• Pipe by depth
• As @Spencer talks about, it would be big.
• I would also like to see something for other items by depth bracket, such as Geofoam. Different depths sometimes require different densities of foam.
• Regions/Sections/AOI - Agtek is good here, but TBC does it better
• You don't have to trace your section or area of interest (AOI), you "click" inside the object and it autofills (even if the line isn't "closed")
• Layers/Surfaces
• Existing
• Stripped
• Design
• Subgrade
• Ability to create additional
• Over-ex
• Backfill from Over-ex
• Strata
• Using the bore log info to determine rock, clay, unsuitable soils, etc.
• Label Find/Selection
• Elevation Find/Selection
• Raise/Lower selected objects
• Perimeters
• Auto "Shrink-Wrap" the boundary
• Entering Profile information
• Sometimes we only get a plan & profile, and we need to determine qty's from that
• Points
• Turn on/off the "Points"
• F8 to select/autotrace
• Snap circle sizing
• Snap to "point" within the snap "Circle."
• F9 to grab the elevation of annotation info and assign to a single point, a point on a line, or a line itself.
• Guide
• Something that "walks" you through the next steps via a checklist
• Hide all but
• Ability to select objects, layers, or labels, and have all that is displayed
• Hot key to turn it all back on.
• Export to Google Earth
• This is fun to show the project on the "actual" site.
• Cut/Fill map
• Regions, Sections, Perimeters
• Plansheets
• Cut/fill grid
• User defined
• Fixed intervals
• A combo of both would be great!
• Offsetting/Daylighting
• Need the ability to offset lines, and subsequently daylight them to "any" surface
• Vertical offset, Horizontal offset, and an option to set the slope of the offset
• Apply Template to line(s)
• C&G
• Sidewalk
• Trench

I doubt that I have them all, but those are the ones that are Top of Mind right now. Let me know what questions you have, and thanks for all you are doing!

Thank you all for the amazing input!,

I know as zzTakeoff evolves we will not doubt be able to take some of these great suggestions to task and I look forward to working on these when that time comes.

Until then we will all keep pushing pre-construction to the next level, where you all deserve to be!

Todd. Being a civil guy. I cannot stress enough the auto tracing Request plus you could implement it in other aspects of zz as well for linear or area takeoffs