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C3D 2012 Volumes help

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Message 1 of 16
TheJabberwocky
909 Views, 15 Replies

C3D 2012 Volumes help

I have been spending a short while doing a volume from some information I have been given. This included me extending surfaces to match into each other and then combining into a single surface until I now have 2 surfaces, an existing and a proposed.

 

What I have been asked to do now is show a number of volumes at certain elevations, basically, the lifts in the concrete pours. I know what these elevations are supposed to be, but I just do not know how to easily do this, without having to start creating new surfaces which match into what I already have. I'm sure there must be an easy way to do this and was wondering if someone could explain it to me.

 

I have an overall volume of roughly 12000 cube, but need to show this in 1.5m lifts. If it was vertical walls would have been no problem, but the sides of my concrete are sloped, as it my existing surface.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

15 REPLIES 15
Message 2 of 16
mnorton
in reply to: TheJabberwocky

A stage storage table would be my first choice but you may be limited on controlling the increments.  Simply enter STAGESTORAGE on the command line and provide the data needed in the dialog.  It's fairly intuitive.

 

Otherwise a simple planar surface compared to your target surface using VOLUMES from the surfaces > utilities menu might work.  The initial elevation of your flat surface should equal the low point of your target surface.  Create the volume entry with the volumes tool and then raise your flat surface the desired increment by simply editing the surface.  The volumes displayed in the volume tool can be recalculated with each edit with a single pick.

 

Not as pretty as a report but you can quickly get your numbers.


Mike Norton - The Civil Guy
Message 3 of 16
t_mckenzie
in reply to: mnorton

Mike,

 

I am having a similar issue. I need to determine the volume of cut greater than 5' in order to estimate costs for rock excavation.

 

I wish I had '12 in order to do the stage storage, but unfortunately I am working in '09. Do you know (remember) if there is a way to do this easily in 09?

 

Thanks,

-Tucker McKenzie

Message 4 of 16
mnorton
in reply to: t_mckenzie

Tucker,

 

The method I described using the surface utilities volume tool is actually pretty effective.  I've used it on some fairly complex flood plain analysis with good results which was not always the case in earlier releases of the stage storage extensions.  The extensions didn't always seem to agree on what actually constitutes a pond.

 

For that matter, the planar surface concept works well with volume surfaces too rather than using the volume tool.  Same steps. 


Mike Norton - The Civil Guy
Message 5 of 16
sboon
in reply to: t_mckenzie

The elevations in a TIN volume surface represent the heights or cut or fill between the two TIN surfaces being compared.  What you need to do is compare the TIN volume surface to a flat planar surface at an elevation of 5'  You will probably need to create an empty TIN surface and paste the volume surface into that, because you cannot use one volume surface as part of the definition for another one.

Steve
Expert Elite Alumnus
Message 6 of 16
mnorton
in reply to: t_mckenzie

Tucker,

 

Elevation analysis of a volume surface is another method that would provide the volumes you need.  Compare your existing surface versus your excavation.  Analyze the volume surface using two elevation ranges: minimum to -5 and -5 to maximum.  You can then generate a dynamic table that reflects volumes for both ranges.


Mike Norton - The Civil Guy
Message 7 of 16
t_mckenzie
in reply to: mnorton

Thanks Mike,

 

The elevation range table is exactly what I needed.

 

-Tucker McKenzie

Message 8 of 16
TheJabberwocky
in reply to: t_mckenzie

thanks for the assistance. I tried this out and they seemed to work ok, but then the client threw a doozy at me and asked for them between each construction joint which runs north-south through my massive pile of concrete. After discussing the best way to do this with another colleague we have decided that doing it by hand is probably the best alternative, after getting x-sections out of c3d.

Message 9 of 16
sboon
in reply to: TheJabberwocky

Bounded volumes may also be an option.  Basically you draw a polyline to define the area, and then the surface to surface volume is calculated only within that.

Steve
Expert Elite Alumnus
Message 10 of 16
TheJabberwocky
in reply to: sboon

As a follow on to my previous issue.

 

I have 2 surfaces which extend past each other. One is rougly bowl shaped running generally east-west, while the other is a slope from south-north.

 

What I would like to know is if there is an easy way to draw a line where the two surfaces meet.

 

I was assuming I might be able to use volumes to do this, as on one side there will be cut, and the other would be fill, but I would like something physical I could snap too. Any thoughts?

Message 11 of 16
neilyj666
in reply to: TheJabberwocky

Use mindistbetweensurfaces (I think this is the name not in front of c3d at present)

neilyj (No connection with Autodesk other than using the products in the real world)
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Message 12 of 16
mnorton
in reply to: TheJabberwocky

Using a volume surface the two surfaces being compared meet at elevation zero.  I create a surface style to display major contours only and set the contour increment to a number larger than the volume surface elevation range.  For example, if the maximum volume surface elevation equals +12 and the minimum volume surface elevation equals -14, I set the contour increment to 15.  Only the zero elevation contour will display showing the limits of cut and fill.


Mike Norton - The Civil Guy
Message 13 of 16

Sounds like you are calculating a filling curve. The elevation analysis won't work for that because it does the computations in depths, not elevations.

 

I wrote up one way to calculate a filling curve on my blog. You can read about it here: https://civil3dplus.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/filling-curve-using-volumes-dashboard/ 

Brian J. Hailey, P.E.



GEI Consultants
My Civil 3D Blog

Message 14 of 16
TheJabberwocky
in reply to: mnorton

Thankyou for your responses.

 

Sorry, but I didnt have to try the 3rd way.

 

I used the command MINIMUMDISTBETWEENSURFACES to create a line and then double checked it against the 0 contour in my volume and they matched perfectly.

Message 15 of 16

I was hoping to get more assistance on these surfaces. Boy its driving me crazy.

 

I'm a surveyor, not a civil engineer, so I dont normally deal with these kinds of things (the creation of, not use of). But I need to use the DTM to setout the face of the wall. I'm just having a slight issue with it further down. And since we are using roughly 16000 cubic meters of concrete I want to get it right.

 

Everything is in meters.

 

The eastern end of the wall has a grade of 0.5h:1v

 

The western end of the wall has a grade of 0.7h:1v

 

Theres a roughly 8m gap where it transitions.

 

My four points surrounding it are

 

E: -51.44

N: 111.664

RL: 128.281

 

E: -51.44

N: 91.664

RL: 168.281

 

E: -59.99

N: 111.568

RL: 136.429

 

E: -59.99

N: 911.568

RL: 165.00

 

When I try and create a surface I get either a dip or a hump in it where the triangle comes up, depnding on which direction the triangles run.

 

How can I smooth this out to create a "flat" surface across there so I can set it out properly on site.

Message 16 of 16
sboon
in reply to: TheJabberwocky

It's the nature of a TIN surface.  The twisted surface shape that you're trying to represent has to be interpolated by the triangles, and it seems that you're not providing enough detail to the surface for it to work as you would like.  I recreated your data but added a series of extra featurelines to improve the interpolation from one side to the other.  It's still not perfect, you can see the wiggles in my contours but hopefully it's enough for your purposes.

 

If you wanted to improve it further you could add a series of elevation points along each of the N-S feature lines so that the triangles aren't running all the way across the surface.

 

Clipboard01.png

Steve
Expert Elite Alumnus

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