Civil 3D Volumes dashboard, sort columns alphabetically?

[wilsonm2000]

Hi

Is there a way I can sort the columns in the dashboard alphabetically?  Normally you just click the title in these windows to toggle the way it sorts it, but you cannot do that with this tool.  Its making my cut/fill report look messy, as the surface volumes are not in any order.

Thanks

MArtin

[neilyj666]

@FrankHuang For me it is more important to be able to sort the boundaries under a volume surface and not just by pick order as additional boundaries may be required that split an existing boundary and I typically want to rename the boundaries to reflect, for example, the earthworks phasing.

In actual fact, I find the volumes dashboard quite clunky in its current form and I prefer to divide my project up using Parcels/Plots and run the parcel volume report in the toolbox. However the output from this report is painful to use for anything practical so I have had to write some VBA code in Excel to process the outputs into something more usable.

[tomas_hultman]

@FrankHuang 

The sorting function for me is the number one priority.

After that comes functionality for dynamic linking of surfaces and what they represent.

If you could define prerequisites for volume surfaces, such that they automatically subtract certain volumes and present the excavation volume of a certain material (morraine, clay and so on).

See the attatched picture. To define the volumes of each layer independently, would be terrific.

I know this can be done with corridors/sections and so on, but it is not practical at all for residential, industrial establishments.

Sections are mostly suited for longer streches of roads.

Best regards, Tomas

[neilyj666]

@tomas_hultman I totally agree that there needs to be a better workflow for this use case as corridors/sections aren't always appropriate and in my experience have two be set up in two mutually perpendicular orientations to get a better assessment (and typically with a very close section spacing)

[wes.sheffer]

I'd also like to see more sophistication in computing volumes when comparing more than two surfaces. 

In particular, I've had to follow some pretty inelegant workflows to compute cut and fill below a floodplain surface (or elevation) while discarding cut and fill that occurs above the floodplain surface.  It would be nice to have a built-in way to use a third surface as a vertical boundary on the computation.

[jcushing]

Getting the columns to stay in the order of pick sequence would be a good first step.

But it would also be useful if we had the ability to sort when necessary.

[vaughan.giles7AGEV]

Well, it's been 12 years now, so I don't think Autodesk are in any rush to go over the original code (they probably don't know how to edit the code) 😉

[neilyj666]

There are many aspects in the volumes computation area that Civil 3D is way behind on....we can't even report the cut area and fill area without jumping through a load of analysis and table creation palaver 

[autoMick]

My priority is alphanumeric sorting. Pick order would be good too, but not as flexible as the ability to rename/sort as required.

[FrankHuang]

@autoMick @wilsonm2000 @neilyj666 @tomas_hultman I am looking for a sample drawing for testing purpose. 

Is there a drawing can be shared with me? 

Thanks,

Frank Huang

Autodesk Civil 3D Product Owner

[ebu6N7Y5]

Why not just make a drawing of your own with multiple surfaces and work from there? It won't make a difference.

[neilyj666]

@FrankHuang I try and avoid the Volumes Dashboard and use the Parcel/Plot Reports as it is more consistent although a bit more to manage due to parcels/plots being created

[autoMick]

Here's a real simple one.

Try and change the order of the various volumes.

Cheers

Mick