Hello TBC’ers! Today we’re talking about how to leverage surface boundaries in Trimble Business Center to constrain the mesh to a given outer or inner boundary. Constraining your surfaces to known boundaries is crucial for maintaining better control over the accuracy of your volumetric calculations. If your design file overlaps an area of the generated surface that is interpolated rather than based on actual points, it can lead to inaccurate volume calculations. This is because interpolated data may not accurately represent the true surface conditions because the design surface may be compared to the estimated surface instead of the actual surface. This is an example of an interpolated surface area:
Therefore, by cutting out potentially bad data—such as incorrectly interpolated data from TBC's automated surface creation tools—you can prevent errors and ensure your calculations are based on the most accurate data. This ensures that when you compare your design surface to the estimated surface, you're working with the most accurate data possible. So let’s jump in!
To begin this workflow, open your TBC project containing all of your design, ground, utility, improvement, and other layers and follow these steps:
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Under the Takeoff tab in the TBC ribbon, click the "Categorize" or “Categorize Layers” button in the Layers group.
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This will open the Categorize Layers pane where you will assign your project layers to the different Takeoff categories. Here you will map layers from the "Unknown" section to the “Design” or “Original” categories so that TBC can automatically create design and original ground surfaces. Map your layers by selecting the check box next to each one and choosing the desired category under the “Reassign layer” drop down. Then click “Reassign.”
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To constrain the surface generation to a specific boundary, check the box next to the layer you want to use as a surface boundary and check the “Contains surface boundaries” box at the bottom of the Categorize Layers pane. A black box will appear next to the layer you select to indicate that this layer is being used as a surface boundary when building layers.
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Click the “Build Surfaces” button under the Takeoff tab in the TBC ribbon in the Takeoff group to build the surfaces. These surfaces should now be constrained to the specific boundary.
You’re all set! Maximize your TBC experience and ensure smooth workflows by utilizing learning & support material most aligned with your needs and personal preferences.
To download the latest version of TBC, you can head to https://geospatial.trimble.com/en/products/software/trimble-business-center/download
Complete free self-paced workflow-based courses with hands-on guided software experiences on Learn.Trimble: https://learn.trimble.com/pages/422/trimble-business-center-tbc