Trimble Business Center

Just a small improvement for a future TBC version, is it possible to resize the columns in the Layer Manager window - in particular the Layer Name column?  Some of my layer names are too long and are cut off the right hand side.  At present I can only resize all of the columns together but enlarging the whole window.

Also, is there a preferred discussion group or list for TBC improvements or suggestions such as this?  I'm still finding my way around.

Cheers

Ben

It would also be nice if each layer had a notes field so I can write a brief description of what I'm doing on or with that layer.  Would be very useful on projects spanning many years.

#newfeature

Hi Wayne,

Having a notes field for layers to keep track of what they contain for lengthy projects would be a nice feature. Are the notes something you would like to export, or would they only be for keeping track of layer contents long term?

Cheers, 

Matt

Matt,  The primary benefit would be just to have them to view somewhere in TBC as reminders of what the data is that's on that layer.  I don't know if a character limit is needed for the note field, but it would be nice to be something rather long, say 2000 characters or more.  Not sure if you can add a note field to the layer manger, maybe a separate command for Layer Notes.  or just thinking out loud, maybe layers could have properties?  So I click a layer in the view filter manager or layer manager, then look in the properties pane and it shows, layer color, linetype, etc plus notes.

I think there would be some benefit to being able to export the notes in a sort of Layer List Report or something but if its a big programming nightmare and it were up to me I would just focus on the Layer Note property within TBC.

I could also ask for the same of everything I just said about Layers, but for Surfaces also.  And another step further would be awesome to have notes for pretty much everything, polylines, linestrings, dimensions, corridors, etc., etc....anything with properties could have a note property.

Thank you.

Would the best way to approach that to be include notes on just layers? Spreading information out to other objects I could see becoming very quickly cluttered. Are notes something really beneficial, or something that could be avoided with a clever naming system? Could you give me a few things that you would include in notes for example?

I'm also just thinking out loud here. Looking at the view filter manager, my initial impression is that the three areas that would benefit most from a notes section are Point cloud regions, Surfaces, and Layers. Point cloud regions could have an editable box after Classification shown below, Surfaces a field in the properties, and Layers have another column added in the Layer Manager.

Matt,  you hit the nail on the head with avoiding notes by using clever names.  That was how I did it in the Terramodel days, when 16 characters was the limit it was very challenging.  Now with TBC having much longer layer names it is somewhat simpler.  However I still find myself maintaining a spreadsheet of layers and surfaces with notes about them.  For example: suppose I made a finish grade surface for Ramp A and I name the surface and the layer that contains the surface linework "Ramp A - FG".  Then for any number of various reasons there is a revision to the curb location, so I make a copy of the surface, change the name to "Ramp A - FG R1" and make the changes to the curb.  Then another change comes along for the cross slope of the ramp, so then I go to "Ramp A - FG R2"  and then another and another and another.  Its not uncommon for me to have 10 revisions to a surface before it is complete.  I've even had nearly 100 revisions to a surface.  And invariably for example at some point the owner will say after 6 revisions have been made, oh lets not do that curb revision and go back to the original curb location.  Then I have to pull out my notebook to go back through my notes about each revision number to see where the curb change took place.

And this is just one of very many instances where I need notes about what I have done.  I also frequently design waste piles, and borrow pits.  They will be very many changes to the design, and I will need to know exactly what changes were made with each revision so I can go back to a previous state, or also so I can compute changes in quantities between certain revisions.

Additionally I find myself creating multiple corridors of the same alignment for testing various things out, and it would be very helpful to have a notes section for not only the corridor itself, but also for each template on the corridor.  I typically model finish grade, subgrade, and every material layer in a corridor which amounts to several dozen instructions.  It would be very helpful to have a note section so I can remember why I had to put that particular template in there because it is not always obvious and can be very cumbersome to try to describe in the name.

As far as the best way to keep it from being cluttered as you mentioned, I think if the note was just a property that is shown at the bottom of the list on any entity's properties it would really not add any clutter. 

Thanks Wayne! I have added notes on Surfaces, PC regions, Corridors, and Corridor templates to the enhancement list.

When I said clutter, I mean with points and lines, there being potentially thousands of each in a project. Having a note put on a line or point could get lost immediately, never to be seen again. There has been a request to include notes for points that were captured in Access for reporting purposes in TBC.

Cheers,

Matt

Resize Layer Name Column

Ben: I had the same thought when I first open the new Layer Manager. My first impression was that it looks a little 'unfinished' or 'ragged'. But I did notice that if you resize the box it is persistent. The next time you open BC and the Layer Manager it keeps that size. Finally, after all these years...

Hi Ben,

Resizing fields within the Layer manager is a good catch, I have added it to our enhancement list.

Thank you for using TBC!