Trimble Business Center

Once I finish my curb and gutter, fence, and guardrail takeoffs using simple linestrings, how can I associate them with my Site Improvement in order for them to show up on my Takeoff Report. Right now I have only been able to get Areas to show up on my Takeoff Report, but cant quite figure out scopes measured in LF.

Thanks,

Pablo

Pablo,

   Have you created a material for these items in the MSI manager, a Site Improvement for them, and categorized the layers (I typically assign my site improvement at this step in while categorizing) as well?  Once you do that, they should populate in the takeoff report.

I went into Categorize, then clicked on "Associate with a Site Improvement" and then the window below came up. I was only able to choose one. How can I pick all my other LF takeoffs? I have all my areas and LF takeoffs in the "TOFF - Roadway Demo" layer. Do I need to create one layer for areas and one for LF?

I guess I have to create one layer for each takeoff category. I think I got it now.

Thanks a lot for the help Nathaniel!

Pablo

There are many videos on Takeoff Workflows on Trimble Library - you can subscribe to those as a company or as an individual - you may already have access to them as a company - you would need to check with your colleagues.

Trimble Library requires that you have a Trimble ID to access. The Store has the Video Collections that you can subscribe to - costs range from a few $ to $50 depending on the subject area.

I would start there and review the Takeoff workflows

As a general rule though

1. Have your objects that you want to "Takeoff" separated by Layers in TBC - you will have
   1. Count Objects (Count the Qty of objects like Road Signs, Trees, Light poles, Manholes etc.
   2. Length Objects (count the Lengths of objects or the Lengths multiplied by a standard cross section area e.g. you may have Top Back of Curb as your Linework for a Curb and you have a Cross Section Area for the Concrete of 1.5 Sq Ft and you want to know the Length of Curb but also the quantity of Concrete (Length x Area)
   3. Area Objects (Count the Areas of a closed area e.g. Pads etc) or Area x Material type x Depths (for multiple layers of material in an area - e.g. a Building Pad may have 6" Gravel, 3" Sand and 6" Concrete layers within the area defined for the Building Pad.
2. Once you have all your Layers then you need to Categorize the Layers in takeoff - this categorizes them as Existing, Design, Utility, Other etc. and is used by the Takeoff process to compute the Surfaces and then the quantities etc.
3. The Materials and Site Improvement Manager is used to create Materials
   1. The Earthworks Materials (Earthen) - these are the in ground strata - i.e. soils, Topsoil, Rock, and other Strata that you may want to quantify from the provided boreholes on the project
   2. Earthen Select Materials - These are the materials that you will typically purchase for a Project and will include sands, gravels, aggregate, concrete etc. If you want to use a Material in Mass Haul Computations then it has to be either Earthen or Earthen Select
   3. Other Materials - you can create categories for Materials that you also may want to buy like Landscaping Materials (Grass Seed, Sod, Hydroseeding, Geotextiles etc
4. Once you have the Materials defined, then you can create Site Improvements - these are used by the Takeoff Process to compute the quantities (Counts, Lengths, Areas, Volumes etc.). A Site Improvement can be a Count Type, Length type, Length with Cross Section Area, Area or Area with Material Layers and depths for Volumes purposes. For example
   1. A Road Sign or Light Pole would be a Count Object. You may represent these as a Point or a Block on a Layer in TBC. The Takeoff Report uses the Layer to determine the quantity of the objects. The Layer Categorization Process assigns a Site Improvement to the Layer so if you have a Site Improvement called road Sign and it is set up as a Count Object, and the Layer e.g. Road Signs is defined as having an association with Site Improvement Road Sign then those will be counted and reported.
   2. Road Striping could be a Length Object - it would all be on a layer called Striping and it would be associated with Length Type Site Improvement called Road Striping - that multiplies the length by a Width and Paint thickness to determine the volume of paint required for the striping.
   3. Curb could be a Length with Cross Section Area type object. Your lines are on layer Top back of Curb, that layer is associated with Site Improvement Type 7a Curb and Gutter and that defines the XS Area for the object. The length of the lines on the layer are computed, and then multiplied by the Cross Section Area to determine the Volume and that is converted into a Volume of "Material" Concrete by the Site Improvement definition.
   4. Building Pad could be an Area Based Site Improvement. That Site Improvement could have 3x Layers of Gravel, Sand and Concrete each with a defined thickness and the Area x Thickness = Volume of each material in the Site Improvement. 

Note you can set up all your Layers in a prototype project template and you can categorize them and assign Site Improvements to them in the Prototype Project - that way as soon as data is imported and "Standardized" onto your preferred layers, you will be ready to run a takeoff Report. Once elevated the lines can become surfaces and used to compute earthworks quantities.

I enclose my starting Template vct file for you as an example

Here is a quick video to get you started - I hope that this helps

Alan

Here is the video

Alan,

Thanks for the video. Very helpful.

Welcome back!

Yes one layer per Takeoff Object Type is the rule

Alan