Trimble Business Center

I am trying to join a line to an arc and being able to export it to siteworks for layout. In these images you  can see my issues. Here for example I have edge of pavement. Now in business Center it look like an arc and still works like a arc when I use COGO and create the raids point. Now when I export it to Siteworks or SCS900 (dxf or dwg I have tried them both) it turns my arc in to bunch of short lines to form what looks like an arc. I am no longer able to go into COGO in Siteworks and create a radius point from there.

One of the following issues is at play here

1. In TBC you have the 2D Line from CAD and you have elevated it to make it a 3D Linestring. That means that the Arc is now no longer 2D or Fixed Height polyline as it was in AutoCAD. AutoCAD DXF and DWG files do not support 3D Arcs and Siteworks today uses a DXF File as its source for linework (You can also export a VCL file of the same data and get a much better result - you have to place the VCL file in the correct design folder - and the VCL can contain multiple surfaces, linework and alignments but not Corridors yet. Because you used DXF output, we chord the arc (to make it work in DXF Format and Match Autocads capabilities which are poor in this area. We chord the arc based on the Breakline approximation parameters defined in Project Settings - Computations - Surface - you can tighten the chording by changing the Arc to Chord tolerance to a smaller number - e.g. 0.01' but it will still be chorded - just more chords. Or you can export it to a VCL file (Export - Construction - VCL Project Link File) and then copy the VCL file into a Design Folder for use by Siteworks. The VCL should give you the Arc as you want it.
2. AutoCAD these days to get around its serious shortfall that CAD Arcs can only have one elevation or be 2D or they have to be defined on a sloping plane in which case they pick up a User Defined Coordinate System (UCS). We are seeing these UCS more and more in CAD files. TBC defines the arc in 2D and itrs elevation profile separately on the same object - and that is not compatible with AutoCAD DWG and DXF files as used by Siteworks (unless you use VCL files as listed above). So because of the incompatibility, we have to represent Arcs that have UCS or have VPIs defined on them by TBC that makes them variable elevation as chorded lines that approximate the arc with a UCS - or just use the VCL file in which case TBC takes care of this,

Note TBC files are version dependent and Siteworks is lagging behind TBC current release, so to write a VCL file for Siteworks (because it has not been "Officially Released" yet (but it is in the product), you may need to drop back to BC-HCE v4.12 in order to create a compatible VCL file. My understanding is Official VCL support is coming, at which point Siteworks will be updated in line with VCL updates going forwards - but until then if you want to try it, you will likely need to use that earlier version of TBC / BC-HCE.

Hope this helps

Alan

I have tried to open it in BC-HCE but it just keeps giving me an error saying can't not open.

Nathan

This is a backwards compatible issue - there are elements in TBC v5 that were not available in BC-HCE v4.12 so the database of a TBC v5 File is different and not fully compatible with BC-HCE v4.12. You can try hold CTRL - SHIFT and then Drag and drop the project VCE file into the Graphics are of an open v4.12 Project or onto the [Start Page] Tab (above the Graphics Area and below the menu) and release - that process is a back door used to strip out the incompatible information from a v5 file so that it can be used in an earlier version. This will often work but is not 100% guaranteed. Once opened in 4.12 save the file and that will update it to the older version so you can use it going forwards.

Alan

The other thing you can do is to export only 2D lines to Siteworks - to do that you will need to select all of the CAD lines and use the Change Elevation Command and make the Elevations undefined - when you do that we can export 2D CAD Arcs to DXF with no problem, but they will not have any elevations (3D) capability

Alan