Trimble Business Center

Please consider adding the ability to set a style or choice of a block for plan view of utility structures. Both manholes and junction boxes.

#enhancementrequest

This would help delineate between different structure types:

• catch basins
• double catch basins
• drain manholes 
• sewer manholes

Maybe something similar to the fitting option:

The design was to make these parametric based on their actual sizes.  If blocks are used then you would have to have one for each subtle variation of length, thickness, width, color and height.   Picking from this list and managing them from project to project would be a pain.  By being parametrically defined, you can change the top and bottom elevations without having to create a specific block or stretch blocks.  We also felt it was important to properly reflect the actual inside and outside surfaces so the user can see how the pipe interfaces.  Parametric works best as these nodes are typically circular or rectangular.  Related enhancements would allow us to draw various cone sections at the top.

This also allows them to be drawn relatively fast.  Users tend to create blocks that are over defined and can take a long time to draw.  Fittings are recommended to be defined as symbols, although they can be as complex as the fire hydrant used in the examples.  Headwalls are also symbolic although we allow the user to make them detailed so they are easy to recognize.  As they only have an invert elevation the user can make one and scale it to fit multiple size pipes.

The primary workflow is to support utility takeoff with a secondary purpose of conflict visualization.  The display of nodes is intended to be schematic to support this workflow and not solids modeling.  The user can segregate objects by their naming within the material and site improvement manager, layer and color.  It's always a compromise to balance the effort required to create a system, its functionality and the complexity required for the intended use.

tim

This would also be very valuable when there are structures that have offset tops to make sure that the center of structure is correct and also the center of hole. Soemthign that commonly gets missed.

Hello @Pat L'Heureux

Maybe you should look into Trimble Novapoint. They have all the things you’re looking for, for the Nordic region where I live they have all the libraries for the different suppliers of pipes, manholes etc as standard and ships with the software.

For sure it would be nice to have these capabilities in TBC but the 2 different softwares are intended for different use. TBC more for contractors and Novapoint more for designers and engineers.

Thanks for recommending that. I will check it out.

I do have some hesitation in introducing another software and learning that from top to bottom. And the intergration back into TBC to prep data for the field.

TBC is getting very close to being a BIM solution. Just a few things here and there that need to be address and expanded on.

Thanks,

Pat

Sent from my iPhone

Yes I agree with you that learning a new software could be a pain but until TBC is there, Novapoint is a much more developed software when it comes to the utility module.

Regarding the interoperability between the softwares is already there, TBC has been able to read Novapoint native file formats for a while now.

I was hoping that TBC would adopt some of the utility libraries and templates from Novapoint as a first step.