Trimble Business Center

Has anyone else noticed that when using the categorize takeoff layers TBC is very slow and almost locks up for 30 secs to a min. This happens when adding layer and when tagging layers as containing boundaries. It seems odd.

The file I am working with is not very large. 

I also have this problem; same as you describe.  However, mine seems worse as I've been trying to get some layers to contain boundary lines and that completely freezes the system.   I've gone through my entire system and have installed the latest drivers for computer/graphics and TBC updates.  This will be the third time my system has locked up. 

I'm going to try to create a new file and make the changes to the categorize takeoff layers first, then copy in all my previous data to see if that helps.  Wish me luck...

I am behind on using the Categorize command.  I actually had one of our PM show me this.  Here is where I am stumped.  When he Categorizes his layers, he adds the SI material in there.  Where as I have been seeing others use the ID Site Regions and then add the SI.  

What command do you prefer to add the SI?  What are the cons/pros  between the two?

I've never heard of this either.  I just tried it and it works.  The downside would be you would need to completely enclose your area with that line for it to take affect for an area.  Whereas you can point and click an area using the identify site improvement region and it fill everything that is enclosed like the old windows paint program. You would also have to have a separate layer for each paving type and thickness which, for us, is very long.  It is too easy to just add a new entry to our MSI manager when we come across a paving type that is not there versus creating the MSI, creating the layer, categorizing that layer, linking the layer to the MSI and then digitizing the bounding line.     

This is if it doesn't crash when you try to categorize.

This is fixed in the next release - I spotted this a few weeks back and had the Dev Team fix it - it works sweet now.

Alan

Alan,

What are you thoughts on being able to add surfaces here?

This could be useful if you have a topo surface that you want to use as you existing surface? You can just add surfaces to the the Original ground but there isn't a great way of seeing what you have added. 

This could also open the door for if there is ever support or custom subgrades. 

I am on that boat.  i did my first Categorize using plan cross section and then digitizing those.  I tried all forms to use for my design EG and FG in the Categorize.  I exported my cross section to import back so they are converted to linestrings.  I Exploded my surface that iI turned my cross section into a surface.  I used Contours created from those same surfaces.  All these I layered to created a design for my Categorize and at first i could not get those designs to attach as a design.  I had to add as a member.  

 The Contour was one of the worse one as there was to many gaps enbetween contour lines.

 Using the Explode Surface had issues where some of the lines from the Explode Surface where to added to the member.

The best one was the DXF that i import back into the project from which I created from the cross sections. 

when i created each scenario, i compared those designs to the surfaces i created from the Cross Sections and the DXF came close.

So it would be great to have an option in the Categorize for choose Surface list.  

First things first

1) Categorize Takeoff Layers can be done inside your Project Template - the

one that you use to create a New Project from. If you do it here then

Categorization of Layers becomes mostly a one time deal not a once per

project deal and this then reduces the impact of the "speed to categorize

Layers"

2) Categorization of Layers speed is purely based on the number of layers

in your project. If you have a few layers only then it is quite fast, if

you have a large number of layers then today it is quite slow, but that is

fixed in the next release - I have tested that and it is very good now no

matter how many layers are in the project.

3) In the next release you can convert Stored Sections to Linestrings using

the Explode Command - no need to Export and Reimport the Sections to

achieve that.

4) If I have CAD or PDF Vector Sections today, I would no longer be

digitizing them, the convert CAD or PDF Sections to 3D Linework is

extremely robust now, however you do have to format the section data first

but that is way faster than digitizing and way more accurate than

digitizing and gives way better results than digitizing - I have personally

processed many many section data sets and they have all worked - OK we

found a few "Data issues" along the way that we have now programmed out,

and there has been need for more tools to be developed to streamline the

cleanup and preparation process - but as an example - I processed all the

sections for FG, SG, Overex, Existing surfaces for 50 km of a 190km highway

this week in under 4 hours with sections every 20m - about 8000 section

lines in all including adding missing grid lines, labeling Station Labels

by hand and elevating Grid lines because of missing text (polylines).

Digitizing that would have taken me days. We just added a new tool at

Rockpile to assist this process and I will be previewing it in next weeks

Become an Expert Seminar on Cross Section Takeoff (Tuesday at 1pm MST).

This is the way to go

The last few points you made I am not sure I understand - we would need to

discuss those on the phone I think

Alan

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 4:58 AM frank.guerrero@ebcc.com <trimble@jiveon.com>

What is the command to "convert stored cross sections"?  

There will be times that when having a few sheet cross sections that it will be faster to just digitize as i am doing now.  its a 2 sheets of cross sections. 

Create stored sections from CAD Drawings

I think that converting is quicker and more accurate and generates 3D linework that is easier to build surfaces from than digitizing them and creating Stored sections that are harder to work with than 3D linework

I don’t think I would personally digitize a section again unless it was a raster pdf - I can do conversions way faster and get better data to work with of all layers and materials etc.

You do have to learn some new tools and tricks of course but I think that is worth the gain in time - I can do hundreds of sections in a couple of hours

Alan

Sent from my iPhone

It would be really great if TBC had a built in tool for tracing raster pdf images to create vector pdfs.  I think some engineers have gotten wise to contractors using vector pdfs to do takeoffs and have started providing scanned pdf plan sets for bidding. I've gotten a lot of experience in digitizing here lately.  I think Acrobat has something like this but no idea how well it works for plan sheets.  Could be worth exploring.   

We have experimented with that in the past - it is extremely challenging to

get it to work reliably because lines cross and have to pass through and

around Text and Symbology and Hatching etc. which makes it extremely

difficult to reliably extract linework from a bunch of Black and shades of

grey pixels. The challenge with Automation is that everyone expects it to

work perfectly and flawlessly, because no-one really wants to have to

explore the data created afterwards to make sure that it was done correctly

and is 100% right, and for sure you cannot read and scan a whole Raster PDF

and get it right all the time - at best you can potentially track lines

that are clear and in open white paper until they hit a crossing or text or

something else - at that point you have to revert to manual digitizing. We

spent a lot of time looking at it, and did not find anything that worked

well, that we felt was really worth the money you would have to pay for

such a tool.

I have not seen anything that really works well for this at all

Alan

On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 7:14 AM texconbids@gmail.com <trimble@jiveon.com>

Gracias Allan!