Trimble Business Center

I'm working on a takeoff where the owner has provided several boring logs with different materials; namely clay, sandy clay, rock and silty sand.  I have all the logs entered and defined which material is usable and which are not along with the elevations of the top of the bore hole.  Business Center has created all the surfaces for the different strata but I can't seem to get it to provide any quantities in my takeoff report. I thought that given a proposed surface, Business Center would include a report that specifies how much of each material will be excavated given a proposed surface.  Right now everything is lumped together in my Available Bank Cut Column.  

I mainly need to know how much rock and silty sand will be on the project.  I've thought about using the surface to surface earthwork report and comparing the FD w/ SG Adjusted vs Each Strata but I was hoping there was a all-in-one option that did it when I ran my main report.  I'm sure it is there somewhere and I'm missing it.  Any help pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated.  

Hi Ben,

Can you send me your file?

The takeoff report will list the different strata volumes.  You must of course go through the process of categorizing layers, assigning site improvements, etc. so that we can create the different comparisons.

tim

Tim,

see dropbox link below.  sorry for the file size; it's a large project.

Dropbox - BC - Simplify your life  

# 1 erase the cut fill map, it updates with changes.

#2 Run project cleanup.  There are a lot of autocad blocks, etc in the file that are not used.

#3 in project settings, computations, surface, set the volume computations to track finish breaklines.  This will reduce the number of triangles created for the volume computations.

#4 your design surface has 1.5 million points.  If you can reduce this the computations will speed up.  Try filtering the contour lines.  Also if you can reduce the area of the original ground to just include the design this will reduce the number of triangles and number of points in each strata.

#5 In the takeoff report select the set other report options. In the mass earthwork analysis section change the material properties to show. I would turn them all on, as this report takes several minutes.

#6 You should fix surface flags that show significant errors.  When you have crossing lines with large variations in elevation, you can't be sure the volumes match the intention.

tim

How were you able to get the Define Strata command to allow you to select your materials from the MSI?

My "Material Below Surface" only allows me to choose "Undefined"

You have to define earthen materials in the material and site improvement manager.

You may want to review the online videos and training guides to see a complete workflow for takeoff computations.

https://trimble.retrieve.com/#/

https://geospatial.trimble.com/trimble-business-center-tutorials

I added several materials to that list and it still won't let me select them.

What Edition of TBC are you running?  Using the strata requires the Site Construction edition.  If you have this and you create the materials in the section of the MSI shown above it should work.  

You must also be using the categorization of layers to build the surfaces in order for strata to be used.

I have Site Construction and most up-to-date software.

Do I need to make a layer for each different strata and categorize each? 

I've searched Trimble Retrieve for a tutorial video on building strata/bore logs, but haven't found anything. Is there a good video out there to help? Or even a document?

You must categorize the layers that will be used to create original ground and the finished design.  If you are unfamiliar with this process then you will need to review the materials for creating a takeoff.  You do not catagorize strata, they get created using boreholes and the original ground surface.

Go to the tutorials site from the support tab and download "Calculating Takeoff Volumes for a Simple Site".  This covers the takeoff process and strata.

In retrieve watch the video,  TBC 5.0 Site Construction Edition, the takeoff commands section.  If you search for strata don't use the corridor strata commands, these don't work for a site.

If you have already reviewed these sources, then send me your file to review.

tim

I've categorized the layers. I used my FG contours and categorized in Design, and my OG contours in Original.

It looks like you cannot use your own material category. When I add the materials to the default Earthen material category they show up in the Define Strata command.

Thanks for the information.  I turned on the materials properties view in takeoff and that fixed it.  It is now showing the different strata takeoffs that i needed. I figured it was something easy like this.  When I looked in this setting I looked in the Mass Haul and not takeoff. 

However, your last post showing my MSI manager is different then the one I have.  See below.  Maybe something didn't transfer when I copied the file.  

Follow up questions:

#3 in project settings, computations, surface, set the volume computations to track finish breaklines.  This will reduce the number of triangles created for the volume computations. 

Q: This option is currently set at "Track all triangles" which is what it defaulted to when we installed the program.  I've never messed with this setting fearing unintentional consequences since I have no clue what the different options mean.  Since I limit my proposed surface with surface boundaries, would this not be the best option to use?

#4 your design surface has 1.5 million points.  If you can reduce this the computations will speed up.  Try filtering the contour lines.  Also if you can reduce the area of the original ground to just include the design this will reduce the number of triangles and number of points in each strata. 

Q:  I'll admit I completely forgot about running project cleanup.  The reason the original ground surface is so big is due to my topsoil calculation requirement.  There is a long offsite utility installation that will require us to strip/re-install topsoil but I have noticed that the only areas the computer includes in stripping are areas where an existing surface exists (even if the areas is enclosed in my stripping line).  Do you know if this is in fact true or is there another way for BC to pickup topsoil stripping in areas without an original surface?

I opened the material and site improvement manager in another project while yours was calculating and made my screen snap there.

#3 Track all triangles is the most accurate but it creates the most points.  Tracking the finish breaklines assures that points are calculated at the sharp edges within the design.  It’s a good compromise of speed and accuracy.  You can try the different methods and compare the results.  You will probably see less than 0.5% difference.  The help has a more detailed explanation of the options.

I personally don’t like to use a surface boundary.  A boundary simply defines which triangles have a null material.  You don’t see them, they don’t count, but the program still keeps them and it slows down the calculations.  If you want to see them you can set the surface color to be 100,101,102 and then they will display as shown below.  I prefer to trim the surface edge to make it look like what I want and then run the edge breakline command to create a breakline that will hold the shape.  In this method no triangles will be created outside the edge.  It saves a significant amount of time in the computations.

Also note that your design surface includes the contour text labels.  I would move the text to a layer that is not included in the design surface. 

#4 You do have to have an original ground area to compute topsoil stripping.  There is still a large amount of original ground outside of the stripping you have.  Because you have 7 strata surfaces below original ground you can save 8x the number of triangles by deleting the areas not needed.

Also note that because your stripping is outside of your finished design, you have an area that is stripped with nothing being placed back. 

Hope this helps.

tim

Tim, 

Is there a way to have my strata layers only be calculated off of the elevations in the bore logs instead of reflecting the original ground contours? It seems odd that the surfaces dont just offset that surface.

I  think this is what you want.  Remember, boring logs are a big guess.