Trimble Business Center

Trying to merge multiple road surfaces at one time to make one overall model for the machines. I have several side roads and one mainline surface. Would also see being able to exclude triangles with the merged surfaces where there is no grading. Example would be a median that I do not want to include. 

This depends a little bit on how you have set up your sub models. If for example each sub model has a Boundary line around the model, then you can delete data from the model that you are merging them into that falls within the boundary of the sub model (and that mean clipping lines in the Main Model at the boundary, as well as deleting all of the remaining lines and points etc in the Main model that are inside the boundary of the sub model). Then you can simply add and remove surface members to the main model, and add the sub model surfaces (which will also add the sub model surface members to the main model). Doing it this way allows you to do it in one step to create the composite surface. This works pretty well, however you need to check the way that the sub model is patched in to the main model around the boundary to make sure that you don't introduce steps into the model at the boundary lines.

If you Merge Surfaces - it does the above process automatically but for one surface at a time and gives you some options that are not available to you in the slightly more manual process.

Hope this helps

Alan

Excluding Areas where there is no grading can be done to the composite model using Add / remove Surface Boundaries - Provided the composite surface has an outer boundary, you can add Boundaries inside the Outer Boundary (which will become holes in the composite model). If you do a Boundary around a "Hole" without an Outer Boundary the Hole will actually be created as an "Island". If you have a Boundary inside a boundary inside the outer boundary, then you will have a hole with an island within the hole etc. Boundaries use what we call Region Logic, where the outermost boundary is an "Island Type" and the second one a "Hole Type" and then an Island Type etc. in alternating fashion.

Hope this answers the last part of your question

Alan

Steve,

I do this all the time. I build all my roads in the corridor module. Then I make sure that my Project Explore is open, this will allow me to see all my corridor surfaces. I will then create a new surface and for the objects I hold down the Ctrl and select each road surface. Once the surface is built,  I will have to do some clean up on the outer edges by running the Trim Surface Edge. 

What I like about this is, that if they make a design change to one of the roads profile. When I make the alignment vertical change, it will up date the corridor surface and the road in the combined surface to.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Hi Alan,

not sure if BC always behaves like this or if it is a bug in 5.1.

When I create a new surface using other surfaces as members it loses their boundaries and I end up with error flags and the wrong shape of the surface.

surface "pits"

surface "plane" - with outer boundary and holes for the pits

those two surfaces visible at the same time - the new surface with them as members should look likes this

but - boundaries are lost and error flags show up

If I "merge" them it works, but then I lose the parametric approach. If I change one of the previous surfaces, i.e. my cross fall plane or the side slope templates then I'll have to do at least the merge again.

Your 3 Pits I assume are initially one surface or are they 3 separate surfaces - either way the issue that you are seeing is that each of those three surfaces have their own boundary line that is added to the surface as a Surface Boundary not just a surface member / breakline. Then you use those three boundaries as "clipping" lines to patch them into your master surface that also has its own boundary by the looks of it. That then means that the three boundaries around your pits become "holes" in the master surface rather than additions (the outer most boundary becomes an island, the next boundaries inside become holes, the next boundaries inside the holes become islands etc. 

So: the if your Pits are separate surfaces - add a Surface Edge Breakline to constrain them and add that as a Surface member not a Surface boundary. If your Pits are part of the same surface then having them defined as "islands" each with their own Surface Boundary object will cause you to get holes in the Merged Surface. So I would define the Pits as 3 separate surfaces and have them edged with a Breakline and not a Surface boundary.

When you patch the surfaces together, if you Patch the Pit 1 into Master Surface - and use the Surface Edge Breakline of Pit 1 to create the Hole into which Pit 1 is patched - then that will clip the triangles of the Master Surface along that line. You can still get flags in this case, because the Master Surface may not have exactly the same elevations as the Patched in Pit 1 - To avoid that you may want to create an offset line of the Surface Edge breakline for Pit 1 at say a 1' offset and use that to clip out the Master Surface as you patch in Pit 1 - that way there will be a 1' zone across which triangles can form between Master and Pit 1 to eliminate the Flags that you are seeing. Repeat this for Pit 2 and Pit 3.

I can take a look at your file next week when I am back at work on Weds - but I am pretty sure that this is the issue.

Alan

Hi Alan,

thanks for your reply. I just haven't had much time the last two weeks.

I've been playing around from time to time when I had a few minutes. So far I haven't found a viable way to do it. With edge break lines as components rather than boundary I have the problem that the initial breaklines of my big surface are kept and create error flags in the end. Only if I create holes via boundaries in the big surface first the initial breaklines are cut out properly.

The issue I see is that if you have a surface with a boundary and you add that surface as component to a new surface the boundary is lost. Adding a surface as component kicks out all of its previously defined boundaries.

I'll keep playing around.

Cheers

Ronny