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I tried to change elevation of a Surface using the CAD>Edit>Change Elevation command, By a Delta Elevation of -0.50.

While a message "Total Elevation Change" was displayed, the properties did not change.

I attach the file and the screen shots.

Can some one tell me why.

Thanks.

Try using the Macro(Offset Surface) to change the Delta Elevation of the actual surface. Or select the line work in the project, omitting the actual surface and use the Change Elevation command. 

Here was the response I sent earlier today by email

Was the surface made from points and lines or was it just a TIN model?

If points and lines then you would have to change the elevation of the points and lines to change the elevation of the surface as the surface is a dependent object.

If a TIN model you would have to use either the Offset Surface TML or use Explode Surface TML and then change the elevation of the resulting lines and then make a surface out of the resulting lines.

Do you have all the TML commands. You should go to www.rockpilesolutions.com and download a command called TML Status and install it. That will manage all your TMLs for you and keep them installed and up to date. Rockpile are also building out a TML Library that is available commercially - there may be additional tools there that can do some things for you faster.

Alan

Another short step would be to do a corridor out of that surface and add a vertical to that surfaces.

Could you please elaborate on how I can make a corridor out of a surface.

Thanks.

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 10:32 PM frank.guerrero@ebcc.com <trimble@jiveon.com>

when you add an instruction to a corridor.  You have a choice to use a surface for an instruction.  There will be a field below the surface you chose where you can put a vertical offset. 

Create corridor

Add surface instruction

Alan

Sent from my iPhone

What I do for this is select the surface, right click and select surface members, then use the change elevation command.

Thanks, will try this.

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 11:10 AM matthew.pitt@galtecltd.co.uk <

You could select all your contour linework and "move" it vertically using the move command.

That is another option!!!

Thanks.

I have had the same issue. Lots of interesting replies. My work-around was to export the surface as a dxf. Bring it back in and then lower the dxf by desired delta elevation. Then make a surface out of it. Do a cut fill between original and new lowered surface

to confirm deltas. 
     If any object in TBC is dependent on a non movable point in TBC, IE surface or line it won’t move either.  Kind of confusing when it confirms the object was lowered when in reality it didn’t move. 

This is why Offset surface is the best solution here if the offset is a straight vertical offset of a surface or part of a surface

Dependent objects are good in some ways ie lines move if points move or surfaces change when points or lines are edited, added or deleted etc. but sometimes having to know the dependencies in order to achieve what you want can be challenging as a result

Commands like offset surface were written to bypass those dependencies

Alan

Alan

Sent from my iPhone

This was very useful.

Thank you very much.

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019, 03:16 alan_sharp@trimble.com, <trimble@jiveon.com>

Yes.

Now I have been given so many options in many replies.

Thanks to everyone.

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019, 03:06 GenauGeomatics@gmail.com, <trimble@jiveon.com>

So may options. there are times i use a surface to build another surface. one thing i have notice is if a surface did not contain breaklines and you break up or create a offset surface.  You get alot of spikes making the surface a bad design.

  From doing more estimating work now, I would like to see an option like the site improvement for built surfaces.  An option that will allow you to use a surface and region evelation changes.   When I have to do subgrade for an existing surface that I used from cross sections.  I have to import pdf sheets to outline the roadway.  I then have to build a seperate existing surface and pretty much break it up in  pieces so I can get an existing subgrade and bottom of existing top soil.  Then i have to merge them together.  Too many steps that I want to do and too extra layers. 

I am not sure I 100% understand the question here Frank. You can already

apply Site Improvements (outside of Takeoff) to any surface model in a

project. Once applied you can then use the Create Subgrade Surface to

create any interface surface defined by the Material Layers in the Site

Improvements applied. So for example, if you have a surface model, and you

want to apply for example 4" Asphalt plus 6" aggregate and 8" Stone to the

area of a Parking Lot or Roadway you would do the following

1) The Surface has to be made up of Points and Breaklines

2) The Breaklines that you are going to use to constrain the Site

Improvement Areas need to be set as Sharp and texture Boundary in their

properties pane.

3) The breaklines that you are going to use as Site Improvement Boundaries

have to be included in the surface model that you will apply the Site

Improvements to.

4) Create your Site Improvements and Materials in the MSI Manager

5) Now use the Apply Surface Site Improvement command (on my Surface Menu)

and create the SI Points on a Layer e.g. SITE - SI Markers, give the Site

Improvement a name e.g. Road Pavement, select the Site Improvement you want

to apply eg Road Pavement that has your 3 Materials and depths defined in

it (as listed above), and then click anywhere inside the area of the Road

pavement. The surface should change to the Site Improvement Color when you

do this for the area affected by the Site Improvement.

6) When you have applied all of the Site Improvements that you want to make

to the surface, you can then run the command "Create Subgrade Surface" to

create a surface model of e.g.

a) The Bottom of Engineered Materials - this is your Pavement Box Out in

the above use case (Base of lowest subgrade in all cases for all site

improvements i.e. this would be your Earthworks Model

b) The Top of any Material Layer - ie Top of Ashphalt (same as Finished

Grade but only in the areas where the Asphalt MAterial is the top layer of

material, Top of Aggregate, Top of Stone - Note that Top of Stone = Base of

Aggregate in the above example and Base of Asphalt = Top of Aggregate in

the above example, so you typically do not need all of the Tops and Bottoms

for all materials - typically create the Bottoms of Material Layers and

then for your Earthworks do the Bottom of Engineered Materials to get a

composite surface for Earthworks.

c) The Bottom of any Material Layer.

You will find that the surfaces created for the Tops and Bottoms of

Material Layers will have many islands and Holes in the models because the

surfaces are only formed where the materials exist in the model.

Where you have two Site Improvement Stacks placed right next to each other,

you will get the very thin Vertical Walls between the stacks in the model.

I posted a response in the last few weeks on this also - you can explode a

surface created using the methods above using the updated Explode Surface

command - this now allows you to define a Break Angle along which the

Explode Surface command will create Breaklines Only rather than all the

triangle sides for the surface - This can be used to get at the breaklines

of the surface for manual editing if you feel that you need to remove the

vertical walls between Site Improvements manually.

Hope this helps - not sure if it answers your question though - let me know

Alan

On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 4:54 AM frank.guerrero@ebcc.com <trimble@jiveon.com>

I was wanting to keep the surface and have that same surface drop down at each region.  I would rather not have seperate surfaces for each material.  I want to save time and use one surface that i can modify. 

Unfortunately you cannot do this with one surface only - you have to have

the source surface and then if all you want is the "drop down" surface

where you apply different Depths of Drop Down to Different Areas of the

surface you would have to either use the method in the last post and define

different Site Improvements of one material (eg Drop Down) each with the

different depth of material defined in the Site Improvement and then

apply eg 6" Drop Down, 12" Drop Down, 10" Drop Down etc in the areas of the

surface and then use the Create Subgrade Surface to create the Bottom of

Engineered materials layer as a second surface model. We don't have a tool

today that can simply modify a single surface with the drop downs - it

would be possible to do that with a TML of course using the same tools that

we are using today in the software but modifying the source surface on the

fly

In Takeoff there is a way to do this also using Simple Subgrade

Adjustments, however that also will build you a second surface because it

needs the first surface as a reference so that if you change the adjustment

depth it can change the resulting surface ie if a Site Improvement is

applied at 6" depth and then you change it to 8" you would get the correct

result - taking your approach we would no longer have the initial surface

so then you would have to enter the additional change only ie 2' to get the

same result - depending on how your request was implemented we may / may

not have a record of the original adjustment so you would have to know it

etc.

Alan

On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 9:06 AM frank.guerrero@ebcc.com <trimble@jiveon.com>