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Is it possible to create a triangular grid of points within a boundary at 1.2m centers on an existing surface? 

Do you mean like equilateral triangles over an area - if so the only way I know of doing that would be to use

1) Draw a triangle as you want it in lower left corner of the area you want to cover

2) Use the Matrix Copy TML command to copy it all over the area (Part of RPS Data Prep Toolbox if you need it)

3) Use the Select by Boundary command to find all the triangles outside a boundary line around the outside of the surface and delete them

4) use the change elevation command to elevate all the remaining triangles to the surface elevation  

5) If you want to clip the edge triangles then use the clip command to delete all the parts of the triangles outside the boundary and remove them.

It depends a bit on how large your surface is as to how long Matrix Copy will take to create all the triangles but it should be able to do it I would think - when you are asked for the From location pick the lower left corner of the triangle, when asked for the To location pick the Apex of the triangle - as that will skew all the rows and columns at the angle of the triangle side. When asked for the number of columns and rows you can enter the width of the surface / 1.2 if 1.2 is your triangle side length and use 1.03923 for the Row Spacing and the Height / 1.03923 for the number of rows

You could also do it maybe with the Drill Plan Module to create a drill pattern over the area and then Create Design Points which would convert the drill holes to points and use a Grid with a Stagger pattern (if you have the Drilling and Piling Module.

I used the first approach using Matrix Copy to create this example - I did it at 5m centers to save time but it works

Works pretty well I think - a few steps but gets the job done

If you need Points you can use Create from CAD to achieve that or you can make a surface and then explode it out to Points and Lines using Explode Surface command

The video that was posted separately shows how I did this

Alan

Thanks Alan, that great

Couldnt you also hatch and explode? I believe there is a triangle option. You would just have to find the correct scale. I did this for a project and it worked well.

The only tricky part maybe if you need it to start at a specific position.

Pat - I just tried this in a Metric Surface Model and you can get it close but as you say the scale is hard to get it exactly right - If I use a Hatch pattern called TRINET and use a scale of 40 in the hatch then the edge length of the triangles is 1.1732 - Gavin is asking for 1.2m centers - so I guess if I knew how the Hatch pattern was defined - I am assuming they are defined in Metric, and I would have assumed that in Metric a scale of 1 would be 1m but then a scale of 40 would not be 1.1732 - but if I use a scale of 40.913 it gives a side length of 1.2 and it will work to give Gavin what he needs here - so good catch

You can then use Create from CAD to create points at all the Intersection points - on a big surface it may take a while but it will actually do the job - the points are a little unwieldy after being created as CAD points are pretty clumsy objects - to work with them for any purpose other than staking I would convert them into a Point Cloud as there will be a lot of them most likely

Gavin - that is a lot of Wick Drain points - you should look at Groundworks for putting those guys in the ground - that will navigate the machine and shoot them in to the right depth etc.

Alan