Trimble Business Center

I am trying to export Machine Control from TBC V 5.1. I am exporting in GCS900 Controller Version 12.4 because the contractor has not updated every machine on site. I have done this same model before and I am just trying to upload the revisions to the surface models. The model is only 1000m long and only 1 lane width. It's a very undetailed surface with only 8 lines in the design map.

If I export in 12.4/12.5 with Embedded Geoid Support and Extended Coordinate System Support enabled I get "GEOID DOES NOT EXIST" error (see attached screenshot). The project is calibrated, has a Geoid etc. Where is the GEOID supposed to be? (Not a very helpful error message, I must say).

If I export in 12.4/12.5 with Embedded Geoid Support and Extended Coordinate System Support DISABLED I get "The coordinate system could not be exported. Reduce the extents and try again" error (see attached screenshot). This lane is only 1000m long and 4m wide.

IT ALL EXPORTS JUST fine with the Controller set to Version 12.6.

So, what am I missing? Last year I did this EXACT same export to version 12.4: same models, same project, same calibration... I have not touched the project since. I also tried using TBC-HCE 4.12 (same as last year) and I get the same problem.

Any help gratefully accepted.

Marshall

I am going to need the project in order to troubleshoot - can you close the project and then Archive the Project (to create a ZIP of all the Project Files and send it over to me and I will take a look today Marshall

Alan

Alan: I have attached the Archive.

Thank you very much for the offer to help figure this out.

Best regards,

Marshall

Marshall

I created Machines for v12.2 and v12.4 of GCS900 and on both I added the Check boxes for Enable Extended coordinate system support and Enable support for embedded Geoid subgrid - the way that Geoid Models and Coordinate systems was handled on machines was changed when the new control boxes like CB450 and CB460 were introduced because they had more processing power than previous boxes - prior to that we loaded the Config Files into the receivers and the receivers did the GPS to Local Conversion Work and Geoids were not handled at all - with the advent of the new control boxes,we enabled a small Geoid Subgrid to be loaded into the Config Files for additional Height Adjustment rather than relying solely on the Inclined Plane method of adjustment and more of the GPS to Local conversion is handled by the Control Box itself. 

Next I created a Geoid Subgrid for the project area - I queried the Lat / Long of the Top Right and Bottom Left corners of the project using the Coordinate Scroll and then used the Create Geoid Subgrid command to create a subgrid file for the project.

Next I used Coordinate System Manager to add the Geoid Subgrid to the Coordinate System Manager as a Geoid Model.

Next I edited the Project Settings - Coordinate System - Geoid Model and added the New Subgrid Geoid to the Project.

Now the Coordinate System (including Geoid Model) is limited to the range of the Geoid Model and I can go into the Jobsite Manager to Resolve Conflicts on the Coordinate System (Use Project) and Control Points (Use project) and Site Map (use Project).

Now I can resolve conflicts on all of the Designs (Use Project) and assign the Designs to my 12.2 and 12.4 versions of GCS900 with those check boxes enabled.

The errors that you (and I were seeing) disappear, the Designs get created and I am now good to go (I believe anyway). Proof is with you pushing data out to machines and letting me know all is good today.

Let me know if you have any more issues on this - I believe that this resolves the issue that you were having.

I will check internally whether all these steps are truly necessary - I am not sure whether we are supposed to Subgrid manually like this or whether there is some background function that should do this automatically (which should really be possible and I will put in a request for this as we are doing some new work on this for Works Manager over the summer months and maybe a good time to fix this work flow (because we know the limits of the site and we know the Full Geoid Model we are working with, and we know the limits of the Subgrid required for GCS900 you would have thought we could have automated this better - but maybe we never thought of it till now ....

Here is an extract from the Help System that explains some of the above

Hope that this helps

Alan

Alan: First, thank you very much for the incredibly detailed workflow. I truly appreciate it.

I will be doing these steps in the next day, or so, as we were restricted from working until next Monday (due to avalanche hazard still!)

After I posted my question yesterday I did some more experimenting.

  1.  Exported VCL of the project.

  2.  Created a new project from the VCL on my field computer. (Windows 10 Pro, 32Gb RAM etc).

  3.  I was able to create machine control in versions 20.0 through 12.6 without issues including the coord’ and geoid checkboxes enabled.

It left me wondering if, for some reason, it might be Windows related and not TBC? Perhaps something like a pointer or path to a file was re-set?

I checked all paths I could find between the 2 computers for TBC and coordinate system manager, App Data etc. etc. No luck, every path was the same.

So, there’s a few hours I won’t get back LOL![Winking face with no fill]

Thank you again for the attention to detail. When I push the data to the machines next week I will follow up.

Best regards,

Marshall

Hi Alan, I would be very interested in how you specified the lat / Long limits in the actual Subgrid manager.

I have only been able to click and drag to create one, not very precise to say the least?

Agree - I just got my cursor close to the values that I read out of TBC -

it doesn't let you enter values manually unfortunately

Alan

On Thu, May 9, 2019 at 2:17 PM wheaslip@bmslasersat.com.au <

A few more pointers here

Alan: Thanks for the extra details.

I followed along your detailed instructions and created a sub-grid. However, when I get to the point of changing the Project Settings – Coordinate System – Geoid the sub-grid is not listed.

It is in the Geodata folder C:\ProgramData\Trimble\GeoData but does not appear in the Coordinate System Manager Geoid list either.

I restarted TBC after creating the sub-grid and even tried rebooting; still not listed.

The really odd thing is that I have never had to reduce the geoid file to a sub-grid. The Canada HT2 geoid is 14MB. It is in my controllers running SCS900 and after doing a site cal on any given job I just drop it into TBC and do the data prep and machine control. Does SCS900 automatically reduce the geoid file size as part of the site cal?

Again, thank you very much for the effort.

Marshall

You have to add the Subgrid to Coordinate System Manager for it to show up

in the list

Go to Windows Start key - Trimble Office - Coordinate System Manager

In there Select Geoid Models

Press the + button in the icons at the top of the dialog

Name the Geoid and the Export Name (use the same name) and then pull down

the list where it says File Name - your Subgrid File should be in that list.

Once you have created it in CSM - then you can select it in TBC.

As I said earlier - I am trying to find out if Subgridding happens

automatically (it should and maybe it has been broken in v5+ if it worked

in earlier versions of BC-HCE) - my main source of this level of detail is

reluctant to go hunt this down for me - (it must be tough to find that in

the code base if he is being that tricky ....)  so I have no way of telling

what is happening there - I can hunt around some more tomorrow. myself.

SCS900 and Siteworks and now Earthworks I understand all can use the full

Geoid Model without subgridding - however these older systems are more

tricky because they were developed for hardware that was not as good as

that available today - and while we would love to be able to go back and

fix all of the old code bases for legacy products, it just is not

economically viable to do so unfortunately - and as you can see with each

version of Firmware and Software things changed and improved with time but

when you go way back to 12.4 etc, there is no way that we can fix every

version that we ever created etc.

Hope that this is helpful at least

Alan

On Thu, May 9, 2019 at 4:18 PM marshall.cant@outlook.com <trimble@jiveon.com>

Alan: VERY helpful. Thank you Sir. Much appreciated.

Have a good evening.

Marshall