This is a small update the headline changes are :

A) Automatic Outline tool to save time when you only need to create a simple outline around you elevation features.

B) Enhanced the slope earthworks element to allow you to define with arrows and incline angles.

C) Enhanced the site plan module so you can rotate by 90° increments as well as the north arrow and the scale input (e.g 1" = 20') is now input after the site plan is displayed allowing you to view the site plan and read the scale of the plan before inputting the scale information.

Full list of updates below : 

___________________________________________
16:00 3/11/2017 - Kubla Cubed Version 4.3
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New Features
+ Added an option to define slope elements with an elevation and incline arrow to improve usability.  Previously the only option was to define the slope from three points which was not very user-friendly.
+ Added an 'Automatic Outline' option in the take-off module.  This allows far quicker creation of outlines.  This feature existed in older version of Kubla Cubed and has been reintroduced due to popular demand.

Improvements 
+ Moved the PDF scale option from the page selector prompt into the site plan window.  This allows the user to read scale information on the loaded PDF at the same time they are inputting the scale.  Another benefit is the page selector prompt no longer needs to be displayed for single page PDF files.
+ Added the ability to rotate the site plan by 90° increments. In some scenarios this is far quicker and more accurate than using the 'North Arrow' method.
+ Upgraded the software licensing back-up activation option to be visiting a URL instead of mailing Kubla Support.  This allows to user to get the license immediately rather than having to wait for a response from support.  

Fixes
+ Resolved the program incorrectly reporting another instance of the program was running after the program had been closed and then re-opened shortly afterwards. 
 + Resolved the design area only 'zooming to extents' on the first phase after importing a site plan.  Now it will zoom to extents on all phases to ensure the user can see the new site plan.
+ Fixed a bug in the take-off module when cancelling which was causing the project to recalculate even if the user had cancelled and so nothing was changed.  It could also cause a crash when cancelling after creating a new feature surface element.
+ Added validation check to the site plan form to prevent the user from specifying a scale length of zero.  Previously if a length of zero was entered the software would crash.
+ Added validation check to the site plan form to prevent the user from specifying two identical co-ordinates when using the ‘align to 2 points’ option.  Previously this would have caused the software to crash. 
+ Resolved issue with long element names causing problems with the user interface in the take-off module.  Long names will now be truncated in the display.


Please post any feedback below.

Good afternoon All,

I have a small query regarding the strip function.

I have measured two strip areas under a strip tab, i.e. Topsoil and hardstanding, but in the estimation export it bulks all quantities into one.
 
My question is, can I copy say the hardstanding details and paste them into a new tab?

Kind Regards

Tim

Hi, when i am holding down M to measure a 1m perimeter around houses it is working then once i click the line the M dosnt work for about 2-3 mins, this is making my work output quite low please help

We recently updated our trusty old website at www.kublasoftware.com.
 
I thought I would share the technology we used as it might be of interest to any of you thinking that your business could do with a new website.  If you have an old site that is looking slightly dated like ours was and you want to take advantage of some of the features of modern website platforms (Wordpress, SquareSpace, Wix) it could be easier than you think.
 
Our original website was hand coded in HTML, CSS and JavaScript.  These technologies are like the basic tools of writing websites.  In one way mastering these technologies is useful as it gives you the low-level control to do basically anything you want, however in the modern-day web the advantage of this low-level control is becoming less and less important.  We decided to make the leap to using a web site platform that gave us a much higher level of user experience think “drag and drop” rather than writing code.
 
There are a lot of successful websites written by some web builders that take almost all the complexity away from you. www.wix.com and www.squarespace.com are two market leaders.  The problem with these is you cannot self-host and you are effectively tied into a contract with those companies to continue hosting your site.  However, the costs are very small, sometimes less than a mobile phone contract. When you factor in the costs of running and maintaining your own server it sometimes becomes a no brainer to go with these options.
 
In the end, we decided to go with using WordPress installed on one of our virtual servers we rent using Amazon Web Services (An EC2 instance).  This is relatively easy to do although does require some technical knowledge.  You could choose to get an IT freelancer to set up a WordPress site for you if you aren’t confident yourself or pay for the company who make www.wordpress.com to host it for you creating a similar setup to that with other platforms.
 
WordPress is a great technology that makes it far easier to create web pages than writing raw HTML code.  It is open source and free for anyone to download and install onto their sever.  Apart from making it a lot easier to write web pages another great thing about these platforms is that there are many customisations that you can buy referred to as ‘plugins’.  They can add things like image carousals, count down timers, price charts etc...  You will see these used all the time when visiting websites and can really give you site a quality feel.    
 
A plugin we decided to use was Divi 3.0 by Elegant Themes.  This plugin is basically a theme and a pack of different tools that made it even easier to edit the website.  It comes with a selection of widgets for displaying images, price tables etc…  There was some frustrating hours spent trying to get it to work initially but I think it is worth it as now editing pages can be done in a few clicks.  
 
All told the website took two of us about two weeks to create.  However, it is worth noting these things :
 
A)   A lot of the content was copied from the old site.
B)   Those two staff were very technical.
C)   We do have perhaps a more complex site than some of you will need.
D)  We used stock photography from www.shutterstock.com to get quality images to use.
 
I hope this info I useful to anyone tackling the same task.  We aren’t recommending\endorsing the companies mentioned just letting you know the route we took. 
 
If you aren’t confident with technology you might have to employ free lancers or an agency to give you a hand with the technical parts.  The same could be said for graphic design and writing copy etc… but we did it all ourselves.
 
We are pretty pleased with the results and it is now on a platform which is very easy to work with.  This is ideal as we plan to update it in the future with new areas for a knowledge base, learning section, user manuals and blog etc...
 
Would love to hear any feedback people have on the site, and am happy to answer questions relating to the upgrade.

Good afternoon,

Is there any possibility of a dedicated Slope tutorial? I just can't seem to get my head around it 

Cheers

Tim

how does one do a road given varying levels on edges of the road and not the centreline?

Quick post to say that the 3D visualisation feature in KC2017 is brilliant and makes visualising both existing and proposed terrain a breeze.

Thank you to all the team  for producing such great software.

Cheers

Tim   

Good afternoon,

I'm currently preparing a cut and fill project which has retaining walls which form stepped platforms. My question is, how do I allow for these retaining walls when I enter proposed levels?

It's probably very simple, but i've had a long day 

Cheers

Tim

Good afternoon All,

I was wondering if it would be possible to change the mouse pointer in existing and takeoff to a cross instead of a 'blob?'

Only cosmetic, but would feel as if your being a little more accurate.

Cheers

Tim 

we are trying out Kubla. 2nd day. managed to plot our existing ground using your video guides. our project has 101 houses with differing FFL's. do you have tutorials we can look at as we cant seem to make headway at all?

thank you