Is Kubla the right tool for me?

Good morning.

I was hoping to ask a couple of questions in order to see if Kubla is going to solve my needs.
Feedback would be much appreciated, or would you suggest I contact support rather?

The basics it seems to do, but as I only tried the free version for a short bit, I would like to know if it can support the following:

1. Import and join multiple PDF's in order to do a road takeoff

2. Can it do boxing out of the road pavement?

3. Can I import or create the geotech info of different layers and types of earth and then report this when doing the cut calculations. In other
    words if I need to know the volume of sand, clay, rock etc that would be excavated.

4. When I create a pad, the software then ads a cut/fill batter. Can these batters be changed manually and be of different slopes. Sometimes you have slope of 1:2 at the
    north part of the pad and a 1:4 slope at the south part of the pad.

5. Can I create and export a rendered model of the job into either a .jpg or even better yet, in a video format like .avi or .mov?

Also, If I rent the Kubla software monthly, is it on a month to month basis, or is there a minimum notice period that have to be given if the software turns out to not be what I am after?

Thanks in advance and I do apologise if many or all of these questions might have been asked before.

Regards
Bushman
Perth, Australia

Good morning.

I was hoping to ask a couple of questions in order to see if Kubla is going to solve my needs.
Feedback would be much appreciated, or would you suggest I contact support rather?

The basics it seems to do, but as I only tried the free version for a short bit, I would like to know if it can support the following:

1. Import and join multiple PDF's in order to do a road takeoff

2. Can it do boxing out of the road pavement?

3. Can I import or create the geotech info of different layers and types of earth and then report this when doing the cut calculations. In other
    words if I need to know the volume of sand, clay, rock etc that would be excavated.

4. When I create a pad, the software then ads a cut/fill batter. Can these batters be changed manually and be of different slopes. Sometimes you have slope of 1:2 at the
    north part of the pad and a 1:4 slope at the south part of the pad.

5. Can I create and export a rendered model of the job into either a .jpg or even better yet, in a video format like .avi or .mov?

Also, If I rent the Kubla software monthly, is it on a month to month basis, or is there a minimum notice period that have to be given if the software turns out to not be what I am after?

Thanks in advance and I do apologise if many or all of these questions might have been asked before.

Regards
Bushman
Perth, Australia

Hi Bushman,
With regards your queries, i'll answer the ones I can:
1. Yes you can import multiple PDFs into one drawing.
2. Yes, by outlining your road box area, adding proposed levels then offsetting by the depth of box.
3. Can't answer this one - Sorry
4. Yes, using the slope function
5. I use Windows screen shot (Win+Shift+S) to create views for my clients.
As for pricing etc, you will need to contact Kubla Cubed direct, I am but a user.
Cheers
Tim

Thanks very much for the reply Tim0.
I will see if I can email Kubla to get some more feedback.

Thanks very much for the reply Tim0.
I will see if I can email Kubla to get some more feedback.

Hi Bushman

Welcome to the Kubla forums! I will just expand on Tim's excellent answers to your questions : 

3. Can I import or create the geotech info of different layers and types of earth and then report this when doing the cut calculations. In other
    words if I need to know the volume of sand, clay, rock etc that would be excavated.

Currently support for different materials assigned to earthworks and to the existing (via bore hole input) is not possible.  People do however manage to complete different material analysis using different phases in the program.  In each phase a mathematically raw comparison of two TINS takes place so you can use this to assist in many different scenarios outside the standard bulk earthworks scenario.  Kubla Cubed is very much a work in progress and materials are planned for Kubla Cubed 2020 Ultimate Edition, that will be priced slightly higher than the Professional.  We are going to have to do quite a bit of research for this one as there are a number of factors to consider like swell\compaction and how to interpolate bore holes in an intuitive way.  We also hope to introduce a balancing tool in 2020.    

4. When I create a pad, the software then ads a cut/fill batter. Can these batters be changed manually and be of different slopes. Sometimes you have slope of 1:2 at the
    north part of the pad and a 1:4 slope at the south part of the pad.

Indeed it is a bit of a design flaw in the current program that side batter is only input per earthworks element.  We have frequently had this request.  The calculation engine can do this as it was a requirement for one of our marine products, but Kubla Cubed doesn't support it.  In Kubla Cubed 2020 the side batter will be switched to a property of boundary lines rather than element and it will remedy this situation.  The current workaround we recommend is to combine different platforms into one building pad.  As one platform will override the other you can create different segments for different sides.  In most cases this creates a very satisfactory result.

There is a discussion (with examples) regarding this in this thread : Differing side batter

5. Can I create and export a rendered model of the job into either a .jpg or even better yet, in a video format like .avi or .mov?

There is an export to image feature in the program which can export a .jpg, .bmp or .pdf of the plan view.  For the 3D shots it is best to enter 'Presentation Mode' and then use Tim's shortcut or the Windows snipping tool to grab the picture that you want, for instance : 

   

In Windows 7,8 & 10 follow this guide : https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help...creenshots

In regard to .mov .avi spin around it is certainly something we want to do in the future.  However currently there is no facility to do this in Kubla Cubed unfortunately.  The best thing I can recommend is to either export the CAD models into a 3D program like Blender (free opensource animation package).  You can then create a fly around of the model using Blender tutorials, however this is recommended only for people with some animation\3D modelling experience.  We had to do this for a presentation once and cheated a bit by just using a screen capture software (we used the free Open Broadcaster software at the time but have since purchased Screen-Cast-O-Matic which is easier to use) and then we just spun around the models in CAD although you should be able to do the same in Kubla Cubed using Presentation mode and the keyboard keys to get a smoother spin.  We only did it in CAD to demonstrate exports. 

Please feel free to contact support if you want to see a demonstration of the current capabilities using your own data.

Ah, thanks very much for the reply Ted. Much appreciated.

I am currently using your free version to see if this is the software I am needing to do takeoffs.

Another question I have is regarding the PDFs imported into Kubla.
Sometimes we are issued really bad 2nd generation PDF's and that does make things harder. Most of the time we get good 1st generation PDF's.
When importing them, it seems like Kubla then treats the 1st Gen PDF as a normal raster and it looses the ability to snap to contour lines. Is this just how it is, or am I doing something wrong while importing the PDF?

Ah, thanks very much for the reply Ted. Much appreciated.

I am currently using your free version to see if this is the software I am needing to do takeoffs.

Another question I have is regarding the PDFs imported into Kubla.
Sometimes we are issued really bad 2nd generation PDF's and that does make things harder. Most of the time we get good 1st generation PDF's.
When importing them, it seems like Kubla then treats the 1st Gen PDF as a normal raster and it looses the ability to snap to contour lines. Is this just how it is, or am I doing something wrong while importing the PDF?

Currently there is no PDF vector processing in Kubla Cubed.  So both 1st Gen and 2nd Gen PDFs will be treated the same. 

Could it be that you were using a different program for the contour snapping.  What is likely is that the 2nd Gen ones are actually scanned from paper so are converted into images which are embedded into the PDF rather than vectors.  I can imagine the scenario you describe happening after that.

In Kubla Cubed 2019 (to be released next week) you can snap elements to each other but still you cannot convert PDF vectors to contours.  You can do this with third party programs and import them as CAD entities though.

Good morning.

I thought it best to rather just continue on this old thread with questions while I am still learning.

Is that OK, or would admin rather prefer me creating a new thread for each question?


I am trying to import a PDF file in order to get the design info I need into Kubla.
I get the following message. Any ideas what is wrong? Perhaps my laptop itself?

Attached Files

Image(s)
   

Good morning.

I thought it best to rather just continue on this old thread with questions while I am still learning.

Is that OK, or would admin rather prefer me creating a new thread for each question?


I am trying to import a PDF file in order to get the design info I need into Kubla.
I get the following message. Any ideas what is wrong? Perhaps my laptop itself?

Hi Bushman, 

It's fine to put here, but next time maybe start a new thread as it's easier for other users to find if they have similar issues and also we get an e-mail notification for new posts to our support box, but not for discussions on old threads :

I have to say I have not seen the error that you mention relating to the site plan.  We will need to investigate this further it seems to be a bug relating to Java.  I tested on my machine and it works, having said that I am running Window 10 and you are on Windows 7 (I can tell from the slight display differences) so it might be an issue on Windows 7 only.  Can you first try a different PDF and see if it is a problem with all PDF files and Kubla Cubed or an issue with just this one.  I think it may relate to an installation issue of Java or Kubla Cubed on your computer and not a general problem, but I will try to test on a Windows 7 test machine that we have in the office when I next get a chance.  A better workaround than using a screenshot of Adobe Acrobat is to use an online PDF -> Image converter at 300DPI like this one (https://pdf2jpg.net/).  However this is just temporary as we should be able to fix this.  PDF Import is a major strength of the program so it should work well.

I will be in touch over e-mail to find a fix for you.  We do get the occasional issue with PDF files but since the release of Kubla Cubed 2019 it is pretty rare for anyone to have problems.

Cheers

Ted

HI

Is there any update on the 2020 version that includes the identification of subsurface layers such as fill, clay, rock, which will then form part of the excavation calculation?

Thanks
Duncan

HI

Is there any update on the 2020 version that includes the identification of subsurface layers such as fill, clay, rock, which will then form part of the excavation calculation?

Thanks
Duncan

Hi DuncanKing

For various reasons we have changed our road map in that regard.  There are a variety of oft requested features on our road map that users want and after a review and some successful tests of other features we decided to shelve the material support in favor of other items. 

Kubla Cubed 2020 (V6.x) is not going to support materials and bore holes but instead is going to focus on improvements to CAD integration, extraction of vectors from PDF files and improvements to the usability of the current tools with the introduction of complex outlines for all elements as well as a lot of other smaller but important improvements.

Materials complicates matters considerably and before we do that we wanted to make the current platform a stable and user friendly platform our users can rely on for a number of years while we redesign the program to take it to the next level.

After Kubla Cubed 2020 is released there will be a reworking of the design to accommodate the more advanced features like materials and heal elements.  There will also be new technology used that wasn't available or was in its infancy when Kubla Cubed was first conceived leading to many potential improvements to the UI and visualization.  We are hoping to release this now in a 2022 release.  There will then be three tiers consisting of Kubla Cubed Lite (free), Kubla Cubed Pro, and Kubla Cubed Ultimate.  Kubla Cubed Pro will map more or less to the current offering whereas the ultimate edition will feature the new material and bore hole capability. 

That being said in the current version of Kubla Cubed even though you can't input the site conditions using bore hole input you can calculate different layers of strata that you are adding to the site by seperating the project into different phases and using a new phase for each material that you are adding on.  A lot of people use this method and name the phases accordingly. 

If you want to know more about this method it might be an idea to create a new post about that.

I hope this answers your questions.