Using levels from adjacent Feature Surfaces

Hi

I am doing a complex earthworks takeoff for a retained embankment with defined batters, retaining walls, roads and table drains all adjacent each other.

I am able to do this by creating outlines for each surface (as none of them are level, all have cross falls and batters).

Each outline connects to the adjacent one at the same point (chainage cross sections at 50m inervals on a 1.2km length). Therefore where two outlines meet at the same point, I have to enter the elevation at that point twice, once for each outline. I tried the "interpolate" option but it did not work, I think because the outline was not within another outline with elevations.

Is there a way to set the elevations of the new adjacent outline using the elevations of the previous one already entered? i.e. not have to enter the same elevation twice where two outlines share the same point?


Thanks

Hi

I am doing a complex earthworks takeoff for a retained embankment with defined batters, retaining walls, roads and table drains all adjacent each other.

I am able to do this by creating outlines for each surface (as none of them are level, all have cross falls and batters).

Each outline connects to the adjacent one at the same point (chainage cross sections at 50m inervals on a 1.2km length). Therefore where two outlines meet at the same point, I have to enter the elevation at that point twice, once for each outline. I tried the "interpolate" option but it did not work, I think because the outline was not within another outline with elevations.

Is there a way to set the elevations of the new adjacent outline using the elevations of the previous one already entered? i.e. not have to enter the same elevation twice where two outlines share the same point?


Thanks

Hi Duncan 

At the moment there is not, but it is something that we are looking to add to the program as it has been asked for before.   I believe what doesn't help is the fact that you can't even see the Z for the existing ground or Zp at any point either as when you put a Feature Surface in edit mode it removes those.  I will look into addressing this in the upcoming Kubla Cubed 2020.

In the meantime there is a possibility of defining your outlines in CAD and then using the inbuilt 3D snapping that they have and then importing the outlines.

Hi Ted/Duncan,

Sorry to hijack this but I have just joined the forum to see if there is a way to do exactly this. I have just spent a day modelling the hard surfacing of a site and was hoping to just be able to infill all of the remaining soft landscaping areas by snapping to the existing feature outline z values. The lack of this feature creates a massive duplication of work, especially as mentioned that in edit mode you lose the view of the previously entered Z values. Surely if you can snap to an outline in plan its an easy fix to be able to add an option to snap in 3d? I really hope this comes on the next version as the majority of construction projects involve areas of hard landscaping which are dictated by given z values. The hard landscaping is usually broken up with areas of soft landscaping in-between and at the perimeter, the levels of which are normally just dictated by the surrounding hard landscaping therefore the logical way to model this is to snap to existing surrounding feature outline.

Thanks

Hi Ted/Duncan,

Sorry to hijack this but I have just joined the forum to see if there is a way to do exactly this. I have just spent a day modelling the hard surfacing of a site and was hoping to just be able to infill all of the remaining soft landscaping areas by snapping to the existing feature outline z values.  The lack of this feature creates a massive duplication of work, especially as mentioned that in edit mode you lose the view of the previously entered Z values. Surely if you can snap to an outline in plan its an easy fix to be able to add an option to snap in 3d? I really hope this comes on the next version as the majority of construction projects involve areas of hard landscaping which are dictated by given z values. The hard landscaping is usually broken up with areas of soft landscaping in-between and at the perimeter, the levels of which are normally just dictated by the surrounding hard landscaping therefore the logical way to model this is to snap to existing surrounding feature outline.

Thanks

Hi Cookiemonster

Thanks for your input.  It's always appreciated to get feedback on real projects and the problems that come up.  Even if it has been mentioned before it is good to hear from other people who have the same issue.  We have a spreadsheet with requested features as well as how many times it's been requested and we use this to guide us for the next releases.  This issue now has enough requests that we consider it a must to get into the program next year.

So the first bit of good news is the upcoming V5.13 release which is going to be released in 2 weeks time has a cursor that will show you the z value in the Feature Surface editor.  This will improve the situation somewhat.  Not the ultimate solution I know but at least you will be able to get the Zp in the feature surface editor and manually update z values without going in and out of the editor constantly.

V5.13 actually has a lot of really good tweaks such as the PDF site plans loading much quicker so make sure you install that, if you don't have it by Feb get in touch.   

The 3D snapping we have unfortunately had to push back. It isn't the hardest programming challenge but due to some awkward design choices it isn't that easy either.   We are  working on Kubla Cubed 2021 as well for a launch in May which has some major enhancements (CAD site plans, vector extraction from PDF, more editing tools) so we are quite stretched currently in regard to developers.  After Kubla Cubed V5.13 there will be at least one last minor release of Kubla Cubed 2019 so I might have a look at getting it into that one if possible if not it will be added to Kubla Cubed 2021.