2.1 Excavation Tool

Excavation Tool Operations and Plan

Learn the basic features of the excavation feature set, which makes it easy to rapidly model, simulate and quantify the bulk and detailed excavation phase.

Summary

• The excavation tool creates an editable volume, the "excavation boundary", to manipulate through operations such as cuts, fills, and ramps
• Access the excavation tool from Excavation, on the toolbar
• The Excavation menu is comprised of two tabs:

1. Add Operations - make cuts, fills, and ramps
2. Excavation Plan - view and edit operations per milestone, edit excavation boundary and settings, and view and export the excavation breakdown

Excavation Operations

Note:

• Previously, the excavation boundary was required to be defined before any operations could be made
• This workflow is still functional if you want to explicitly define the boundary
• However, it is no longer necessary as the excavation boundary now automatically creates and expands to encapsulate operations made anywhere on the map tile

Cut and Fill:

• Go to Excavation
• Under Add operations, select Cut to remove material, or Fill to add material
• Add anywhere on the map (and the boundary will appear)
• Alternatively, under Excavation Plan, click Create Excavation Boundary
• Click points with polyline tool to create a polygon (3 points min.)
• Click Done

• Cut/Fill Menu -

• Define the cut depth (or fill height) by inputting an elevation
• Simply minus the depth or add the height from zero for a flat map Eg. -3 [m]
• Use a sea-level elevation for a topographic map Eg. 42 [m]
• Find and use the local sea-level elevation by clicking Select From Map
• Check Slope Walls to angle all the walls of the cut/fill
• Slope inwards or outwards from the sketch
• Define the slope ratio

Ramps:

• Go to Excavation
• Under Add operations, select Positive Ramp or Negative Ramp
• Note: Ramps are only available after making a cut or fill
• Position the ramp along the wall of a cut or fill
• Click Done
• Ramp Menu -
• Define width, height, and percent grade (slope)
• Define calculation type
• Left unexcavated - ramp volume will be subtracted from the total bulk excavation volume
• Backfilled - ramp volume will be added as a fill volume
• Define stable soil angle (side-wall slope)
• Enter x-y slope ratio or '0' if a lateral slope is not required

Excavation Plan

• Go to Excavation, and then Excavation Plan
• See the excavation operations listed and separated by milestone
• On the operation card, click on the three dots to see options, such as:
• Edit Details - reopen the cut/fill edit menu to adjust the operation
• Duplicate - make a copy of the operation, which can be dragged to move
• Create fill from cut - to use the shape of a cut to create a fill
• Move operation
• Delete Operation