Excavation

Preparing Site for Excavation

• Either use Site Context app or bring in your own model that you wish to excavate

  • It can be found in Coordination or Construction tabs

• Excavation can be found in the Element Properties window after selecting the model you wish to excavate

• Any model can be excavated if the user desires to do so

Optional: Bring in a PDF of your excavation/model blueprint

• Select your site, an option for PDF overlay will be in Element Properties

  1. Click Create PDF Overlay

• Using measurements in your PDF, click in the scene and then hold ALT and drag to see a box appear

  1. Alternatively you can type measurements into the width/height boxes that appear

• Click Generate to select a PDF to load in

• Select your PDF from Windows File Explorer (it accepts the first page only, so if your blueprint is on page 2, make a new PDF with the page you need as page 1)

• Select the PDF in scene

• If you want to adjust the transparency - click the Color Override button in the top right of element properties

• Adjust the transparency so you can see through the PDF but still use it to draw your excavation

• Scale the PDF up or down so that it matches your site

• Now you can use it for tracing excavations

• Finalizing the scaling/refitting will make it so the PDF can be clicked through, as a convenience for creating excavations by tracing through the PDF

• You can Clear PDF Overlay with the same button you used to create it, just select the model you made the overlay on and click the button to clear the PDF from the file

• It can be hidden/selected with visibility override

• After excavation, the PDF will clear itself when you save and reload the file

Optional: Site Preparation

• Site preparation will help level a site and clearly define its boundaries before excavating

• It is only available on site context models generated by Site Context app currently

• The site preparation boundary is snappable while making excavations, so it can be used in lieu of the grid if desired

• Helps the rest of the team know the boundaries of the site

  1. Where to place fences

  2. Visualize boundaries

• Also functions to level the site using a slider bar once the site boundaries have been defined

• Use smooth brush after site preparation to level out any areas of uneven terrain

• Site preparation boundaries will hide in Flythrough automatically

Begin Excavating Site

• Select the context model you wish to excavate on

• In Element Properties - Click the option that says “Create Excavation Zone”

• A grid appears and you can control the size of the grid cells with the UI that also appears

• Click at least 3 points to form your excavation

• Hit ESC to finalize

• You can adjust the pit depth from here (it’s advised to get your elevation settled first before doing work with ramps)

Connecting Excavations Together

• Depending on your order of operations you may need to excavate in sections, and there are two ways to go about this currently

  • Excavate the whole area and then draw excavation zones within the outer pit (see Figure 1)

  • Excavate one section at a time (see Figure 2)

• We have given users the ability to snap their excavation zones to other excavations and the cursor will change to show if you’re snapping to a wall, a corner, or to nothing, which changes the result of the excavation that is formed

• Snapping excavations together will prevent situations where a wall is formed between two connected excavations, so if you want a wall between excavations then you would avoid snapping excavation pits together

  • Corner snapping is indicated by a “Y” shaped cursor (see Figure 3)

  • Wall snapping is indicated by an “X” shaped cursor (see Figure 4)

  • Non-snapping is indicated by a “+” shaped cursor (see Figure 5)

• If you’re not seeing the cursor indicator change, try to change your camera position or rotate around the excavation until it starts changing

• If you’re very close to the site, the snapping is more precise, and the further away you are, the stronger the snapping will become

• Sloping between connected pits this way is not supported

• You may get a warning message if your excavation overlaps with another excavation, which is not supported

  • Instead, use the snapping feature to snap the two pits together, or, try the alternative of making an excavation that encompasses all inner excavations

Adjusting Angle and Depth

• Once your excavation is made you have an opportunity to adjust the angle and depth of your pit which both save to keyframe

• Angle adjusts the walls of the excavation so that they’re sloped inwards by the angle you set - which is currently capped between 90 degrees and 30 degrees - 90 being sheer cliff walls and 30 being a more gentle slope

• Depth adjusts the elevation of your excavation and will also update soil displacement volume

• You have slider and manual entry for both depth and angle

• You use the keyframe system the same way you use it for Fuzor vehicles

  • Add a keyframe, then change elevation, for example, will allow you to dig in multiple phases

  • You can further separate your animations into MTA’s, which allows for multiple excavations, or multi-phase excavations, and greater control over the micro schedule surrounding excavation

• If you don’t want all of the walls to be sloped you can substitute Angle for Ramps to only apply sloping to some of the walls

Optional: Ramps (no curving/spiral ramps currently)

• Ramps form off of the edges of excavation walls with our system

• When you start making a ramp, hover your cursor over the edge of the excavation and you’ll see a green ramp indicator to show you the current size/angle of your ramp as you’re creating it

• W = Width | L = Length | A = Side wall angle

  1. NOTE: UI will appear at the top of the screen to give you instructions based on what step you’re on

  2. Select your excavation pit

  3. In the element properties click “Create Ramp”

  4. Mouse over the part of the wall you want your ramp to be on

  5. Click once

  6. Now adjust ramp width to your desired specs

  7. Click once

  8. Now adjust your ramp slope (1/8 is OSHA compliant in most cases, but if you have a blueprint you may already have exact specs, which we support as well)

  9. Click once

  10. Now adjust your ramp length to specs

  11. Click again

      1. If your ramp was touching the floor when you clicked, the ramp is finalized

      2. If your ramp was in the air when you clicked, a platform is made and then you can repeat steps c-j until your ramp is touching the floor

• NOTE: You can manually input numbers instead of using mouse to adjust ramp width/length/slope/side angle

• If you want an excavation with a single sloped wall you can use a ramp for that purpose

Misc. Information

• You can save your animation and convert it to MTA, which allows you to split your excavation into different tasks if desired, giving you direct control over when your ramp forms or when the pit gets dug out.

• Your MTA or default excavation animations can be applied to a sequence animation task in the schedule, allowing the excavation to become part of the 4D simulation.

• Excavation supports physics meaning you can drive vehicles into the pit, use egress routes, paths, or any other system that uses physics.

• You can smooth using the Smooth brush inside the pit, allowing for more control over the look and accessibility of the pit

• Measurements appear along the lines you draw and the angles you’re making

• Site Define and Terrain Smooth brushes will disappear from Site Context model after making an excavation on it

• Extremely large excavations will be slower to load physics, so you may see things like cars stop moving on paths if the path goes over a large excavation, the problem is fixed once physics loads, and we’ve included a progress bar to indicate loading when opening a file with one of these larger excavations

Current Limitations and How to Avoid Them

The excavation app is a powerful tool, but there are limitations to be aware of in order to have a smooth experience while working with the system.

• Prefer to create one large excavation and do all future excavations within it

  • You can snap excavations together, but this provides no benefit in terms of animating them and makes the system harder to use

• Pay attention to the cursor indicator (Y/X/+) when snapping excavations together or drawing excavations within excavations.

  • Y being corner snapping, X being wall snapping, and + being no snapping, which can alter the results of the excavation

• If you’re using sloping walls then you should try to use a single “parent” excavation for your project, as snapping excavations with sloped walls together is not supported

• Delete the excavation if you do not like the result and start again - the tool is designed to be fast to use and will restore the site context when deleted

• The order of snapping excavations together matters when animating them, and it is possible to have gaps if animating in the wrong order

• Set your elevation (depth) before snapping excavations together

  • This doesn’t matter if you’re not connecting excavations together and instead working in a single “parent” excavation

• Snapping two excavations to a single excavation is not supported

  • You can instead create a single “parent” excavation and create additional excavation zones within it

• Avoid using the smooth brush near the walls of the excavation

  • Reducing the radius of the brush can help with this

• If you wish to change the excavation material, make it the final thing you change after all excavations have been created/snapped together