You will again note that no points appear in the plan view as we do not have (or need)
any coordinates for the points we have entered.In this tutorial you will;
Enter the levels of cross sections at the start or construction.
Enter levels taken after construction has been in progress for one month.
Inspect the sections and profiles at the end of the month.
Calculate and produce a table of Volumes of Cut/Fill.
Click here to see and/or print the data for this example.
You have been supplied with two sheets of levels. The first one at January 30 are the sections after preliminary stripping, but before construction proper starts.
The second set of levels was taken at the end of February, and the contractor has asked you to calculate the volumes of dirt moved so he can present a claim for progress payment.
You should use the techniques which you have already learnt in Tutorial 12 to create a New job called 'db.tut14' and use Entry of Reduced Levels to enter the January levels as Road 1, and save them as Level Sheet 1.
Next you should again start the entry routines and enter the February levels as Road 2, and save them as Level Sheet 2. Note that you should start point numbering for the February levels from point 100 to ensure unique point numbers for each section.
If you are at all unsure as to how to go about this process please take some time to re-do, or at least re-read Tutorial 12 which will tell you everything you need to know to complete this task.
Once the levels have been stored in the job, the screen should appear as seen at left.
You will again note that no points appear in the plan view as we do not have (or need)
any coordinates for the points we have entered.
Next you need to define what you wish to view, and this is achieved by using the Reference parameters which may be accessed from the menu by pulling down the Road menu, then selecting Natural Criteria, followed by Profile Parameters. Alternatively, you may select the icon which contains a large green “R”.
A screen similar to that at right will appear. 
Line 1 will normally default to the values you need which are on with a Road Number of 1, defined By an Offset of Zero, so check and make sure these are in place..
Next move down to Line 2, check the box to turn it on, enter a Road Number of 2, and an Offset of zero.
You may also wish to select the “plot box” and assign different pen numbers to road 1 and 2 respectively to make it easier to differentiate on the screen. (e.g. use green for Road 1 and red for Road 2)
To check if everything is in order, you should now display the profile by pulling down the Road menu, selecting the option Display & Plotting, followed by the Display Profile option.
A screen will appear as seen below.
Providing
the screen does resemble the one shown you may proceed. If it does not, you need to retrace your
steps and see where you have done something different to what is written in
this example.
The next step is to define which cross section we wish to consider, so you can pull down the Road menu, select Natural Criteria, and then select Section Parameters. Alternatively, use the “X” icon to achieve the same result, which is a screen similar to that seen below.
Turn Line 1 on, and assign Road
number 1 to it. Ignore layer for the time being. If you wish you can use the
Pen box to select a colour other than black. Enter a label for line 1 of
“January” .
Next turn Line 2 on with the check box, assign it to Road 2, change the pen to a colour to suit your taste, and enter a label of “February”.
Once completed the screen should appear similar to the one above, and you then select OK.
Now pull down the Road menu, select Display & Plotting and then Display Section, and your screen should appear as seen below.
At this
stage you have three windows shown, but the plan view window (that’s window
number 1) is of no use to us, so select it, and then close it to only leave
windows 2 and 3.
Next pull down the Window menu and select Tile Horizontal.
The screen should now appear as below, showing you the profiles and the two cross sections at chainage zero.
You should use the “Next”
button in the cross section window to move sequentially through the sections to
ensure that no glaring errors can be seen.
If you see any major irregularities in the sections, it means that your data entry has gone astray, and you should go back to the level sheets and carefully check the values you have entered.
Once the sections look vaguely sensible, it is time to determine the quantity of material that has been moved.
Pull down the Road menu, select Volumes and then select Natural Volume Parameters. (or select the “V” icon)
The screen will appear similar to that shown below.
You may select the “Min” and “Max” boxes to assign the values of 0 and 300 respectively.
Next you will see the Format box, and I suggest that you experiment with the formats offered to see which is closest to what you want.
The next step is to assign the Base and Overlay roads.
In this case, Road 1 represents what was there in the first instance, and you should enter it as your base.
We will overlay Road 2 on it to determine the volumes between them, so enter 2 as the Overlay Road Number.
It matters not at this stage what you do with Mass and Haulage diagrams as they are not yet functional.
Once the screen has been filled in satisfactorily, select the OK button.
You are now ready to calculate the volumes
Pull down the Road menu, select Volumes, and this time select the Natural Volumes option.
The program will now load Word/WordPad and insert the report into . It will may tell you that it is a Rich Text File, which is what it is, so click OK and open it.
You may now use the facilities in Word/WordPad to add in Project names and any other text which you might consider appropriate.
You can also scroll around, or Maximise the window to see the ultimate value of the volume, and when you are ready you can print it out if you wish.
Note that at this stage of its career the volume program dumps its result into a file called “fred.rtf” which is a format which can be read by most Windows based word processors.
You may then use the File, Save As options in to save the report with a suitable name, and in another format such as Word Document if that is appropriate.
Note also that since this report is columnar in nature, you need to use Courier, Courier New, or some other equally spaced font.
If you try and use one of the other fonts, which is not equally spaced, you will end up with ‘wavy’ columns.