Can I calculate cut/fill with mesh tool?

[Anonymous]

I have a before and after contour mesh on a residential project and I'm wondering if there is a way to calculate the volume of cut/fill that is needed. Is there a way to do this?

[Anonymous]

Use the interactive scheduler to calculate and report the volumes of the various terrain meshes.

I used it for site logistics on a project that involved moving about 100,000 cubic yards to calculate several stages of cut and fill and estimate retainage on site, offhaul and new material quantities. The key thing is that it does take SEOs into account. Otherwise it would be pretty useless.

[Anonymous]

I will look into that, thanks.

[Erika Epstein]

You can also select the meshes and open:
Window>Palettes> Element Information

the rightmost button will show the volume information.

It won't do the Subtraction math, but if you just want some quick information that will do it.

p.s. You can export it as tabbed text (spreadsheet ) and then set up excel to do the math.

[Anonymous]

Erika wrote:
It won't do the Subtraction math, but if you just want some quick information that will do it.

What do you mean by the subtraction math? The element info does reflect the effects of the SEO. I have found all the maths needed can be done in the IS. The various phases of cut and fill have to be explicitly modeled in any case so all it needs to do is get the sums.

[Erika Epstein]

Matthew,
Both ways, IS and element information will give the correct volume of the each site mesh.
I would like to learn how to include in IS the difference in volume between two sums. In this example it would give the excavated volume of earth.

[David Shorter]

the way I do it is to model the existing site and then go to the Document Menu, Schedules and lists/Element List/Basic
This will give a volume for the existing site.
Copy the site to a new layer (say Site Model New) make the level changes, basements footings etc, select the new site and get the volume.
If the volume of the new site is greater than the existing site then I have to import this difference (fill) if its less then I am cutting this difference and I have to remove it from the site.

[Anonymous]

Erika wrote:
Matthew,
Both ways, IS and element information will give the correct volume of the each site mesh.
I would like to learn how to include in IS the difference in volume between two sums. In this example it would give the excavated volume of earth.

I get you. You want to do the operations and show the cut and fill calcs. This would be nice but rather tricky since the variations would be significant. One way to do it would be to model the cut, fill and balance. Probably more trouble than it's worth though.

[Erika Epstein]

Or the ability for IS to do calculations such as subtract this column from that one...

[Anonymous]

I have done this by having a three meshes, a new mesh that is a solid for sections etc., a duplicate of the new mesh that is 1" thick on a hidden layer and an existing mesh that is only 1" thick. Next created two slabs that are the shape of the lot and the height of the entire slope. One slab is on a hidden cut layer and the other is on a hidden fill layer, then you do solid element operations on the two slabs. For cut have the slab SEO down to the new mesh (either one) and SEO the top of the slab to the bottom of the existing 1" mesh. For the Fill do the SEO on the fill slab down to the existing mesh and SEO up to the under side of the new 1" mesh.
These provide rough numbers. There can be a lot of extra cut for wall backfills and under slabs which can be a bit tedious to model.
Make sure the two slabs are on different layers or have different fills or some other feature that can be used to separate them in the Interactive Schedule.