Distance Calculation Plan Drawing

The purpose of this dialog

In this dialog, you can draw a distance plan drawing showing the distances between two triangulated surfaces in an unfolded tunnel perspective. The distances are shown both as color-filled polygons and/or colored points. In addition, you can produce Excel reports listing distances and volumes between the triangulated surfaces.

Start using the dialog – Setting up the surfaces to compare

The work process in this dialog starts by choosing the two surfaces to consider. You must choose one primary and one secondary surface. Outwards distances from the primary surface to the secondary surface are positive.

For both the primary and the secondary surfaces you can choose either one of the design surfaces (inner profile, perimeter, free space) or one of the active scanned surfaces. You cannot compare two design surfaces, but you can compare two scanned surfaces.

The design surfaces are not triangulated from before, so if you choose a design surface as one of the surfaces to compare, then you have to specify the Chainage Interval (division into triangles in the longitudinal direction) and the Bow Height Limit(division into triangles in the circumference direction) as input to the triangulation method. In addition to these user-specified break lines in the triangulation mesh, all break lines in the designed tunnel geometry will automatically create triangle break lines.

After choosing both primary and secondary surfaces and setting up the triangulation parameters, then you can press the Calculate button to get the max/min distance value for the total overlapping area. This calculation can take some seconds. When this calculation is finished, the rest of the controls in the dialog are activated.

The interval setup

With the Interval Setup controls, you can decide the distance intervals and the corresponding colors shown on the drawing. The distance intervals are divided into negative and positive intervals. You can choose to not draw either negative or positive distances by unchecking the corresponding checkboxes.

By default, the system suggests not considering the closest 5% of the distance intervals on each side of zero distance. This can be overruled by you by changing the values for the highest and lowest distances to consider, and pressing Set. You can also use this functionality to remove distances that are calculated from malicious scanner points. This you can do by reducing the lowest distance to consider for negative distances and the highest distance to consider for positive distances, and pressing Set.

The system suggests three equally distributed intervals for respectively negative and positive distances. You can edit these intervals in many ways:

• Click in the interval table cell to edit the interval limit value you want to change.

• Insert new intervals by clicking on the interval line below the line you want to insert and then press the Insert button.

• Delete intervals by clicking on the interval line you want to delete and then pressing the Delete button.

• Modify the color by clicking on the actual color cell in the interval table.

When you are satisfied with the interval setup, then you can save it by pressing the Save Interval Setup button. If you want to re-use the setup for another drawing (to make comparable distance drawings e.g.) then press the Load Interval Setup button and choose the previously saved interval setup.

The legend headers specified in this dialog will show up as headers on the distance legend in the drawing.

Making the Volume and Distance Excel Reports

When you have calculated the max and min distances for the overlapping surfaces, then you can generate Excel reports for the listing of distances and volumes between the two chosen surfaces. We have two types of Excel reports:

• Report by Distance Area - Each line in this report corresponds to a “colored distance island” in the drawing

• Report by Chainage Interval - Each line in this report corresponds to a user-defined chainage interval

In each Excel report, the negative distances and volumes and the positive distances and volumes are listed on separate sheets. In addition to the max distance and corresponding volume also the average distance, the distance variance, and the distance standard deviation are listed.

Making the Distance Plan Drawing

When you are satisfied with the distance interval setup, then you can produce the distance plan drawing by pressing the Draw button. Use the checkboxes to include drawing elements:

• Draw Distance Points includes the distance points with distance annotation on the drawing. The points and the corresponding annotations are placed on separate layers: Avstandspunkt and Avstandspunktpåskrift

• Draw Volume Annotation includes a volume annotation for each “distance island” on the drawing. Every volume annotation on the drawing should have its counterpart as an Excel row in the Report by Distance Area report

• Draw Boundary of Overlapping Surfaces includes a dashed line around the borders of the overlapping surfaces.

The system calculates the distance from every triangle corner of the primary surface onto the secondary surface and the other way around. All these distances are called distance points on the unfolded tunnel geometry. Sometimes you will like to have the extra information you get by drawing these distance points, in addition to the colored distance surfaces.

After you have pressed the Draw button, it will take a while before the drawing is generated. When the drawing process is finished, the dialog will stay open and you have to close the dialog to see the drawing.

The drawing can be drawn in layout together with geology and rock support data e.g. from the Novapoint Tunnel menu choice: Geology and Rock Support Drawing Generator.

Next topic: Draw 3D Model