Volumes Dashboard Extension

by Russ Nicloy, Civil Applications Engineer

Whenever I’m involved in a discussion about the volume calculations in Civil 3D we have to break the conversation into three different methods. Then there’s the inevitable question about printing a nice looking report. Sure, there are ways to do it, but they are a little…indirect. Last week the Volumes Dashboard Extension was posted on the Autodesk Subscription site. This extension basically takes the volume calculation functions and puts them into a unified tool. Put another way, “dashboard” is a very appropriate term for it!

The Dashboard appears in the Toolbox tab of the Toolspace. By right-clicking on the tool it provides a panorama window that looks similar to the volume calculator that we’ve had in previous releases. But there’s more. You can create a volume surface from here. Then, assign a boundary for a bounded volume calc. this trees the bounded area(s) below the volume surface entry. Nice and neat, keeping all of your data in relation to each other. The color swatch that used to be the litmus test for cut OR fill now provides that data in relative amounts.

You can then create external, for-printing, reports, or data tables for inclusion in the drawing. Both have easy to read styles, and are a good ending point for the data you are representing.

By the way, you’re on subscription, right? There are a lot of reasons for being on subscription, but these extension packages are one of my favorites. Talk to your reseller to find out the full scoop on subscription.