Terramodel 1

[Moron]

I work for a contractor in the UK who has recently purchased Terramodel+Blade Pro on a CAT D5. Results are excellent and we are now extending the software back into our engineering and estimating operations. Is there anyone out there who would share their experience of Terramodel and how it is used in their organisation?

 

[dsnmark]

Terramodel is a good civil design package for road and landfill design. We here at my office have been using the software for close to 15 years with great results.

 

[LHA]

We use it, and it is adequate. But, as an engineer who is fluent in both AutoCAD and Terrmodel, in my opinion TMOD is far more awkward to use and not at all conducive to engineering-type drafting. Some shortcomings follow:

It is hard to use the Ortho grid; it requires many more steps to perform the same functions; hatches can't be previewed or editted; dynaviews (TMOD's attempt at Viewports) aren't interactive; dimensions are not edittable; default settings are complicated to change; you can not imbed OLEs (Word or Excel); there is no drag and drop insertion; you must hit Tab instead of Enter or Spacebar to progress to the next step in a command (therefore requiring two hands at all times, or endless pointing and clicking until your wrist aches); labeling and digitizing are so unbelievably complex that you will dread doing either; snapping an object to another object with an elevation does not give the new object that elevation (like in ACAD), so you have to separately assign elevations to each new object; text windows are not adjustable, the only way to get multiline text into a thinner area is to manually insert a return where you want each line to end...great, until you want to reshape the text area; you can't scale an object realtime, you have to blindly type a number, then see if it fits, then undo and repeat until it fits; when trying to match properties, you have to specify each property to change, instead of the 'paintbrush' Windows and ACAD offer; you can only have one TMOD file opened at a time for some unfathomable reason; blocks are so hard use that I actually put a block in a new drawing then tmx it in...this is OK, except you can't control the scale, insertion point or whether it come in exploded, it comes in exactly as it was when the tmx file was made; TMOD doesn't remember the last plot configuation, so when making say twenty identical plots, you have to redefine the window each time; there is no polar array (TMOD command is matrix) and it is confusing...I always matrix in the reverse direction and to a wrong spacing (you can't pick either realtime or preview, so again it is matrix, undo and repeat until you like it); it doesn't remember your last offset distance...so when grading a site at 3:1, you must specify 3 unit offset with each new contour; it wouldn't give you an area unless certain criteria are met, it will also not tell you why...I usually just draw the whole object over instead of trying to figure it out; if you remove a block you forever get a message that it couldn't find EACH COPY OF THAT SAME BLOCK unless YOU recreate it, at each redraw or zoom... in big files this really slows down your computer; list is limited to certain types of objects and only certain attributes can be listed. And even though TMOD theoretically exports to ACAD, you will (trust me, from first-hand experience) spend unbelievable amounts of time making your data usable to anyone trying to open it in ACAD (which, of course is almost the entire rest of the engineering, surveying and drafting world).

I will bet your engineers are likely to 1) already be fluent in AutoCAD and 2) resist replacement with Terramodel. I would move carefully before recommending across-the-board replacement.

 

[deertic]

If you work for a contractor and are extending your Terramodel back to the estimating dept., you should consider using Paydirt software. It is made by the same people that make Terramodel and your 3D dozer controls (Trimble). Paydirt is easy to learn and use and has direct import/export to TM as well as Autocad and many other formats. It is great for estimating earthwork volumes and provides a contractor with a variety of useful reports.

 

[SWUPE]

I would recommend utilizing Land Desktop/Civil Design from autodesk to design and create finished grade DTMs. You can then export the DTM in a format that can be utilized by your machince control software. Land Desktop has some great tools for designing roads, subdivisions and sites out of 3D polylines, Roadgrid, and grading objects. Autodesk also has a new product coming out called Civil 3D which will streamline the process of 3D civil design.

 

[BelspringKen]

I worked at a firm a few years back that used Terramodel. Its a good program for survey and site work. We were also using AutoCAD (mainly for detail drafting and older jobs that were already set up in AutoCAD). I don't recall having many problems with Terramodel. The major problem would be in exchanging files with AutoCAD users. Nowadays I use Land Development Desktop were I work.

 

[tmart]

As a 13 civil designer (11 years with Acad/softdesk to Land desktop and 2 year with Terramodel) I have been put to a true test... learning and accepting a new software package Terramodel vs Autocad... Once you can get thru the "cosmetics" and nice features Acad concentrates on and dig deep into design, cost efficience, quickness, a great final product... You will find that Terramodel is 10 time better. Is that a little out spoken? I went thru the stages asking "why would anyone use Terramodel??" Acad has and will be the number one choice for people because MOST of there money goes into promos and such.... As a result, the Acad is quantity, not quality! A true designer will agree.

 

[StickmanGA]

For design I agree with those recommending Terramodel, however for doing estimating, avoid Paydirt as you will become frustrated quickly. For estimating I highly recommend Agtek. They also have a machine control package, but I don't have any experience with it.

 

[JT48FISH]

I have used Terramodel for about 8 years and LDD for about 2 years. There are many benefits to both with the most significant being the industry standards recognizing AutoDesk as the base for all file transfers. Our office uses only Terramodel now for Municipal Engineering projects and earthworks design/management. We have found that Terramodel tends to be an easier program to generate DTMs from large data bases created from aerial mapping. The engine within Terramodel generates surfaces extremely fast and allows for multiple DTMs within a design over vast areas. LDD however is much better for drafting. Could anyone recommend any web sites for Terramodel 3rd party software?

 

[bstone]

I concur with the Terramodel supporters out there. I've used it for years doing complex earthwork design such as landfills with multiple surfaces on top of each other. My opinion is that it is a design tool and not a drafting tool. It certainly has drafting limitations which is why I rely on in-house CAD people with AutoCAD to handle the drawing production. For straight design work however, Terramodel is excellent. It offers a lot of design tools and, because it's not trying to do 100 other things (like AutoCAD), is very streamlined.

Regarding interchange with AutoCAD, I do it all the time and have very few problems with it. The only problem I can recall is that if you import contours into Terramodel that were generated by Land Desktop, they don't come in right. To fix that, you have to explode the contours first.

 

[deertic]

Terramodel 3rd party software can be had at the tmlstore.com. Great people to deal with and very knowlegable about Terramodel.

 

[gradedit]

I concur with the Terramodel supporters out there as well. We use TMOD for grading design and earthwork and LDD for all other drafting, plotting and production. We are civil engineers and landscape architects by profession. TMOD is the only grading design software that allows a designer to actually design grades on the computer. LDD for a grading tool gets in the way of the design process. I actually never beleived one could be able to creatively design using the computer, until I was exposed to TMOD. I should qualify the type of grading design we do is 100% site grading and no road profile work. I understand LDD and TMOD may be strong on road profiling and related grading, but that is not the type of grading design that we do. TMOD gives you the tools to design grades on the fly with real time feedback. The engine in TMOD is extremely fast. Elevations and final grading DTMs in TMOD are based on point data, as they should be, and contours are only meant to illustrate what the point data means. After all the surveyor in the field will be staking points not the contours. Any designer (site grading designer) that I have talked with, that uses LDD requires designing grades by hand first, then digitizing in contours. At the outset that is a flawed approach, contours are inaccurate and they take time to digitze. In TMOD by the time the grading design is complete, you're ready to plot. Spot elevations are dynamic...raise the entire site by .15 every spot has changed every contour has been redrawn and labeled and you're ready to plot again... a 30 second change. Try that in LDD. Ask any TMOD user. After completing our grading plans we do have to export them to a CAD file for plotting from LDD. We use the contour and point elevation products of TMOD as a XREF in LDD.