Total Station

[Makun]

Hello, I have a table with items from a total station, where they relieved the dimensions of an oil storage tank. I need to spend those points in CAD and generate a surface from them. The table is divided into coordinates X, Y & Z. Is there a simple way to do this?

 

[cherrypicker]

A simple spreadsheet can be produced to calculate the following data:

Each coordinate (X & Y) will produce a polar disatnce from a defined centre coordinate and a WCB from that centre.

The new X ordinate is produced by the arc distance from grid north around the circle given a theoretical radius (or mean radius if not known).

The Y ordinate uses the old Z value.

The Z ordinate uses the difference in polar distance to the theoretical (mean) radius.

Replotting these new coordinates will produce a flat "map" of the cylinder looking from the centre point in a clockwise direction. Z values will allow the surface to be contoured at a suitable interval to highlight whatever issues the survey is required to show. I use LSS to map the surveys and graphically illustrate anomolies with "height bands" and export to AutoCAD format as the company standard for presentation.

good luck..

 

[francesca]

What flavor of CAD?

 

[cherrypicker]

"What flavor of CAD?"...

I forgot to mention the cylinder is assumed to be vertical (or data exported from AutoCAD when the UCS is aligned to indicate it as such).

This is broadly the technique I use to illustrate surveyed deviations from a true cylinder using the most suitable features from software available to me.

For your information, software used:-
Spreadsheet - Microsoft Excel 2003 SP3 -

http://www.microsoft.com

CAD - AutoCAD Architecture 2008 SP1 -

http://www.autodesk.com

Modelling software - LSS version 9.70.15 -

http://www.dtmsoftware.com

This is recognised as a work around to find a solution to a peculiar problem and being flexible enough to solve it.


best regards..