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Sure. But I’d have figure out how to do that. And absolute value is more “mathy” and I like telling people I use math and trig every day.
But I also think it’s funny when someone asks “how do you minimize that?” and I answer: “Simple, take the first derivative and set it equal to zero and solve for X.”
Hardly anyone else ever laughs.
- Posted by: @tim-v-pls
I started using the absolute value function (ABS) for the c/f fill a few years ago because I actually had a contractor ask “Does cut -0.25 mean fill 3 inches?”
I can empathize with you but man you’ve gotta go easy on those guys haha… I’m related to one & work with several others day in & day out. Many of them struggled just to get through high school & math in general just isn’t their forte. Most are pretty good at what they do & only want to get the job done correctly in the engineers’ & surveyors’ eyes but they are definitely not used to reading things in a format that they’re unfamiliar with either. I know I’ve read notes & leaders for text before on plans where the engineer will word something in a manner that you know will just confuse the guy on the excavator or dozer leading the crew; then sure enough a couple months later you get a phone call from the guy who’s halted the work & scratching his head asking “what does this mean?” haha
The text you can add into the custom formatting in Excel could be:
F#,##0.00;[Red]C#,##0.00
You can tweak it to look however you want by changing the parts.
You can add in the custom format through the format cells option and then pick the “Number” tab and custom at the bottom of the list. then paste the text above (or your version of it) into the box just below the word “type”.
Dan
—Dan MacIsaac, PLSThis is how I have my offset formatting in my Station-Offset worksheet:
R 0.00;L 0.00
I don’t remember why I have the in front of R which is a positive number.
Stationing is easy:
0+00.00
I know this sounds terrible, as I technically fall into the category of a “youngster” as I’m just 30 years old, but I’m not very good at writing/coding the conditional statements that Excel requires for spreadsheets and I wasn’t exposed to much of it in school. Does anybody have a link or recommended online or paperback source for teaching yourself stuff like this when it comes to Excel formatting & coding?
In the column that shows “C” or “F” I have the following formula:
=IF($D24=””,””,(IF(ROUND(H24,2)=0,”GRADE”,IF(H24<0,”C”,”F”))))
which is a nested IF function.
- IF there is no number in the hub elevation column, the C/F column remains blank, if there is a number there the first nested IF function is run.
- IF the difference between design and hub elevation rounds at 2 decimal points to zero, the word GRADE is returned.
- IF it doesn’t the 2nd nested IF returns “C” if the value is less than zero, and “F” if it is not.
- There are some “Teach Yourself Excel” sorts of programs you can buy off the shelf in Office Depot. That was a help to me starting.
- Then there is the Excel for Dummies book, and others along that line.
- The people in your accounting department are using Excel all the time and can be a great resource.
- Youtubes galore.
- The oracle of Google.
From what I remember the button to export the file was sort of hidden in an unusual menu. I’d have to see the screen again to find it but I’m guessing it’s on yours too, just buried somewhere.
@norman-oklahoma
thank you sir. Here recently when it comes to C3D & some of our survey related software it seems that youtube & google have been the biggest help by far. I know typically what has messed me up in the past using the search function through google or youtube is actually searching the proper, proprietary nomenclature (ie: looking up and understanding that Civil 3D has numerous ways to create lines with varying elevation such as breaklines, survey figures, feature lines, 3D polys, etc. not just googling “3D Polyline” haha). But I’m still learning even when stumbling through the wrong stuff so I guess it’s worthwhile!
Go easy? Nah, not with this guy. He is a great character who always had a wisecrack and never let a chance to give me a hard time slide by. And me likewise back at him. One of those folks who make working construction fun – at least for me.
I was actually impressed that he knew a cut (a negative) applied to a negative, (negative times negative) should be a fill (positive).
AND he could convert tenths/hundreds in his head to inches/fractions of inch.
His nickname for a couple of days was “Math Competent” James.
@mark-mayer
We simply draw a horizontal line across a stake and the number over the line is fill and the number under the line is cut.
If you stake to an alignment/profile using an XML in Leica or RXL in Trimble how do you go about creating the cut sheet if not through the DC software or Leica/Trimble software? I use Infinity to generate our cut sheets and it literally takes 3 minutes from when I receive the field data to when I have a PDF ready to send. If I need to include a plot showing station, offset & C/F it takes about 3 minutes more. I haven’t used Trimble in about 10 years but I have to believe it’s similar with TBC.
Six minutes total… world record pace I don’t know if I can match, but now it’s a goal 🙂
It’s the software and staking against alignments/profiles that make it slick. The point plot takes longer if I have to spend time dragging points around to make it readable but if it’s something like curb or pipe and the drawing scale makes the points readable on import it’s really just hitting plot. On the cut sheet it checks the NEZ deltas and makes anything out of tolerance red so QC is really just scrolling through the report looking for red in N&E columns then saving the file. Cut sheets were the bane of my existence once we got away from booking every stake in the field and it turned into an office task in Excel. In general I’m not a huge fan of Infinity but for cut sheet production I LOVE it. Captivate can generate cut sheets in the field that could be provided on the spot much like we did when we booked the stakes and made a photocopy in the job trailer at the end of the day but I prefer getting a 2nd set of eyes on them before they go out and the format of the deliverable is nicer to look at. That and a plot to go along with it is a better look IMO.
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