Design Spoil Pile

This command creates a spoil pile at a target volume or elevation. There are a few design methods. The Perimeter Polyline method takes a 3D polyline outline of the top of a spoil pile and adjusts this polyline by either changing the elevation or extending a side to reach a specified volume for the pile. The resulting pile is drawn as 3D polylines showing the side slopes and where the pile ties into the existing surface. The Cone methods take a single point and slope to build a spoil cone. The cone can be sized by either target volume or by height.

For the Perimeter Polyline method, you can choose between Extend Bench and Adjust Elevation. The extend bench option will prompt for a side of the pile to offset. Holding all the other sides with their elevations, the program will offset the selected side until the target volume is reached. For the adjust elevation, the entire pile polyline is moved up or down to obtain the target volume. Before starting this command in Perimeter Polyline mode, you need to draw a closed 3D polyline that represents the top of the pile. The fill slopes will start at this polyline and will run out and down until the slopes intersect the surface model. The Fill Slope can be specified in ratio, percent or degree format. The Pile Layer is for the 3D polylines that this command creates for the spoil. The Write Output Grid File option creates a .grd file of the spoil surface.

As the program runs, it will seem to draw several piles as it tries to find the target volume. The resulting volume will not match exactly the target volume but will be very close. The smaller the grid cell size, the closer it will be. This difference is just to save processing time.

Spoil Pile by Cone method

Pulldown Menu Location: Surface
Keyboard Command: spoil2