How does Earthwork Module Handle Inaccuracy in input?

Potential inaccuracy in input #

EW3D requires user to draw platforms in the software. But human is not computer; human might think that two platform is lying side by side with each other, but upon a closer look, it isn’t.

Take for example, this case here:

The connection seems perfect, right? That two platforms are perfectly lying next to each other, with no overlapping portion, right?

Except that it is not, this is what will appear if you zoom in enough:

You can see that these two platforms are not perfectly aligning well.

The intention is clear, but the hand drawing input is not always accurate, and cannot reflect the user’s  intention to an infinite degree of accuracy.

How does Earthwork Module cope with this issue? #

We realize that asking the user to make sure that all the points and lines are properly aligned is not realistic, who would have the energy to do that?

So we are helping the user to make properly connected platforms by offering a rounding option, in the form of Parameter->Analysis->pixel size(mm).

This is a parameter that allows the user to “round” the platform– much like how you do mathematical rounding, so that the edges are connecting nicely to one another for the calculation purpose.

If you want more accuracy, you can always use a smaller pixel size, but the drawback is that you might need to spend more time to manually aligning the corners of the platform, so that they are within the tolerance you specify. Or else the software will complain overlapping platforms etc.

By default, the Pixel size provided by the software is 50 mm, which we think is already quite a good accuracy.

Also, you can break a long platform edge into two, this will also reduce the discrepancy between the input and output, to a certain extent.

For those technically inclined, we are building the rounding technology based on CGAL snap rounding, or refer to this blog for a simpler explanation on how Snap Rounding works and how it affects the calculation (Snap Rounding).