Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

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Ralphieboy
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Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by Ralphieboy »

Hello, let me rephrase my questions a little bit before I demo the software. Does this software have a survey workflow or is it more of a modeling software for piping, industrial, architectural etc.? Does it allow for manual creation of polylines and linework and survey points to go into AutoCAD?

Are there any surveyors using this for a survey stuff like topographic survey’s etc.? Thank you
Last edited by Ralphieboy on Sun Jun 14, 2020 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Survey workflow?

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

because virtusurv is abandoned where a fieldbook was possinle you cannot code, therefore it is mostly modelling software
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by scott.diaz »

Hi Gents,

Yes VirtuSurv is near end of life but the majority of functions were transferred into AsBuilt Modeler (ABM). This includes "Send To" functions for AutoCAD, Revit, BricsCAD and a generic "Send to Windows" connection to 3rd party products that can accept measurements or coordinates in a copy/paste format. Ex: You could connect ABM to Carlson Survey or GStar CAD, etc.

You can also create custom macros in ABM to control the 3rd party programs for single commands or multi-string commands with a single click. Pretty cool if you nerd out with it. We did provide some macros on our Knowledge Base for download as well. WOuld love to get to a point where we see people sharing some creative ones from the community of nerds out there.

@landmeterbeuckx: Were you using the surveyor field book functions in VS? Wow i am impressed. i did not know many people taking advantage of it. Personally i would like to see this function return in ABM but only if we can get "smart snap" functions running. This way you can snap to corner/edge/high point/low point, etc with confidence. I always felt strange doing a virtual survey but guessing at my clicked locations. Once it transfers smart snaps into the field book this could then be transferred out to a 'field to finish' CAD process. Do you agree?
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by scott.diaz »

@RalphieBoy: ABM is not a CAD drafting software like you describe. It does have some automatic and semi-automatic modeling tools but is not currently working for drafting lines/polylines and typical topographic results. Most of these tools are built into the AutoCAD plugin. It does contain meshing, volume calc and area measurement tools. Longer term i can see a ground extract with topo line tool included here but right now it is a starter tool for completing Scan to BIM/ Scan to CAD modeling for polishing in your primary CAD system. If you want to see more standalone drafting/topo tools in ABM then let us know...make sure to ping your Account Manager. We will inform the PMs
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by Ralphieboy »

Hi Scott,

That may have been a bad description. Since Carlson Survey, (with Intellicad 9.2), 2020 is autocad 2015 to 2020 compatible, I wondered if it would work with ABM? Carlson Survey also has an OEM AutoCAD version that may be a consideration, but, I like what I have. Carlson CAD has all of the Survey and cad tool and it would be great if something would interface directly. Without having to spend time transferring data back and forth between separate softwares :D
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by scott.diaz »

Hi Ralph,

Yes ABM should interface with the AutoCAD based version of Carlson using the Send To AutoCAD commands. It can interface with Intellicad version of Carlson using the generic Send to Windows commands. You can write custom macros for both. We definitely have surveyors using it for virtual surveys. You might reach out to Isabel Suarez on our team. She has written some custom macros with our team exclusively for Civil 3D users. I could imagine putting this in the hands of some lisp savvy Carlson folks to make some cool routines. Fingers crossed we add in some "send to" with smart-snap abilities and this will make your virtual survey even more powerful

As a side note, if you do purchase the AsBuilt AutoCAD version instead of the ABM standalone product the AsBuilt AutoCAD license does allow users to take advantage of the standalone ABM tools at no additional charge. Our AsBuilt CAD plugin has a number of useful tools...namely smart-snaps in AutoCAD which makes point selection much easier on surveys.

Scott
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

scott.diaz wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:30 pm
@landmeterbeuckx: Were you using the surveyor field book functions in VS? Wow i am impressed. i did not know many people taking advantage of it. Personally i would like to see this function return in ABM but only if we can get "smart snap" functions running. This way you can snap to corner/edge/high point/low point, etc with confidence. I always felt strange doing a virtual survey but guessing at my clicked locations. Once it transfers smart snaps into the field book this could then be transferred out to a 'field to finish' CAD process. Do you agree?
Scott,

This was a reason for me in the beginning to invest in this software. I must say when all was straight without curves i could work directly in Virtusurv without many problems.
The difficulties when coding in planar views is you cannot see the beginning of curves that well, for these kind of drawings a combo with the rcp in Autocad was necessary.
Virtusurv was also cross platform, an advantage.
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by scott.diaz »

Yeah always an issue when drawing on a flat map. That's why ABM is a bit nicer in that you can draw to CAD from all views, not just planar. And of course it remains a cross platform tool. Do you want to see the fieldbook back in ABM? I dont think it would be a difficult development. As an alternative you could use the "Send to Windows" command to send your selected points to Excel. If you setup your Excel to match your coded points for a field book it could work the same.

https://youtu.be/59PIKCQtGao?t=193
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

scott.diaz wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 2:16 pm Yeah always an issue when drawing on a flat map. That's why ABM is a bit nicer in that you can draw to CAD from all views, not just planar. And of course it remains a cross platform tool. Do you want to see the fieldbook back in ABM? I dont think it would be a difficult development. As an alternative you could use the "Send to Windows" command to send your selected points to Excel. If you setup your Excel to match your coded points for a field book it could work the same.

https://youtu.be/59PIKCQtGao?t=193
Scott but it comes out of scene so i would suspect it is the most fluent with scene. I mostly work with Riegl.
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Re: Faro As-Built Survey workflow?

Post by scott.diaz »

You mostly work with Riegl...does that mean Riscan pro? Similar to VirtuSurv you can just import an E57/LAS to AsBuilt Modeler. Workflow would remain the same as before. VirtuSurv had huge files that destroyed your hard drive space. ABM uses SCENE-like files so import is faster and resulting size is smaller. Keep in mind that ABM is a standalone software, separate from SCENE. It just has the look/feel of SCENE.

What other imports do you need to make the process smoother? VS used to support an old Riegl format but nobody used it because it was so outdated so most Riscan users opted for LAS/E57.
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