Material Logs

Each material log stores volumes and masses of material moved during excavation and dumping. Each such event will generate a record in at least one log: the so-called "active general log". Logged information may be viewed in the logged material table.

There are three kinds of material logs, namely

•General logs

•Machine logs and

•Layer logs

These logs have much in common. They all store the same kinds of material records. The properties of each kind of log will now be briefly described.

General Logs

General logs store total volumes and masses of material from each excavation or dump event. All excavated or dumped material is always recorded in a General Log. General Logs are template-associated i.e. each Excavation Template, Dump Template and Simulation Template reports excavated or dumped material to a General Log whose name is stored in that template. The same General Log may be associated with more than one template.

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Users may create as many General Logs as necessary.

A General Log is active within 3d-DigPlus when it is connected to an Excavation Template, Dump Template or Simulation Template. Material is recorded in the currently active General Log.

One general log always exists. Initially this is named the Default General Log.

Machine Logs

Machine Logs may store a record of total volumes and masses of material from each excavation or dump performed by a given machine.

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Users may create as many Machine Logs as necessary.

A machine must be connected to one and only one Machine Log. Although always connected, material logging may or may not take place for this machine, depending on user preference. A Machine Log may be connected to as many machines as necessary.

One Machine Log always exists for each machine type. Initially this is named the Default (machine) Log e.g. Default Dozer Log. Despite this, Machine Logs are not separated according to machine type i.e. any Machine Log can record material from any machine.

Layer Logs

Layer Logs may store volumes and masses of layer material from each excavation that removes material from a given layer. Layer Logs track both excavation and dumping of material.

Material can accumulate in a layer log during an excavation provided (a) an excavated layer is connected to the Layer Log and (b) Layer Logging is enabled for that layer. Material is added to a Layer Log through a General Log. This is important when dumping of material is controlled by a Layer Log. More details of this are described below.

Material will be subtracted from a Layer Log during dumping, provided that material entered that Layer Log through the currently active General Log.

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Users may create as many Layer Logs as necessary.

A layer must be connected to one and only one Layer Log. Although always connected, material logging may or may not take place for a layer, depending on user preference. A Layer Log may be connected to as many layers as necessary.

One Layer Log always exists. Initially this is named the Default Layer Log.

A layer is taken to be bank material only. For this reason Layer Logs do not track rehandle. Rather the layer log ignores the subsequent excavation of rehandled material that fills the volume of a layer.

Rehandled Material

Rehandle logging is enabled through the Log Rehandled Material setting in the Terrain Editor Settings Dialog Box (Terrain | Editor Settings menu item). General Logs and Machine Logs separate excavated material into Prime and Rehandled components.

Rehandled material is material which has previously been dumped on the terrain surface and then excavated. Material placed on the terrain surface during a Fill Operation also counts as rehandle. Only material dumped after the Log Rehandled Material setting has been enabled counts as Rehandled material

Events, Contents and Cumulative

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As well as logging material for each event, each log also keeps track of its contents and the total material that has passed through it. To give these terms a more precise definition:

•Log Events record the material added to or taken from a log by a particular operation.

•Log Current Contents record the material which remains in the log after all excavate and dump operations to date i.e. excavation events add material to the contents while dump events subtract material from the contents.

•Log Cumulative records the total material that has passed through the log to date i.e. excavation events add to the cumulative, but dump events do not subtract from the cumulative.

Dumping of Layer Log Material

The General Scheme

The Layer Log excavation and dumping system is very flexible. It allows any Layers to be tracked by any Layer Logs while excavating to any General Log.

It is important to keep in mind that material is excavated to General Logs. Layer Logs track the distribution of material from a General Log over different layers.

It is probably best to usually keep to one layer per Layer Log and avoid a number of layers being tracked by the same layer log. An exception may be when the same layer material is contained in several different layers.

Excavation of material takes place to General Logs. Layer Logs simply track the amount of material of each layer that was excavated.

Two Dumping Methods

The Layer Material page on the Dump Settings Dialog Box allows users to control the way material is dumped from a General Log.

Material can be dumped from a General Log in two ways:

(1) Evenly Over All Layer Logs

This gives dumping identical to usual dump method. Layer material (if present) is dumped in proportion so that everything is "perfectly mixed".

(2) Controlled by Selected Layer Log

Only material tracked by the selected Layer Log will be dumped from the current General Log. Material Properties will be correctly calculated as this layer material is dumped from the General Log.

Dumping Stops

In option (2), once the material tracked in the selected Layer Log (and contained in the General Log) is exhausted, dumping will stop. This will happen even though the General Log may still contain more (other) material. The Layer Log may also not be empty when dumping stops. Such material will not be contained in the current General Log but in other General Logs.