Agtek vs. Terramodel

[Gub]

The company I work for uses Terramodel for estimating and are trying to determine whether or not to upgrade/purchase more keys or invest in a new program, Agtek.

From reading what has been previously posted about Agtek, I'm still a little confused about the possible pro's and con's of the systems. I've had little experience with Terramodel and there is little information to be found on the web about either.

From what experinece I've had with Terramodel it is a program that you can not sit down by yourself and learn and requires A LOT of help from people who do know the program, but being a very busy company that is, not always the case. I've sat down to have the Agtek guy come and do a demo and it looks very promising as the learning of the program can be set up very quickly via the net whereas terramodel training (from what I've found) runs around $2,000 for 3-4 days, and hard to setup.

The Agtek guy was telling us at the demo about a new PDF reader they have with thier program which would be a big thing to have to not have to spend hours digitizing drawigns whereas Terramodel doesnt. Are there any downsides to this importation of files this way as it is a new thing to market and I've never heard of it before.

What I'm looking for is for anyone with experience on either of these systems to give me a kind of understanding of the systems so see if investing in Agtek is worth the price tag for the 3 modules (earthworks, highways and materical @~40k) or is upgrading terramodel from v10.50 to v10.60 the better way to go (~10k). If you could list the good and the bad that would be helpful

 

[Dozerman56]

I don't know anything about Terramodel but I can tell you about my experiences with agtek.The outfit I work with does mostly sites. I probably spend 20 hours a week or so running earthwork or materials. You can Import cad files with either. We got the sale pitch on the pdf importer, but if you can't get a first generation pdf out of the engineer you're no better off than digitizing on a board. If you can get a first generation pdf you can probably get a cad file too. It's a very powerful tool. We have two agtek keys, both have earthworks and materials, one has highways. We don't bid an awful lot of stuff that involves cross sections so can't justify having two highway modules. Agtek will do some training after the sale but mostly you need to just get in and figure it out. There are other seminars available around the country. Their tech support is usually pretty helpful, and readily though not immediately available.

 

[Gub]

there are diff generations of pdf readers?? whats the difference between having the first or having a diff gen? From what the guy showed at the demo I figured a pdf reader is a pdf reader, you'd just have to import the file than start assigning values/elevations to the lines.

 

[Dozerman56]

Not the reader, the file itself. If you can get the engineer to give you a pdf exported directly out of his cad software it still has some valuable properties. If you get a pdf that someone has scanned off a printed copy it's much less helpful.

 

[SoftEarth]

It’s been a while since I've had any hands-on experience with Terramodel, but I do remember it as being pretty complicated and having a steep learning curve – that’s not a criticism of Terramodel; it’s just a consequence of the fact that Terramodel is a full-blown 3D grading design system (long before Terramodel was acquired by Trimble, the product was originally developed for, and intended to be sold to, design firms), so it has a lot more under the hood when compared to AGTEK.

AGTEK is simpler and easier to use because it was never intended to be a grading design system – its narrowly-focused specialty is to create a 3D grading model from an existing site design (preferably based on imported CAD data, but AGTEK also provides robust data-entry functions for digitizing from scaled paper plans and, more recently, for importing PDF/TIF/JPG data when CAD files are unavailable). Regardless of the data-entry method used, AGTEK also provides a range of functions for modeling differential soils ("strata"), the removal/replacement of topsoil, subgrade effects of design structural sections, and remedial grading (over-excavating unsuitable soils), which may be of more practical interest to a grading contractor rather than to a site designer. The resulting AGTEK 3D models are routinely used for quantity takeoff and jobsite grade control applications.

If you need grading models for site work (commercial, residential, industrial, institutional projects), my opinion is that it is far easier to create, verify, edit and analyze 3D surfaces using AGTEK’s Earthwork 3D or SiteModel 3D programs – so long as you don’t need direct and constant access to a full range of drafting functions (which should be the case if you’re starting your AGTEK site grading model from imported CAD data, digitized paper plans, or PDF files). To model grading for road work with AGTEK, Earthwork 3D or SiteModel 3D alone will be insufficient and you would want to add AGTEK’s Highway 3D module (which includes horizontal and vertical COGO drafting tools and other functions specific to road work modeling and analysis).

On the other hand, if you are actually doing grading design work you will need direct and constant access to a full-featured set of drafting and design functions. In that case, Terramodel (or some other design system)--not AGTEK--would be a much more practical fit for your needs.

As Dozerman56 indicated, there is a qualitative difference between a PDF file exported from a CAD system and a PDF file generated from a scanned paper plan. A CAD generated PDF will contain vector data but a scanned PDF will contain raster data. AGTEK's PDF utility allows you to import and process both types of PDF data, but vector data is far more useful because AGTEK will automatically sort the vector PDF data into different layers which can then be processed using the same data-transfer and 2D-3D conversion tools that AGTEK offeres for importing and processing layered CAD files. Raster PDF data requires time consumming "heads up" digitizing from the PDF plan image which is no quicker than digitizing from a paper plan sheet (although digitizing from a raster PDF image can at least be done without the need for a bulky digitizing board).

One final thought for Gub: Because AGTEK and Terramodel both have the ability to import and export DWG/DXF files, if you do end up getting an AGTEK system, you could easily transfer your data back and forth between the two systems. That would be very useful if, for instance, Terramodel’s drafting functions were needed for some specific modeling application but you really wanted to use the resulting Terramodel data in AGTEK.


Michael E. Cope
Authorized AGTEK Software Training

http://www.EarthworkSoftwareServices.com

 

[Gub]

Alright, we have the software now.
I've been going through the tutorial manuals that came with it, and they are all essentially using the digitizer. We are demoing the program right now but one of the major factors in getting this was that we would not have to be digitizing anymore.
Can anyone give me a quick set through of how to combined pfd files in the program as I have an old project I want to play around with to compare AGTEK and Terramodel with. I've figured out how to vetorize the pdf in order to break out the lines/contours but trying to specify the elevation to the lines is a problem (only assigning it to one point not entire line) and if when you seperate the design and existing do you have to just seperate into the data lines sublayer of can specify to anything else. And can you re-specify a layer to another if you screw up?

 

[SoftEarth]

Instructions on using the new PDF import options are not yet covered in AGTEK's standard user manual; however, a supplemental instruction document for PDFs is available from AGTEK technical support (tel. 800-248-3527). Also, if you are demoing the AGTEK program and having trouble with any aspect of using it (including combining multiple-page PDF files), I urge you to just call AGTEK tech support and let them walk you through the correct steps for what you are trying to do -- that's the quickest way to get up and running.

I'm not sure what's going on with the elevation assignment as you describe it -- if you assign an elevation to the first point on a line, AGTEK automatically assigns the same elevation to every following point by default.

You can use "copy" and "paste" to transfer data between layers in AGTEK.

If your PDF files contain raster (not vector) data, note this: Although AGTEK's PDF reader does include a raster-to-vector conversion option, the resulting vector data combines all existing and design data on a single layer, "line-following" errors will connect existing and design line segments to each other, and direct use of the resulting vector data requires way too much manual editing to be practical. In my opinion, a more efficient option for processing a raster PDF file in AGTEK is to "heads-up" digitize from the PDF plan image displayed on your screen. The basic steps are: (1) Open the raster PDF file with AGTEK, (2) skip the "Vectorize" option in Transfer Mode, (3) in Entry Mode, press the "T" key to display the PDF plan image, and (4) digitize from the on-screen PDF plan image just like you would from a paper plan. Only a vector PDF (or CAD) file will allow you to avoid digitizing from screen plan images or paper plan sheets.

Again, I urge you to call AGTEK tech support so they can walk you through any problems that you are having.

Michael E. Cope
Authorized AGTEK Software Training

http://www.EarthworkSoftwareServices.com

 

[Gub]

Its not really problmes right now, We just got the program and I'm essentially playing around with it until the training course in a few days. Since we only have 30 days to evaluate it compared to what we have existing I just want to get a feel for the program.

The elevation thing was that I was assigning the vectorized data directly to the Contour data and it was going by points whereas if I specify it to data lines first, I can do the whole line in one shot