Exercise 2: Balancing Cut and Fill Volumes

In this exercise, you will adjust the level of a building pad to balance the cut and fill volumes.

This exercise continues from Exercise 1: Editing the Grading Level.

Balance cut and fill volumes

Note:

This exercise uses Grading-4.dwg with the modifications you made in the previous exercise, or you can open Grading-5.dwg from the tutorials drawings folder.

1. Click Analyze tab Volumes And Materials panel Grading Volume Tools Find.

   On the Grading Volume Tools toolbar, notice that the Group is set to Building Pad, which is the only grading group in the drawing. The fields for Cut, Fill, and Net show that the grading as designed requires the net cutting and removal of a large volume of surface material.

2. Click Raise the Grading Group to raise the building pad level by one foot. Note the changes to cut and fill requirements.

   Further exploration: You can also click Lower the Grading Group and you can change the level increment to a value other than 1.0.

3. Click Automatically Raise/Lower to Balance the Volumes.
4. In the Auto-Balance Volumes dialog box, leave the Required Volume set to 0, or change the value if you wish. Click OK.

   The level of the building pad is adjusted to bring the Net amount as close as possible to the set value.

5. Click (Expand the Grading Volume Tools). The history of your level changes and their effects is displayed.

To continue this tutorial, go to Exercise 3: Editing the Grading Criteria.