Quick Compute Volume

Requires an LP360 Geospatial Standard and above, LP360 Drone, or LP360 Land Standard license.

The Quick Compute Volume tool on the Volume tab of the ribbon is designed to be an easy-to-use tool to quickly compute the volume of a polygon that you digitize in the map. It enables users to calculate the volume between two 3D surfaces—typically a base ("toe") and a hull ("shell")—using point cloud data. This is especially useful for analyzing stockpiles, borrow pits, excavations, and other terrain features.

The setup for this tool is minimal, as all settings are predefined as the most typically used settings for a Volumetric Analysis. You may change any of the settings to suit your task, but the tool will execute in a saved project by digitizing the input Area Feature (polygon). 

This tool consists of a Base Conflation task followed by a Volumetric Analysis task. The 2D input polygon is digitized as the Area Feature by the user immediately after starting the Quick Compute Volume tool. The Area Feature is conflated once and used for both the hull and the base bounding polygons needed for the volume computation. This tool is appropriate when you expect the hull and base surfaces to be at the same elevation along the circumscribing polygon vertices. An example use of this macro is computing the volume of a pit or stockpile.  

Intermediate shapefiles will contain the output of the conflation that is used as input to the volume calculation, and the volume calculations are written to a default output location in the Project Path.

The output polygon is written to a default output location in the Project Path. The Cut/Fill image is turned off by default, but its default output location in the Project Path is predefined. If enabled, then with each subsequent run of the macro, a new version of the Cut/Fill image is generated. Each newly created Cut/Fill image is given a unique filename (with incremental numbers appended) to prevent overwriting the previous image.

The LAS output is turned off by default, but its default output location in the Project Path is predefined.

Other notable features and default settings include:

• The Active LAS Layer is used anywhere a LAS Layer is needed.
• The Active Area Layer is used to store the area feature the user digitizes.
• The Active Volume Layer is used to store the results of the Volumetric Alanysis.
• The Conflation method defaults to Summarize Z using Closest Z.
• The Base surface in the volume computation is derived from the polygon only.
• The Hull surface in the volume computation is derived from LAS points.
• The Hull perimeter uses the Base Polygon.

How to use the Quick Compute Volume

1. Save Project to set the Project Path if it has not already been set. 
2. All settings are predefined, as described above. If you would like to change any of the settings, do so using the Volumetric Workflow Settings tool on the Volume tab. See Conflation PCT, and Volumetric Analysis PCT for information on the settings. 
3. Select Quick Compute Volume from the Volume tab of the ribbon. Note that this tool consists of three steps: Digitize Area Feature, Conflate Base, and Volumetric Analysis.
4. If an existing feature layer is not selected for the Active Area Layer on the Volumes tab, selecting the Quick Compute Volume tool will open the Create Feature Layer dialog configured to create a 3-D Polygon for your Area Layer.
5. If an existing feature layer is not selected for the Active Volume Layer on the Volumes tab, selecting the Quick Compute Volume tool will open the Create Feature Layer dialog configured to create a 3-D Polygon for your resulting Volume Layer.
6. Draw the shape of the area on which you want Volumetric Analysis completed in the map view. 
7. The resulting Volume Feature will appear in the map and the results displayed in the Quick Volume Computation dialog (Figure 1), with ready to use copy buttons quickly copy your results into your desired report.

8. Select Review Volume Layer on the Quick Volume Computation dialog (Figure 1), or later use the Review Volume Features tool to open the Volume Layer in Feature Analyst to view the data table with the Volumetric Analysis results.