Another trick that can be employed when estimating building foundation volumes is to create phase that contains structural elements which will be ignored from the cut and fill calculations. The fill for these elements will be calculated but it is often irrelevant as the elements could be precast concrete or a temporary concrete framework. In a way they could be described as dummy earthworks elements used to create a solid surface where structural elements will be. In a subsequent phase elements can be set to ‘fill only’ and fill around those structural elements. This can make the job of filling around complex space a lot easier and the visualisations make a lot more sense. An alternative approach is to define the boundary outlines of the proposed carefully to leave the structural areas untouched. However the models created by using ‘dummy earthworks’ for structural elements tend to be easier to understand.
Dummy earthworks used to represent precast concrete pillars and wooden frame before estimating concrete fill volumes in a subsequent phase.