Frequently Asked Questions

Question: I’ve read this user guide, and I still have questions. What do I do?

Answer: PlanSwift recommends that you purchase a training package. We highly recommend new users purchase a training package, because training is customized to each user. We offer one-on-one training; contact PlanSwift® Training Department Training-ops@ConstructConnect.com.

Question: Will Earthwork Pro be able to do 3D models in the future?

Answer: Possibly, but for now there are no immediate plans to go 3D. This plugin is purposefully designed to work with the 2D plans inside of PlanSwift and to be very simplified for “quick and dirty” estimating of site work volumes.

Question: Earthwork Pro is just sitting there are not calculating anything when I click calculate, what is wrong?

Answer:  The page scale. Earthwork Pro requires the page to be scaled in both the X and Y axis. If you forgot to scale the page both horizontally and vertically then the plugin cannot properly calculate the volume and will not respond.

Question:: Do I have to digitize my existing and proposed contours on the same page?

Answer: YES. Earthwork Pro requires the existing and proposed contours to be on the same page to run calculations. Tip: If your existing and proposed topography is not all on the same page, you can use the OVERLAY tool to put one page on top of another as an overlay layer.

Question: If I did all my digitizing on a PDF page instead of on a TIF image, do I need to start all over?

Answer: YES, in most cases you will have to start over on a TIF image and redo all the work. However, sometimes the digitizing can be copied from a PDF page to a TIF image, but only if the page size of the PDF matches the image size of the TIF and the scales are the same. Copying the takeoff can work sometimes, but the user still needs to verify page size and page scale very carefully in order to still calculate accurate volumes for cut and fill.

Question: I entered a spot elevation value incorrectly. Is there a way to fix it?

Answer: Yes. It can be corrected in the advanced properties of the section it was counted in. See the screenshot and screencast video links:

https://www.screencast.com/t/MxtSGXdTSNeU

https://www.screencast.com/t/HmGGombbt

https://www.screencast.com/t/i5OWWOyezSn

Question: I am seeing a conversion error after I run the Triangulate Plot Points. What is wrong?

Answer: This is a refresh issue in PlanSwift. It can be resolved by simply clicking on the items in the Pages window or by reloading the job. You can reload the job by clicking the PlanSwift logo button in the very top left of the software and then choosing Reload Job from the menu of options. This should fix the conversion error. It happens because PlanSwift cannot always trigger all the events required to calculate everything during the triangulation process.