To configure Pipeline options

All of the configurable options specific to Pipelines jobs are configured in the Pipeline options screen.

If the job has been created in Trimble Sync Manager then the Pipeline options should be mostly complete when you download the job, however you can edit the settings in the Pipeline options screen if required. In particular, to assign computed values as attributes or to change the Joint map ID defaults from Downstream direction, you must edit the appropriate fields in the Pipeline options screen on the controller.

To easily set up a job template from an existing Pipelines job, including all of the Pipeline options settings, configure the correct settings for the job in the Pipeline options screen and save the job as a template.

To open the Pipeline options screen, tap and select Pipeline options.

Use these settings to select an alignment, the type of stationing used, and to define the corridor. Associating the alignment with the job enables the Pipelines software to calculate the station and offset from any point such as a measured pipeline point or the station recorded when performing a tally. A corridor/inclusion zone defines the area you should be working in and the software warns you if you try to store a point outside the working area.

Select the alignment RXL file for the pipeline. If the alignment file is a LandXML file, see To create an RXL alignment from a LandXML file.

An alignment is a mathematical definition of the horizontal (and sometimes also the vertical) path followed by the pipeline. The alignment is used to compute stationing. You can configure the stationing to be saved as an attribute with a point.

The alignment does not appear in the map by default. To display the alignment in the map, tap in the map toolbar to open the Layer manager and select the Map files tab. Tap the alignment file to make it visible. See To view the pipeline in the map.

Select the Slope stationing check box to use slope stationing for alignment stations. Slope stationing takes into account the vertical distance as well as the horizontal distance when calculating distances or intervals along the pipeline. When slope stationing is enabled, stationing is computed on the slope distance instead of the horizontal distance.

 

  • Slope stationing can only be computed if there is a valid vertical alignment defined along with the horizontal alignment.
  • If Slope stationing is selected, station equations are not applied.

A simple corridor can be defined by left and right offsets from the alignment. If you select the Left and right offsets option, then enter the distance from the center of the alignment to the edge of the pipeline corridor in the corridor width left and right fields.

If the corridor is more complex, you should define the corridor limits as a polygon inclusion zone.

When measuring pipeline points with a corridor defined, the distance from the measured point to the left and right boundaries is recorded in the job. To see these values, tap and select Job data and then select Review job or Point manager.

 

  • If no pipe alignment file has been selected and the corridor limits are defined by a polygon, the software has no way of knowing which is the left or right boundary. In this situation the software assumes the shorter distance is to the left boundary and the longer distance is to the right boundary.

  • If the measured point is outside the boundary, the distance to the closest boundary is stored as a negative value.

  • If the corridor boundary is defined by a polygon and there is no alignment associated with the pipeline the Pipelines software does not know which is the left and right boundaries. In that case the values are recorded as Dist to closest bdy and Dist to other bdy.

To define the corridor limits as a polygon inclusion zone, select Polygon and fill out the remaining fields in the Alignment group:

Select the file containing the inclusion zones. The Pipelines software supports Shapefile, DXF, and LandXML corridor inclusion zones.

  • Shapefile: must contain polygon definitions (POLYGON, POLYGONM or POLYGONZ) and use grid coordinates
  • DXF: must contain closed polyline (POLYLINE OR LWPOLYLINE) definitions

  • LandXML: must contain closed <Parcel> elements

The corridor is displayed on the map as a hatched polygon. Select the color for the polygon and hatching.

Select the Active check box to control whether the selected file is used. If the check box is selected:

  • If you try to store a point the software warns you if you are outside the corridor.

  • The corridor is displayed in the map, hatched with the selected map display color.

    When you select the corridor file in the Pipeline options screen and select the Active check box, the hatched polygon appears in the map. Selecting the corridor as a visible layer in the map has no effect on the display or color of the corridor hatching.

Clear the Active check box if you wish to work outside the corridor without seeing warnings when storing points.

Use the Tally file settings to define the relationships between fields in the tally file, the joint map file, and the attributes used to record the tally details.

You can also change these settings from the Check tally and Create tally screens.

Select the CSV file to use to perform a pipeline tally.

One primary set of tally files is usually used for the entire pipeline project and shared amongst multiple survey crews. See To merge tally and joint map updates from the field.

Once you have selected a tally file, the software lists the column headings in the Unique joint ID field. Select the column that identifies the unique joint ID.

Select the column that identifies the joint length in the Joint length ID field.

Being able to identify the joint length field in the tally enables the software to automatically compare a joint length from the tally with a computed length between the two as-built welds. See Automatic distance between pipeline point calculations.

When a joint length is modified, if the length is shortened by more than the defined minimum PUP length, the software prompts you to add a PUP entry to the tally file. See To create a PUP joint.

A read-only field showing the name of the Pipelines feature library being used.

To change the feature library, tap and select Job and then tap Properties. Tap the Feature library button to associate a feature library with the job. Tap Accept.

The linked attributes fields below this button are read-only fields showing the attributes selected from the feature library file that are used to link the weld and joint details to the points measured during the as-built survey.

Tap the Linked attributes button to select the attributes from the FXL file. Only string, number, and integer attributes in the feature library file are listed. See To link weld and joint details to pipeline points.

Enable the Check against pipeline manifest switch to compare the entered values in the tally file against the selected manifest file. The software warns if there are differing values. If you accept the values entered in the tally file then a note record is added to the job file recording the details.

Use these settings to enable the software to calculate the depth of cover for a point on the as-built pipeline by calculating the difference in elevation from a surface model or a previously measured point.

Enable the Compute pipe cover switch to automatically compute the pipe cover during survey of the as‑built pipeline. Selecting this check box makes the other fields in this group available.

In addition to configuring the Compute cover settings in the Pipelines options screen, you must:

  1. Create feature codes in the FXL file for each measurement type (for example, weld, bend, valve) and make sure that each feature code has an attribute to record the joint ID or weld ID.
  2. For each feature code that has an attribute to record the joint ID or weld ID, use the Linked attributes group in the Pipelines options screen to link the attribute to the joint ID or weld ID information from the tally file. See To link weld and joint details to pipeline points.

For more information, see Requirements for automatic depth of cover calculations.

  1. Select Use ground point in the Method field.
  2. In the Default ground point field, select whether by default the Pipelines software uses:
    • the last point measured or entered into the current job as the ground point.

    • the closest point.

    If you select closest point, the software searches the current job first, and then any other jobs or CSV files linked to the current job, and uses the closest point as the ground point.

  3. In the Use only ground points with the code field, enter the code that a point must have for it to be used as a ground point. This limits the points that can be selected as the last point or the closest point to ground points that have the specified code.

  4. If required, in the Maximum pipeline to ground point distance field, enter the maximum distance to the ground point from the point on the as-built pipeline.

    During the as-built pipeline survey, the software warns if the distance from the measured position to the ground point exceeds the specified value, but you can continue to store the point. A note record is added to the job recording the distance to the ground point.

  1. Select Use surface model in the Method field.
  2. In the Surface model field, select the surface model to use.

    The surface model should be a Trimble Terrain Model (TTM) file created using office software such as Trimble Business Center or Trimble Link™ for Autodesk Civil 3D. Alternatively, you can create a TTM file on the controller from the Map. For more information, see To generate points for a surface.

    If the TTM file comes from LiDAR data, it will probably be a very large file. For best performance, Trimble recommends reducing the file to the width of the pipeline corridor. If it is still very large, you can split the TTM into sections and use one section at a time.

    The surface does not appear on the map by default. To display the surface on the map, see To view the pipeline in the map.

To compute the cover depth from the ground elevation interpolated from the vertical alignment of the pipeline, select Use pipe alignment in the Method field.

You must have selected a Pipeline alignment .rxl file in the Alignment settings group of the Pipeline options screen.

Select the method for defining the minimum cover. The options are to specify a minimum depth and then reconfigure this as required, or to preconfigure the depths in the office based on stationing. If you select:

  • Fixed minimum cover, enter the minimum cover in the Minimum cover field. Reconfigure this value as required along the pipeline.

  • From CSV file, select the CSV file to use. The CSV file must contain a header row. The header names could be anything such as Station,Depth or Station,Cover. If the term “slope” appears anywhere in the header, then the software assumes that the station values in the first column are slope station values. The software uses the information in the CSV file to set the minimum cover from the defined station onward.

To compute cover from the original ground surface topo survey, you could use the original topo data to create a CSV file of points that can later be linked to your job to compute cover from. Alternatively you could use a surface created on the controller, using the Cogo create surface function. See To generate points for a surface.

Use these settings to add an exclusion zone file to the map and to set how the file is used.

Select the file containing exclusion zones. The Pipelines software supports Shapefile, DXF, and LandXML exclusion zones.

 

  • Shapefile: must contain polygon definitions (POLYGON, POLYGONM or POLYGONZ) and use grid coordinates
  • DXF: must contain closed polyline (POLYLINE OR LWPOLYLINE) definitions
  • LandXML: must contain closed <Parcel> elements

Exclusion zones are displayed on the map as hatched polygons. Select the color for the polygons and hatching. Only one exclusion zone file can be used at a time, but the file can contain multiple polygons.

Select the Active check box to control whether the selected file is used. If the check box is selected:

  • If you try to store a point the software warns you if you are inside an exclusion zone.
  • If you move inside an exclusion zone, a dialog appears and you must tap OK to clear it, and a the name of the exclusion zone is shown in the status line.

  • The exclusion zone(s) are displayed in the map, hatched with the selected map display color.

    When you select the exclusion zone file in the Pipeline options screen and select the Active check box, the hatched polygon(s) appear in the map. Selecting the exclusion zone file as a visible layer in the map has no effect on the display or color of the exclusion zone hatching.

Clear the Active check box if you wish to work inside the exclusion zone without seeing warnings when storing points.

Select whether the system records details of when the controller enters or exits from an exclusion zone. The records contain a position and a time stamp.

During survey of the as-built pipeline, the Pipelines software stores the depth of cover, station, and offset values as records in the job. To save these values as attributes of the weld, select the appropriate attribute from the feature library.

The attributes selected for the assignment of these values must be of type string, number, or integer. If the attributes are strings then the values written into them are converted to the current display units. If they are numbers or integers, then the values written into them are converted to the display units and then displayed based on the attribute’s setting for the number type.

When measuring points along the pipeline, by default the software automatically selects the next joint map record, based on the current point being measured.

Based on measurements taken in

To help the software select the correct next joint map ID, select the direction the measurements are being made along the pipeline.

To identify the ID of the next joint map record, the software:

  1. Locates the previous point with the same code as the point being measured, and reads the previous point's joint ahead and joint behind IDs. If the:
    • measurement direction setting is downstream, the software locates the joint map record in which the joint ahead ID for the previous point is recorded as the joint behind ID.
    • measurement direction is upstream, the software locates the joint map record in which the joint behind ID for the previous point is recorded as the joint ahead ID.
  2. Using the information from the located joint map record, the software automatically populates the linked weld attributes and linked joint ID fields for the point being measured.

Select the Printer label file to use when printing directly from the controller to a mobile printer in the field.

For more information, see To print joint labels.