Designing Trench Shots

Designing Trench Shots

In the construction environment, designing trench shots can come with some additional complexities when trying to match flow or design grades. The steps below will assist in the drill design process. 




  1.  Ensure you have a properly georeferenced existing surface to design your drill pattern on. 
  2. It is important to have design line work uploaded as a layer (DXF) to reference the utility positions. Here is a tutorial on how to upload DXF layers.
    1. Pro Tip: Make sure the text on the DXF is uploaded as well, so the Invert out elevations are visible on the model. 


  1. Start by Creating a Drill Design. The "Draw AB Line" will most likely be the most useful method for trench patterns, and linear mass excavation shots. 

      2. The arrows of the AB line display the azimuth of the drill design. Added rows to the pattern will fall behind the direction the arrows point. Users can extend, adjust the direction or azimuth of the AB line in this step.

3. To assign a toe elevation to the pattern, users can
  1. Manually type in an elevation
  2. Select a Finish Grade surface to snap the holes to (most surface drawings do not have trench included as a surface. By creating a base plane surface of the trench in CAD, users can upload the DXF to snap the holes to. This can be helpful with specific grades that are needed to be met.) 
  3. Manually select the grade in Strayos (see below): 
      Choose "Select Floor Plane on Model" on the left hand side and double click on one end of the tnch which will be the highest point of the trench line.

Next, align the gimbals azimuth to match that of the drill design


Next, enter the grade on the left hand side, or move the upper gimbal to angle the floor plane (circle shown below). Users can also adjust the starting points floor grade using the Z adjustment (square shown below).