Balance the Job Site

Balancing the site helps you minimize the amount of material you import to or export from the job site by lowering or raising elevations in the site.

When you balance a site, you can choose to manually balance the site, or you can use Viewpoint Estimating to automatically balance the site. You can also balance the site by changing the elevations of individual areas. This helps you select which areas of the site can have their elevations changed to minimize the amount of material you must import or export.
Note: You can only balance proposed areas or site perimeters.

Viewpoint recommends that you use Viewpoint Estimating to balance the job site automatically to calculate the most efficient site quantities, then enter a manual balance to calculate the most appropriate balance for the site. You can also unbalance the area to return to the original quantities.

When you balance the site, no elevations are actually changed. Viewpoint Estimating adjusts the calculated totals when balancing the site. However, in the 3D, Section, Grid, and Summary tabs, the elevation and cut & fill values reflect the changes made by balancing the site. The only things not altered are the line properties.

If you excluded an area from balancing or from the entire job when you selected properties for the area in the Area tab, you cannot balance the site using that area. For more information, see Exclude Areas from a Job or Balancing.

For more information about balancing and unbalancing the site, see the following topics: