The July and August releases focus on the part of the job you cannot see: the bottom. Here is what changed.
The cross-section view, rebuilt
The cross-section viewer is where an operator checks grade, so we rebuilt it. The profile now shows the design grade, the current surface, and the bucket in a single, simpler chart. The indicators that cluttered the old view are gone, and the defaults for what is visible were reset so a new project opens with a usable section without configuration.
The cutter invert and tide gauge readings were folded into the same view, so everything the operator needs to judge depth sits on one screen.
The current work surface updates as you dig
ClamVision has always built a work surface from bites and soundings. It now does so continuously, in real time, and we optimized it so the update does not slow the display on long shifts. The surface accepts multiple chainage files, which matters on projects split into reaches.
Cut/fill and distance to design, now in 3D
Two things moved from the plan view into the three-dimensional view:
- Cut/fill shading shows where material has been removed, where it remains, and where the crew has gone past grade.
- Distance to design colors the surface by how far it sits from the target, so the spots that still need work stand out from any angle.
To go with that, you can now pick a depth by pointing at any location in the 3D view and reading the depth there. No more switching to a plan view to check one spot.
Camera and model improvements
- The camera orbits more smoothly, and the bucket renders more accurately through the dig cycle.
- The machine can now rotate independently of the barge, which is how a crane actually behaves.
- A survey boat model was added for spreads that track a sounding vessel alongside the dredge.
- Barge corners are rounded, boom tips look right, and the bucket profile was refined.
- A button was added to set the inverted bucket state directly, with an improved invert cone.
Tides and heights
Surface heights were standardized across the program so every surface, survey, and readout is measured the same way. We added a view-only tide option for gauges you want to watch but not apply, and renamed the RTK tide option to make its purpose clearer.
Fixes
- Boom-tip GPS crash. Enabling GPS hardware on the boom tip could crash ClamVision. This was tracked down and fixed in 6.6.5, and it is the main reason to update if you run a boom-tip receiver.
- Digging radius was wrong for GPS-positioned buckets. Fixed.
- A Sperry GPS bug and a fault in the CALC driver were corrected.
- Autotrack behavior was improved.
- ClamVision can now send diagnostic logs by email from the field, which makes remote support faster when something goes wrong on a vessel we cannot reach that day.