The Guided Breakline Tool is a drawing option in the Line Drawing Mode of the dialog box that displays when a Polyline or Boundary tool is in use.



The Guided Breakline is a productivity tool that allows you to speed up the creation of breaklines. Use the Guided Breakline when creating a Polyline or Boundary. It is very helpful in open pit mines when modeling high walls or edges of haul roads. It can also help you quickly create stockpile reference surfaces for quantity calculations. 


Overview


Quick Guide

  1. Go to the HOME tab.
  2. Enable a drawing tool (Polyline or Boundary).
  3. Select Guided Breakline as the line drawing mode.
  4. Click the starting point of the line in the Viewport.
    1. Use it on a steep slope for the best results.
  5. Click a second point on the terrain. 
    1. The direction you give it and the distance you create between points tells the tool where you want it to go and how many vertices it should create as it calculates the slope breakline.
  6. The following vertices are automatically placed along the top or bottom slope of the topography.
  7. When the guide stops creating vertices, you can:
    1. Give additional input to continue the line drawing.
    2. Switch to Free drawing mode.
    3. Right-click to finalize the drawn breakline.
    4. Delete inaccurate vertices with Backspace and continue drawing.


When to Use Guided Breaklines

  • Use the Guided Breakline Tool to draw breaklines that you want to create on mine surveys such as: haul road edges, bank edges, or high wall edges.


  • To easily identify slope changes where you want to draw breaklines, enable the Slope Steepness Terrain Lens by pressing alt+s on the keyboard or by disabling the Image Terrain in the Project View pane.


  • You can also use the Guided Breakline Tool to digitize the bottom edge of stockpiles. This boundary can then be used to calculate your Stockpile with the Stockpile tool in the TOOLS for Boundary tab.


Tips & Tricks

  • Keyboard shortcut: the Guided Breakline Tool can be enabled by pressing B on your keyboard while the drawing tool is enabled.
  • If the guided line stops at a turn or earlier than expected, it may be due to the initial direction and distance between vertices you gave it to calculate; simply continue the Guided Breakline by giving it a new direction and distance between vertices on the line.
  • If the guided line goes off course, you can remove the latest vertex by pressing Backspace (press as many times as needed to delete each off-course vertex). 
  • If the guided line stops and you only need a few more vertices to finish the line, hold Ctrl on your keyboard to temporarily disable the guide and manually click to add vertices where you want them.
  • Disable the Guided Breakline Tool by selecting another line drawing mode.