(V 
OSS 
If the project is well planned, soil surveyors, geologists and geo- 
physicists will by now have completed their investigation of the priority area. 
This will provide the engineer with information on such things as depth to bed- 
rock, the nature and sequence of overlying strata, design parameters for 
slopes and cuttings, etc. Using the full design and all the terrain and sub- 
terranean information now available, the cycle of computations of horizontal 
and vertical geometry and earthworks is recommenced, refining the align- 
ment until no further improvement can be made. Calculations of topsoil 
stripping, resoiling, seeding, fence lengths, etc., are then made for inclusion 
in the Bill of Quantities and finally, tables of setting-out data are compiled. 
COMPUTERGRAPHICS 
Because of the ease and rapidity with which computations are now made, 
every project tends to generate a great deal of numerical data, analysis of 
which is laborious in the extreme. It has therefore become accepted practice 
to supplement numerical data with automatically prepared drawings, which 
are much more readily interpreted. 
Basically, three methods are available for the preparation of 
drawings automatically: - 
(i The use of an off-line flat-bed tape-or card-controlled 
coordinatograph. This can produce high quality drawings of 
great accuracy. 
(ii) The use of an on-line Calcomp graph-plotter. This is less 
expensive than (i) but the drawings are of poorer quality and 
restricted in size and style. Dimensionally stable drawing 
media are not available with this type of plotter. 
(iii) The adaptation of computer peripherals which were designed 
for other purposes. Lineprinters and teleprinters can be used 
to construct diagrams made up from alpha-numeric characters. 
- 12 .