From design to machine
No stick, no email, no operator hunting for a folder. You load your design, tick the machine and press send. The tablet in the cab picks it up and puts it where the control system looks.
Unicontrol and Trimble. This route works today for Unicontrol in the cab and for Trimble Access and Siteworks on the field controller. Topcon, Leica and CHCnav follow — converting to those formats already works; only sending straight there is still to come.
1
You add the machine in the portal and get an eight-digit code. The operator types it once on the tablet — with gloves on, facing the sun, so eight digits and no letters. After that it goes quiet: the code stays valid, and a tablet in a cab does not get set up again every month.
2
Drop your design into the workbench — DXF, DWG, LandXML, TP3, a Pythagoras file. Surface, linework and points each land in their own bin, and you see what is in it in 3D straight away. The coordinate system is derived from the coordinates; if that is wrong, you pick it yourself.
3
Put the official aerial photo underneath and you see at a glance whether your design falls in the right place. Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg, each from its own service. A plan a hundred metres off shows here — not when the excavator is already waiting.
4
Choose the machine, name the site and press send. The dot tells you whether the tablet has reported in the last two minutes. More than one machine? They all go at once, and each gets the format its control system reads.
5
The package is built and queued for that machine. The portal counts what is still on the way until nothing is left waiting. The tablet picks it up on its next round — within seconds.
Or straight from the program
The Converter on your own PC does the same, without a browser. Your licence key already says who you are, so your company and your machines are right there — no second sign-in.
On the left what you load, in the middle what it became, on the right where it goes. Your company name sits top right; one click takes you to your customer portal.
Every control system has its own format, and behind each brand is what it produces. What your file does not allow is greyed out with the reason — so you can see the brand exists and that it is down to the file.
Your machines are listed with their control system and a green dot if the tablet has just reported in. Tick several and they go together: the design goes up once, and each machine gets the format it reads. Adding a machine works here too, with the pairing code straight away in large type.
The pairing code shows as dots on these images. That is not styling: the code is a working key, and it does not belong on a public page.
Or the other way round: the code is on the device
Open the MV3D app on the tablet, or MV3D Veld on the field controller. As long as the device is not paired, an eight-digit code is shown on its screen. You type that under Add device, and brand, model and software come along automatically. That is the shortest route when the operator is already on site and you have not created the device yet.
This is not only about the tablet in the cab: on a TSC7 or TSC5, MV3D Veld does the same, with the project folder of Trimble Access or Siteworks.
A site that only holds linework does not know where it is: no pin on the map, and the coordinate system has to be guessed. You set that location yourself on the map and pick the system with it. The program then sets that system as soon as you open the site, and sends it along when you publish.
Not every machine on your site is yours. For each device you mark how it stands; it shows in the list and in the tree, and it decides what happens when the rental ends.
And back: see what is on your devices
The road runs both ways. Every device reports what it holds, and that lands in the same overview as your own projects — with a light that says whether the machine is talking right now or standing still.
Everything on one page Your own projects and the sites on your devices sit together on the projects page: on the map, in a tree per customer, site and work order with their own numbers, and with a filter by device, software, content, period or location.
What exactly gets sent
Not one file, but the whole project the way Unicontrol expects it — in the folder tree the control system looks in.
How long does it take? The tablet checks in every five seconds. An ordinary site is therefore in the cab within ten seconds; a two-hundred-megabyte linework plan takes as long as your connection needs. If the tablet is out of range, the site keeps waiting until it reports back.
Fourteen days to try everything, with your own designs and your own machine.