Bedrock vs Trimble Business Centre for earthwork takeoff

Trimble Business Centre (TBC) is Trimble's office software for survey data, civil construction models and machine-control data, and it can do earthwork takeoff as part of that. Bedrock's Earthwork Pro is a bid tool: it reads the contours and spot grades on a civil PDF, gives you bank cut, fill and net, and sends them to the estimate. If you run Trimble machines and process survey data in house, TBC fits that work. If you need a cut/fill number on a bid, priced with the rest of the job, Bedrock is simpler.

Trimble Business Centre covers a lot of ground: survey processing, civil models and data for Trimble field and machine systems. Bedrock's Earthwork Pro does one job inside a full estimating app: turn the grading plan into priced yards.

TBC is survey and civil data software. Bedrock is estimating software with earthwork takeoff built in.

• Best for: Estimators who bid earthwork from PDFs and don't process survey data
• Best for: Contractors who want the yards on the same estimate as concrete, paving and utilities
• Best for: Teams without a dedicated surveyor or modeler on staff
• Why teams switch: A large program to learn for a bid-stage cut/fill number
• Why teams switch: The quantities still have to be priced somewhere else
• Why teams switch: A desktop install and licenses by module
• Trimble Business Centre does this better: Survey data processing and site calibration
• Trimble Business Centre does this better: Data prep for Trimble machine control and field systems
• Trimble Business Centre does this better: More CAD and survey formats on import today

Questions

Is Bedrock a Trimble Business Center alternative?

For bid-stage earthwork takeoff from civil PDFs, yes. Bedrock doesn't process survey data or prepare machine-control data the way TBC does.

Can I give my surveyor the surfaces from Bedrock?

Yes. Earthwork Pro downloads the existing and proposed surfaces as LandXML or a DXF of 3D faces, in plan coordinates. Your surveyor puts them on site control before a machine uses them.

What files does Bedrock's earthwork import take?

Civil PDFs, DXF, MicroStation V7 DGN and survey point files (CSV, TXT, XYZ). DWG and LandXML import aren't switched on yet.

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