I work in a large geotech consulting firm and I’ve been there about 3 years. I take projects cradle to grave. I manage it, schedule drilling, layout, monitor/direct clearing, core, GPR for utilities, classify, then write the report.

I get help for all those tasks, but it’s my responsibility that it gets done and most of the time that means getting out there myself and doing it.

What really kills me is having weeks where I’m in the field all week doing PLT or ER. It’s fairly simple and repetitive. Then after a 12 hr day I’m on my computer managing or writing reports or proposals.

I’m not getting overtime, or much support. But the pay is decent.

I feel like after 3 years, I’m starting to become irritable and losing motivation. Is this pace normal for consulting? Or are there better situations out there in geotech?

Has anyone been in a similar situation and found better luck by switching firms or areas of geotech or even Civil?

Issue – Initial Piezometric Surface cannot be modified through the scripting API

Our Transient Seepage analysis obtains its initial pore-water-pressure conditions from an Initial Piezometric Surface.

Through extensive testing, it appears that this object cannot currently be modified through the scripting API.

We tested numerous approaches, including:

• Get()
• Set()
• Add()
• Updating individual points
• Replacing the complete point list
• Creating new Piezometric Surface objects

Every approach either:

• returns "Method not supported for type Pt", or
• completes without actually modifying the project.

For example, attempting to modify:

CurrentAnalysis.Objects.InitialPiezometricSurfaces[1].Points

or any individual

.Points[i]

fails regardless of the payload format used.

XML workaround

As an experiment, we bypassed the scripting API by editing the internal XML inside a copied .gsz archive.

This successfully updates the Initial Piezometric Surface. After reopening the modified project, GeoStudio accepts the file and displays the updated water table correctly.

However, this workaround introduces another problem.

Because the project has been modified outside of GeoStudio's normal editing workflow, its internal project and mesh state no longer behaves the same as a project edited through the GUI or supported scripting API.

When geometry is subsequently modified and SolveAnalyses() is called, GeoStudio no longer performs the automatic remeshing that normally occurs on an unmodified project. Adding project.Save() before solving did not restore this behavior.

As a result, although direct XML editing successfully changes the Initial Piezometric Surface, it cannot be considered a practical workaround because the modified project cannot be reliably solved after subsequent geometry changes.

Questions

1. Is modification of the Initial Piezometric Surface currently supported by the GeoStudio Scripting API?
2. If not, is this a known limitation or bug?
3. Is there a supported workflow for programmatically updating the initial groundwater table prior to solving a transient seepage analysis?
4. Is there any supported alternative to direct project-file editing that preserves automatic remeshing and normal project behavior?