Reading the depth display

The Excavator Grade screen has three guidance elements:

1. The chevron indicator (center)

Same as the scraper modes:

• Up arrows → bucket is below target (need to come up).
• Down arrows → bucket is above target (need to go deeper).
• Center dot → on grade. The Excavator on-grade band is ±1.5″ (Tiling uses ±0.5″, other modes ±1.0″) — the same band drives the ON GRADE state and the coverage "achieved" recording.

In Excavator mode, the chevron is bigger and more prominent than in scraper modes — it is the primary guidance tool. The CUT or FILL label sits next to the chevron column — CUT when the bucket is above grade (you need to dig deeper), FILL when the bucket is below grade (you've over-dug and need to back-fill).

2. The bucket gauge (right side)

A vertical panel down the right edge of the screen with a heavy border so it reads as its own sub-panel against the map. It shows where your bucket tip sits relative to grade:

• The target line is the bright yellow stripe with black borders — the construction-tape pattern. It sits about three-quarters of the way down the panel and reads at a glance even in direct sun. A stacked two-word label — FINAL / TARGET — sits just below it. When manual Nudge moves the working target away from the final target, a separate cyan CURRENT line and label appear on the gauge.
• The excavator arm with bucket is drawn as an image whose tip moves up and down to show where your bucket cutting edge is. When the bucket tip sits on the yellow stripe, you are on grade.
• The scale tapers smoothly as you move away from grade: an inch off near the target band moves the bucket by a clear visible amount, but the farther off you get the slower the icon moves, so the bucket icon never falls off the top or bottom of the panel. Big over-cuts and big over-fills both stay clearly readable inside the gauge.
• The gauge has a little more room above the target line than below — most operators approach grade from above, so the extra travel sits where you actually use it.
• The border around the gauge is a dark grey in dark mode and a lighter grey in sunlight mode — same visible contrast either way.
• A readout box at the bottom of the gauge shows the signed error plus the current and target elevations. When a separate CURRENT target exists (nudge active), tapping the readout toggles the error between Current Tgt and Final Tgt.
• Tapping anywhere else on the gauge collapses it to a thin vertical GRADE rail; tap the rail to restore. The collapsed/expanded choice persists. (This is the same Grade / Depth Guide behaviour described in Getting Started.)

3. The profile chart (bottom)

The chart shows the surveyed terrain (ghosted), the proposed grade line (red), and as you dig down, a green achieved-grade line at 10 cm bin precision. Where you have brought the trench to grade, the area between the original terrain and the design line shades semi-transparent green — that's the dug-earth volume so far.

This achieved overlay is unique to Excavator mode. It updates with every GPS fix as you work.

The top stats bar

Stats are labelled Current (ft), Target (ft), Cut/Fill, Dist (ft), and Grade (metric units when selected):

• Current — GPS altitude plus the benchmark offset, shown in the unit system you've picked. The number reads at the bucket cutting edge because the DIG module provides bucket-tip-corrected altitude in its GPS feed; the benchmark offset carries the calibration from there. The app has no bucket-tip-height setting — DIG handles the correction in hardware via its own external setup and calibration process.
• Target — design target at your current position.
• Cut/Fill — reads ON GRADE (green) within ±1.5″, X in CUT (red) when the bucket is above grade, or X in FILL (blue) when below grade. There is no yellow tier. It shows -- until you tap Start.
• Dist — distance along the trench from the start.
• Grade — current grade percent.

No "Auto Grading (Commands OFF)" banner. Unlike scraper modes, Excavator mode does not show a red banner during digging. The visual cue you are in visual-only mode is the bucket gauge on the right of the screen and the DIG logo at the bottom of the sidebar. The map's GPS marker is also a plain coloured circle rather than the heading arrow used in other modes, because Excavator runs north-up.

Map orientation and the GPS marker

In Excavator mode the map is held north-up — it does not rotate to match your heading the way it does in scraper modes, because an excavator typically works from a fixed position. The GPS marker is a plain coloured circle (green when RTK Fixed, yellow when RTK Float, red when no fix) rather than the heading arrow used elsewhere.

Audio toggle

A small Grade toggle sits below the action buttons in the Excavator sidebar. When on (default), the app plays the grade-alert tone whenever your bucket is within the on-grade threshold. Tap to silence.