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[Kulantan]

For an elegant solution to the removal of the generated obsidian, I'd suggest construction over a bottomless pit.

After so much effort taken generating it, I'm not sure if this is relevent, but I probably missed something...

Well I'm thinking of using the pixie dust it generates to knock goblins sieges out before setting my soldiers loose on any of them that weren't knocked into the "obsidian disposal unit" (also to help capture or kill HFS).

[Shakma]

Does a cave-in make dust without something to land on?

[XSI]

The dust will come from the block that falls as well as where it lands, so if it has nowhere to land, it will still make dust.

My personal experience says that it will also create some dust everywhere on the path of the falling rock.

*Assuming dust is the mist like thing that can knock items and dwarves around.

[Meta]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If it's a raising bridge, then it must have floor beneath the entire edge along which it raises. Only retracting bridges can be built entirely over open space.

Is it possible to build a raising bridge based upon a set of walls (i.e. no "official" floor underneath the raising side, just "tops of wall"-type foors) then remove the floor without the bridge collapsing?

Yes.

On the edge of a megaproject digging area, I set up a line of walls, and on the level above some access floors to allow me 'building access' to place a raising bridge, based atop those walls.  Bridge built, and linked to a lever, I then removed the access floors (not necessary, but did so anyway) and could then remove the walls from below (leaving one at each end of the 'bridge base', but I suspect I only needed to leave one of them, and maybe have gotten away with none at all if there was still an adjacent supporting wall to the side to 'hang off of') leaving a fully functional lever-operated bridge that would nicely act as a "non-stick" wall-type barrier to help martial liquids along a similarly 'non-stick' bridge floor, to meet at a point where obsidian could be spontaneously created without any supporting landscape or structure.  The bridge raises and lowers without losing integrity (a further fear that I had, in that it would suddenly 'realise' that it was no longer supported).

The 'wall' bridges would be anchored either side of the 'floor' ones, pointing outwards (or being just one-tile thick and and raising either inwards or outwards, given that still gives a "wall" when raised).  The 'floor' ones (not needing differentiation by raising direction or retraction or lever linking, seeing as they are used "flat", unless also being used as "valves" for the magma or water) would be supported at opposite walls, going between the two wall-like barriers to leave the 'formation gap', thus:

Code: [Select]

###########
##       ##
..       ..      Shaft dug with two input routes
##       ##
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##       ##
..|-| |-|..      Two short bridges built to nearly bridge the gap
##       ##
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##+++++++##       On the level below, build walls to create
..|-| |-|..     
##+++++++##       floors sufficient to build upon.
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##|-----|##       Upon these wall-tops, with build access from the existing
..|-| |-|..       bridges, build new bridges (set to raising towards/away from
##|-----|##       the centre, along their 1-tile thickness).
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##|-XXX-|##       Deconstruct the now covered-over lower walls
..|-| |-|..       from under at least the middle three parts
##|-XXX-|##       of the bridge length, as indicated by "X"s.
###########       (And of course any other 'infrastructure'.)


Code: [Select]

###########
##|=====|##       Raise those bridges
..|-| |-|..       to form confining walls.
##|=====|##       (Probably not order-critical with previous step.)
###########

I had no magma/water at hand to easily test the operational aspects, but the construction method definitely appears to work.  I can't think how one would 'hold' a piece of obsidian in place, so it's not so much "reloading" as "produce-and-drop on demand.  Give or take the response time and flow-rate of the supply fluids.

I constructed an automated cave-in generator as Starver planned it. It works, but it also constructs an obsidian pillar : Movie

[Doppel]

I have made a mid air obsidian creator before, and used it as a way to trap invaders. It wasn't automated though, but its "easy" to do so by simply linking the bridges to a elaborate mist generator. (the one which cycles a single tile of water through pumps, if you make it big enough then it takes a while for the single tile of water to activate a pressure plate, which is linked to the bridges).
My mid air obsidian trap had this design. (but then much much bigger)

 ###
 #~=      z2
 ###

 #+#
 #~#      z1
 #+#

#####
#~~~#
#~~~=   z0
#~~~#
#####

#####
#. . . #
#. . . #   z-1
#. . . #
#####

# = wall
= = floodgate
+ = door
.  = empty space
~ = magma (resting on a retractable bridge)
~ = retractable bridge
~ = water (resting on a retractable bridge)

An idea to create a automated obsidian cave-in generator could be making use of pressure to create a stream of water in the air and make it so that it runs forever, then dropping blobs of magma through the water stream in a timely fashion.

[Starver]

... then dropping blobs of magma through the water stream in a timely fashion.

I think timing is the key.  As far as I could tell (I'm not a master at interpretting movies, like the one given in the prior post, so I could be wrong) the obsidian pillar that was created is as a result of the watr and magma not solidifying at the junction, but being created when pooling at the bottom of the shaft.

And, if it is indeed the case that falling blocks cause "cave-in effects" without needing to hit bottom, then (despite my prior response) the bottomless pit is the answer, not to swallow up the obsidian (though it will) but to take the unreacted water and magma globs that don't time correctly.  (I'm probably wrong in my interpretation, there...)

[Meta]

In my movie the timing was a little bit wrong and the magma arrived at the junction first. So the obsidian was created at this junction when the water arrived. Some seconds after it collapsed at the bottom. In the movie you can see me opening the announcement menu : there are two cave-in announcements.

[Jimmy]

I'd propose that Meta's design would work were it created over a chasm or bottomless pit as suggested. Downsides are many, not the least of which is the game pausing when cave-ins occur.