why wouldn't i use chief for neighborhood design?

[johnnyprc]

I am typically the first person to layout out neighborhoods for my clients. I then work with a civil engineer (obviously) to refine the design and complete necessary submittal documents.

I was just playing around with Chief's roads and site tools, and it blew me away to some degree with the idea of creating entire neighborhood concepts directly in Chief. If I were to show my clients a proposed neighborhood in 3D like this it would shock them (in a good way). If I had some concept homes (shells) to throw in it would complete a great look.

It almost seems too good to be true. Is there a size issue with Chief? Can I do a 40-150 lot subdivision? Any other advice before going down this path?

Thanks!

[portrait]

I designed a very large neighbourhood concept (around 300 units) with X3, but Chief couldn't cope with such a huge environment. I decided to design every 5-10 units in seperate files with the proper coordinates, and unify them in 3D Max. That was successful.
If you're going to use primitive models for each dwelling unit in the neighborhood, it's possible that Chief could do the job. Otherwise it's very unlikely.
What i found out is that Chief generally starts to struggle when the size of the plan file is larger than 35 Mb.

[Joe Carrick]

I think that limit has been changed drastically by the 64 bit version of X5.

[johnnyprc]

The housing side is understandable - and I may even combine that into Lumion.

What I am so curious about is the civil side. I am envisioning having my storm, sewer, water, franchise utility ditches in 3d form. Im sure there are some civil guys using 3D products, but none of the ones I know. I just threw this together, but I was thinking about being able to add storm vaults, man-holes, rockeries, etc etc. I could even see a cut/fill analysis. It would really spice up an investor conference (stakeholder meeting).

[portrait]

Oh, infrastructure. There must be many engineers using Civil 3D who can work with you, and meet your requirements.

[johnnyprc]

Not as many as you might think using 3D in my area. Plus, its at my direction most of the time and I get very involved with this side. My clients use me more as a master planner - and even project manager.

Has anyone produced civil drawings and model with Chief for a subdivision or plat?

[JJohnson]

Not as many as you might think using 3D in my area. Plus, its at my direction most of the time and I get very involved with this side. My clients use me more as a master planner - and even project manager.

Has anyone produced civil drawings and model with Chief for a subdivision or plat?

Lew will probably get here eventually, I recall him suggesting making a house into a symbol, many of which can go into
a large plot without bloating the file.

[lbuttery]

Jere:

here I am

yep, create each building in a separate plan then convert to a symbol and place in the master site plan

Johnny:

also check out TraversePC software for doing sub-divisions

Lew

[portrait]

But a master plan with 3D buildings is not enough for John, since he wants a complete model including the certain parts of the infrastructure system which is impossible to make with a single program.
If i had enough knowledge like John to make storm analysis, to design sewer, water, etc. systems, i would try to learn one of those civil design programs such as Civil 3D, or ArcGIS.

[lbuttery]

Ozgur:

I agree, I doubt if Chief has the CE tools needed to represent in 3D

Lew

[johnnyprc]

Perhaps Chief doesn't have the built-in tools, but I imported a vault and catch basin model and it worked great - although I have to make a terrain hole manually. I've done a lot of this in Sketchup before, and I would say in Chief there much better control of roads/sidewalks etc - even terrain contours. Consider that a lot of civil engineers simply use 2D cad to draw lines on paper...and some don't use cad for most things. Below is the drawing I got from my engineer and then the drawing I had to make for submittal (I deleted the engineer/project info so not to embarrass him). My point is that its my job to make sure everything is documented well, no matter what the engineer ends up giving me. You should have seen the look on the face of the attorney I work with (client attorney) when we first got the sketch drawing. That vault is 150k.

I could see Chief being a big help in the planning process - with both the client, and the project public approval process (public meetings etc). I'll try it and report back.

[JJohnson]

[QUOTE=johnnyprc;479334].... Consider that a lot of civil engineers simply use 2D cad to draw lines on paper...and some don't use cad for most things. ....QUOTE]

Once I had an engineer provide a written plan. Not much drawing required there !

It was accepted.

Pasted it in for the interested.

SITE GRADING PLAN
SITE GRADING INVOLVES REMOVING APPROXIMATELY 75 CU YD FROM THE FOOTPRINT OF THE NEW GARAGE AND REPLACING IT WITH IMPORTED COMPACTED BACKFILL PER THE SPECIFICATIONS IN THE 12 MAY 2005, GEOTECHNICAL DESIGN MEMORANDUM BY SALEM HOWES ASSICIATED INC.. THE EXCAVATION WILL BE APPROXIMATELY THREE FEET DEEP, AS DIRECTED BY SALEN HOWES ASSOCIATES, TO REMOVE THE SOFT ORGANIC TOPSOIL FROM THE FOOTPRINT OF THE NEW GARAGE. THE AREA IS ESSENTIALLY LEVEL AND THE EXCAVAION WILL ONLY EXTEND THREE FEET BEYOND THE FOOT PRINT OF THE GARAGE.

THE SOILS AR3E CLASSIFIED AS LOAMY TOPSOIL AND WILL BE USED AS GROUND COVER FOR PLANTING ACROSS LEVEL AREAS OF THE PROPERTY ADJACENT TO THE NEW GARAGE.

THE SITE GRADING WILL NOT HAVE AN ADVERSE IMPACT ON THE SLOPE STABILITY OR ALTER THE DRAINAGE IN ANY MEASURABLE MANNER.

SITE DRAINAGE PLAN
WATER COLLECTED ON THE NEW HARDSCAPE WILL BE DIRECTED IN A CONTROLLED SHEET FLOW, ONTO THE SOIL ADJACENT TO THE AREA ON WHICH IT WAS COLLECTED. ROOF GUTTER DOWNSPOUTS WILL DISCHARGE ONTO “SPLASH BLOCKS” THAT DIRECT THE WATER AWAY FROM THE FOUNDATION.

SUMMARY
THIS IS A VIRTUALLY LEVEL SITE WITH VERY LITTLE EXCAVATION THAT IS CONFINED TO ONE AREA. THE GRADING AND DRAINAGE PLAN IS VERY SIMPLE AND WILL NOT HAVE AN ADVERSE IMPACT ON THE SURROUNDING PROPERTY. EXCAVATED MATERIALS ARE GOOD TOPSOIL AND WILL BE USED FOR LANDSCAPING ON SITE. THE BACKFILL WILL BE IMPORTED.

[rcole]

Something more to consider.

I use TurboCAD Pro Platinum for many of my solid modeling needs. TC has a feature similar to AC and that is XRef. I am not current on AC as far as it's XRef capabilities, but TC has the ability to filter layers in XRef drawings.

I have not had a chance to work with yet, and it is a fairly new feature to TC and early XRefs were very buggy. I would add that Civil 3D, at least a few versions back was also very buggy IMO. Probably why not as many engineers as one would think would be using it are.

In short, what I would like to see is to have a platform that has a workable feature with the capabilities of XRefs for displaying all or part of separate files in one environment. It should also be capable of using GPU acceleration to speed viewing, and it should be a 64 bit app.

Chief meets some of these needs if you get creative with symbols and limit the size of the overall project.

[marty]

The attached pic is a job I did back in 2001 - not sure what version of Chief could be v9. All buildings were stripped of everything inside and Chief was able to handle it but I do recall that changing a 3D view took forever

[johnnyprc]

Considering what we had in 2001 (software and hardware) that model was cutting edge for sure. I didn't start in with Sketchup until 2002.

I really think CA could be handy for plat design - even my testing has been very interesting....the visualization of how the lots and utilities work with the grade is exciting to think about. I can then export to lumion for final touches.

I've been playing with making the terrain transparent so you can see the underground utilities and road bed through the soil. Very cool stuff.

I agree that Chief should look at XRef support - perhaps in both import and export. Placing a CAD point to define the basis for an XRef or something like that.