Landscape Site Planning (Planting plan layout) - Need a Piece of Advice

[artur.chojnacki]

Greetings,

A Client demand consists of producing a detailed planting plan including trees, lawn areas, shrubs, perennials, briefly all sort of plants along of a railway - a huge and long project.

What it seems bizarre the software and treatment of all above has to be furnished in Civil 3D format.

As far as my very modest knowledge permits Civil 3D is not the best solution to provide such landscape products.

I would be deeply thankful, being at the moment at the very beginner stage as a Civil 3d user for any guidance, suggestion on approaching the challenge in question.

Site top, surfaces are to be provided.

Many  huge thanks in advance with my regards

[Anonymous]

This isn't very helpful, but when we did a site around one of our water reservoirs that included landscaping we had a landscape architect from another agency here at the city i work for design the landscaping and I created a plan sheet using various plant symbols, a variety of hatch patterns for differently seeded areas and/or e-mat, labels identifying the different plantings, etc. There was another sheet that included a planting schedule which was simply a linked excel spreadsheet. We had details showing proper planting of trees and shrubs and standard specifications that dealt with planting, seeding, topsoil, etc.

It isn't hugely important if a tree or shrub is planted a few feet from where the plan shows it, so just the graphical depiction of how it was to be planted was enough to accomplish the landscaping. Civil 3D was never really involved - I used plain old AutoCAD commands.

[Anonymous]

I've also seen it for large area landscaping that a certain density of certain type plants (trees, shrubs, whatever) is required - usually called out in the specifications and graphically and generally shown on the plan sheets. This is a more generic way to do it, but perfectly acceptable IMO for something that covers a large area or long corridor. I'd work with the landscape designer if taking this route.

[artur.chojnacki]

Thank you very much for your response.

As a matter of fact this is rather a technical question of using Civil 3D to express the planting zones (I presume trees would be presented as points/labels) and projecting them to the existing profile.

As I mentioned I cannot tell the best way of approaching it cause I have not got required knowledge of complete Civil 3D capacity. As far as I have noticed there is an option/possibility/function of projecting a flat horizontal outlines/polylines/forms on a given terrain. Thus we can obtain planting zones/areas on the surface with exact physical area calculated.

Once it's done (I have been still improvising 🙂 I presume there is a possibility to add some texture and labels to each zone or colour (in legend) to explain their (zones) content.

Please confirm or refute.

As far as trees are concerned or any bigger species would it be possible to easily align them along some guides/geometry not to place hundreds of them point by point?

Last one I will appreciate some suggestions on - the client or rather a collaborate ask for some 3D models (urban furniture/plants, etc) present in the Civil 3D drawing.

As I figure out there are no such inbox possibility in C3D and what is more this is not a right piece of software of such presentation. Than is why I am resistant of adding 3d CAD-like model just to they will be removed at the end. What is more there is not native feature of Civil 3D.

The demand using 3D software derives from the fact that ultimately the entire site (elaborated by different collaborators) will be put together to create a more or less realistic model of a whole corridor (around 200 km or more).

Hope it could add some precision to my timid asking for advice.

Once more many thanks in advance.

[jefflambert9091]

LandFX is one app that may do all you need. Looks like you need to find a LA that is up to speed with today's software. 

[artur.chojnacki]

Hullo and thank you.

i would never have used Civil 3D for lanscape planting purpose.

Alas this platform has been imposed apparently of compatibility sake.

I have still kept my idea to project a horizontal planting layout in cad format on Civil 3D surface.I mean closed area projection that would represent different planting zones.

I presume there should be some relatively simple way of performing this action.

i would appreciate any quidance of the above.

Thank you in advance, if any.

Regards

[MMcCall402]

We recently implemented Land FX for our landscape plan preparation.  I like the way its tools basically automate the placement, labeling, counting and plant schedule creation with native autocad objects.  It installs and runs within civil 3D.  I spent a few hours at home one night with it before I had to tech the LAs how to use it.  :oP

[artur.chojnacki]

Thank you MMc... (have to scroll a bit down...) MMcCall402 for your recommendation.

i will certainly mention it in the office.

Alas getting here a piece of atypical software could take ages.

Regards

[Anonymous]

We are a rare hybrid, as a firm that does Civil and Landscape design.

I find that using Civil 3d to do landscape work is kind of like using a scalpel where a broadsword is required.  It can do the job, but there's just so much of C3D that doesn't get used on the LS side of things.  Which is fine.  It's still AutoCAD underneath the hood, so you can use all the same commands.

[artur.chojnacki]

I think there are quite a lot of companies that married both services.

Usually we work with Autocad as far as LD, construction, planting plan are concerned.

in this very case this is a special demande of furnishing deliverables in Civil 3D format based on civil layout.

Indeed I do not find neither any use/advantage of working with Civil 3D on a landscape planting plans presentation.

Too complexe and complicated for nothing. I can be wrong though as a very practical beginner-user of Civil 3D. I have only a general, theoretical idea of the program capacity and it’s potential.

That is why I have been looking for some precise, practical suggestion/guidance concerning my very precise exercise.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Hi,

It sounds like you want to do a few things. You mentioned laying out multiple tree locations along a path or to fill an area. ARRAY can place multiple objects (such as tree and plant blocks) along a path. If you don't mind repeating the pattern place the plant blocks in a small area then use the corridor CL as the array path and repeat the pattern up the corridor. It usually takes me a few tries (trial & error) to get things just right. An array is an object - after you get it how you want it to look you could explode the array in order to move the plant blocks to the surface.

You might also look at using HATCH with a hatch pattern defined from your plant blocks. Once the area was hatched you could explode the hatch and be left with blocks.

you also mentioned having the trees and plants be placed on the surface - it sounds like the client wishes to present the design in 3D. this article talks about moving blocks to a surface: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/civil-3d/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2017/ENU/Civi...If you had several 3D tree blocks you might accomplish this by first laying them out horizontally (placing them "by hand," using HATCH, using ARRAY, etc.), then projecting/moving them to the surface. There are 3D tree blocks here (or I'm sure you can find many trees and plants with Google): http://seek.autodesk.com/search/xfrog?source=QuickLinks&resetft=true&_ga=2.184402470.1440120251.1526...

So, to me it sounds like AutoCAD commands will do much of what you want for the graphical representation of the landscaping, with an assist from Civil 3D for the surface projection. It will still be a Civil 3D drawing, but you have all of AutoCAD to use as well.

Is this message coming close to answering your questions? It sounds like you HAVE to use C3D - so if there are certain techniques or procedures you want to know about ask those questions specifically.

[artur.chojnacki]

I do thank you very much for your detailed elucidation and suggestion.

Yes, I have to use Civil 3D to produce the plans. Still I am doubtful about using this platform to achieve the results.

As far as I can follow you with my gratitude I am to use almost uniquely AutoCad features whilst the only Civil 3D component would be the surface along rails.

if you do not mind I would ask you for a piece of advice on projecting planting zones/areas on the C3D surface and applying hath on them (large enclosed polys shall represent different smalle speciec not to be represented as the individual points, as trees for instance.

i presume I have to prepare a flat horizontal plan of the whole site planting, blocks arrayed as you have described and the above mentioned planting zones/polylines to be hatched.

Then all this stuff will be projected on the created-by-Ci3D surface. Am I right (at least till now)?

Now some question are borne:

Shall I project éléments of the horizontal plan using a native PROJECTGEOMEYRY Autocad command or are any other methods to achieve it?

Once projection done on the C3D surface will it preserve the C3D properties or it will not?

I mean the capability of the manipulation of it using C3D feature or its entirety will be broken?

Can one hatch an irregular sloped surface in Autocad?

Once more many thanks Dre Audi and if you have any few more spare minutes... I will deeply appreciate it. Which this has been already a case.

Regards

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Read the article I linked for a description of how to move blocks to a Civil 3D surface. it is an easy step. It will affect just the blocks - not the surface. If you edit the surface you may have to repeat the command that moves the blocks to the surface. I do not think this is the same as PROJECTGEOMETRY - it is a Civil 3D command to project blocks to a Civil 3D surface. See the surface ribbon tab or the Surface>Utilities pull down menu.

for placing the plant blocks if you use a hatch I think that you are correct in creating a 2D (flat) boundary of the area to be filled. Hatching can be tricky, so it helps to break areas - especially long, narrow areas - into several areas and hatch them one at a time. here is a video that talks about creating a hatch pattern from blocks:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fSEkuMP9mM Once placed you would explode the to be able to manipulate the individual blocks.

An ARRAY might be the easiest way to do it, exploding the array at the end into individual blocks. you will cover the entire railway corridor in one shot, then project the blocks onto the surface.

whichever way you choose you will probably have to fill in gaps and move the blocks around to get everything correct, but most of the work will be done.

if you want to apply a "hatch" to the surface, read this, it is a little more complicated: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/hatching-a-surface/m-p/3777055#M195402 It is actually rendering the surface with a material that will show different areas as different patterns (not a hatch). I am not an expert at rendering - maybe someone else will speak up, but Civil 3D can make your surface look like anything you want.

[artur.chojnacki]

Thank you for all links and guidance.

No more question (for the time being :).

Time for action.

My best regards with my gratitude for your awesome sharing of your experience.