Want Parcels? Slice a site using roads

By Ken Goulding posted on Fri, 2009-06-19 11:18 , 239 reads, 0 comments

A new tool in SmartPlan lets you create open space and development parcels by slicing a site with roads. One can then assign landuse and density assumptions to the resulting parcels for fast and accurate area take-offs. Roads can be added and edited as the design evolves for up to the minute program info.

 

 

Roads can be laid out as straight line segments or using tangential arc segments. SmartPlan leverages the fact that roads have to follow certain geometric constraints to create a drawing interface that is powerful and intuitive. You simply draw a road centerline using control points and SmartPlan will figure out the rest.

 

Roads can be assigned different right of way widths to generate accurate parcel areas after slicing.

 

Although parcel boundaries are defined mostly by roads, other geometries may also define parcel edges. To this end, SmartPlan supports the use of “edge” polylines to define entities such as open space corridors, wetland buffers or simply dividing lines between parcels.

 

SmartPlan’s roads tool offers several big advantages over drawing roads in AutoCAD. While AutoCAD allows you to draw tangential arcs and line segments, it does not keep the relationship when it comes to editing. Since the reality of the design process requires constant tweaking, SmartPlan's centerline editing tools that use road construction rules to constrain lines can be extremely benificial and save a lot of time.

 

 

We will continue to use AutoCAD in the later stages as the design becomes more refined and nuanced. Then the greater level of precision drawing that AutoCAD offers us becomes more important. For programming purposes, our site-slicing solution works extremely well. We believe that in the earlier stages of the design process it achieves the right balance between speed and accuracy.

 

The greatest advantage of this tool is that it has improved efficiency to the point where we can now tweak and reparcelize designs in worksessions with clients. Added to SmartPlan's existing ability to paint program uses and assign densities it allows us to bring planning and program analysis to the design table far earlier and at a stage where the design ideas are still fresh and fungible.