Software modules (NOTE: You may purchase Landform although it is currently unsupported. An update may be available in the future) Customise your Landform software with modules to suit your particular project: Pad Design Module You will need this module if you wish to design pads in a highly productive manner. This module ensures that you benefit from Landform's fast pad building ability. You may find it hard to believe how quickly you can design a pad, especially if you have had experience with other site design software. To create a trial design of a rectangular pad in Landform takes less than 17 seconds on an iMac. Consider how long this would take normally. We have run tests on other site design software and it routinely takes an hour or more for this same task. Building a pad is easy using Landform; simply set the length and width, and then position the pad on the terrain using the mouse. The pad is drawn in detail showing full interaction with the ground surface. Cut and fill batter slopes are drawn, initially with a slope of 1in1, but you can change this to whatever you require. You can even allow for adding berms automatically at the correct depth. Road Design Module The Road Design Module is needed if you wish to design roads, driveways, channels and so on in a fast interactive manner. With Landform you will be able to design a road in a matter of minutes. The basic steps for designing a road with Landform are: Lay out the horizontal line. Design a typical section. Design a vertical alignment. All these steps are done graphically so it is very fast and easy to learn. The plan location of the road is designed simply by placing the intersection points on the terrain model using the mouse. Curves are automatically inserted for you. All details can be specified precisely to the millimetre or hundredths of a foot. The typical section is drawn using various tools such as kerbs and pavements. This typical section is then used as a template to automatically create cross sections at intervals along the road. The vertical alignment or design profile is designed by placing vertical intersection points (IPs) using the mouse. Parabolic vertical curves are automatically inserted as you add IPs. The road can now be shown in plan view, profile or cross section. Drawings can be created in PICT format or printed. Extra Typical Sections Module This module is used to extend the capabilities of both the Pad Module and the Road Module. The Road and Pad Modules allow you design one typical section which will define the edge shape of a pad or the cross section shape of a road. For pads or roads which require a more complex shape, such as widening for a road or variable batter slopes for a pad, you can add the Extra Typical Sections Module which allows the use of additional typical sections. For a road, extra typical sections will allow you to vary the width to allow for widenings for turning lanes or parking lanes. You can also vary the pavement crossfall or the drainage ditch detail. For a pad, extra typical sections will allow the modelling variable batter slopes for landscaping effects or for slope stability requirements. Both the Road and Pad Modules can be used for other design tasks. By lowering a pad so that it is largely in cut, it becomes a farm dam. In such a case extra typical sections would be helpful to design a spillway. Likewise, a "road" entirely in cut is an open channel for drainage and when designing complex shapes such as low energy culverts, the use of extra typical sections would be helpful. Construct Module The Road and Pad Modules provide you with tools to design a road or pad interactively. The road or pad is "live" and interacts with the terrain. When you have completed the design, it can be useful to "construct" the design; this action changes the shape of the terrain to show how it would be after the road or pad is built. The Construct Module provides this capability. This is useful if you wish to show the contours of the final surface, or if you wish to export the final terrain for use in other software. An example of this includes exporting to building design software for placing buildings on the final terrain. Extra Points Module This module increases the current point capacity of Landform. Landform's base model has a capacity of 50 points. Adding one Extra Points Module will increase its capacity to 100. Adding a second Extra Points Module will increase it to 150 points and so on. DXF Import/Export Module With the DXF Module you can import terrain data, such as topo map contours, so that it can be used to create a triangulated terrain model. The DXF import includes a filter to reduce the number of data points. This is particularly useful when data is in the form of contour lines which often have far more points than are needed to create a triangulated DTM. You can export drawings of plan, profile and cross sections as 2D DXF files representing drawing sheets which make up a project. These can then be used in a CAD program to finalise the drawings for construction and pricing purposes. You can also export the terrain model in 3D DXF format for use in other software for visualisation. Drive-through Simulation Module This module is used in conjunction with the Road Design Module and allows you to visualise driving along the road. This is useful to show the road design to non-technical stake-holders such as community groups. It is also useful from a design point of view to indicate areas of alignment which have poor sight distance. The drive through simulation is created as a Quicktime movie and can be viewed on most Macintosh and Windows computers. It can also be placed on a web site for viewing. Datalogger Modules Various Data Logger Modules are available. A module is available for each of these data loggers: TOPCON FC4 and related data loggers and total stations using this format, Wild/Leica GSI data format, Geodimeter HP48, and Sokkisha SDR data format The data from these data loggers can be downloaded by direct connection to the serial port of your computer. This requires a suitable cable which is not supplied by Creative Engineering, however we can provide technical notes with pinout information. Total stations which use memory cards, known as PC cards (used to be called PCMCIA cards), can be used. You will need either a computer with a card slot, or separate card reader attached to your computer. GDL Export Module This module allows you to export the terrain model in a format to suit ArchiCAD. You can read this into ArchiCAD as a library item. Quickdraw 3D Module The Quickdraw 3D Module allows you to export the terrain model in Quickdraw 3D metafile format. 3D Viewing Module This module allows you to view the terrain from different angles and create a "fly-around" QuickTime movie of the site. Plotter Driver Module With the Plotter Driver Module you can plot plan, profile and cross section drawings on HPGL and DMPL compatible plotters. These drawings are useful for check plots during the design process, or can be used as the basis for final drawings. If used for final drawings, some additional work would be required to add title blocks and other details to the drawings. These additions can be effectively done by hand. Terrain Volumes Module This module allows you to calculate the volume between the terrain surface and a datum plane. This is useful for measuring the change in volume within an area. For example, if you have a quarry site you can measure the volume each month and the difference between measurements will give you the volume of material removed. Please note: this module is not necessary to calculate earthworks volumes for pads or roads. Both the Pad Module and the Road Module include earthworks calculations based on the cross sectional end-area method. Feature Library Module Natural and constructed features represented by points on the terrain model can be displayed in different ways by using feature strings. Features are defined by joining together the points on the terrain model which belong to that feature. Landform can automatically join feature points together based on a code associated with each point. Natural features such as ridges and gullies, and man-made features such as drainage ditches and road shoulders can be modelled by defining them as breaklines. These are features which define the shape of the terrain. Triangles which form the terrain model cannot cross a breakline; if the breakline is defined after the triangles are formed then any triangles which intersect the breakline will be changed. Landform will attempt to automatically join features during the conversion of a list of points or a list of data logger readings. As the points are processed, Landform will search the points for any which have a comment attached. When a point with a comment is found, the comment is compared with a library of predefined codes. If a definition already exists for a comment, then that definition will be used. If a match is not found, Landform will ask whether you wish to add this code to the library. Consider an example of a fenceline which you wish to show on the plan. Simply define a code such a FCE and give this code to each point on the fence. Note: It is important when doing a survey to ensure that you pick up points along a feature in order from one end to the other. The point numbers do not have to be consecutive, just in order. Once all points have been scanned, the plan will be displayed with the features joined and shown as you have specified. HighRoad Introduction Key features Modules Technical specs Demo download Pricing details Order form Landform Introduction Pricing details Order form
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