Eric Gilbey

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  • #160681
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Andrew, I know they are…they just aren’t weighing in this conversation. And to your credit, I never expected that you weren’t already using survey files generated by a registered surveyor. I think we all know that those surveys are available to us depending on the level of detail we pay for…so if a client has already had these done, not expecting the level of detail you need…you bet you need to field verify and supplement. Another good resource is Loggerhead Navigation…Brian Mickel, who is on L8L can expand further on how this has continued to advance…many of the input devices make the whole process very slick and in your need to supplement the provided survey data, you can certainly find a solution that makes the whole process very efficient to save you the time in collecting and turning around for a detailed site file.

    #160688
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    I have heard great feedback from Trimble’s Total Station system. In the past, I recall taking measurements and elevations with long tapes and the typical rod and level…these total stations take the site info very quickly…the coordinate and elevational position at the same time. This data is easily imported into most CAD solutions. I just recently met a design/build company in Florence, KY that uses it on every project and not only can instantly map out locations and edges of features, they can use the elevational attributes to immediately form a 3D site model of the site too!

    #160758
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Jim,

    Another East-coaster, here…Isn’t it amazing how a site specific design application can revolutionize the way drawings are produced? I learned this almost 4 years ago when I transitioned from using AutoCAD to Vectorworks Landmark. Whether using a plug-in that makes it site specific or using a stand-alone site specific application, it makes a world of difference in getting work done more efficiently and smarter (using intelligent objects)!

    #161309
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Kelly, I suspect from your comments that you may also not be an active member of ASLA, so if this is not true, please fast forward…I think your dilemma is certainly going to be more common, but what is not common is your dedication to staying involved with ASLA, when you can hardly afford it. For that, I think many within ASLA would commend you. I’m going to suggest an idea that perhaps your local chapter could consider to assist you, and it likely will take some legwork by you to see it through…I would hope that others in the chapter might see the merit in this and perhaps this can perpetuate into the future.

    I would consider approaching local (and maybe not-so-local) industry vendors with the idea of establishing sponsored scholarships for ASLA memberships and annual conference registrations. I think the qualification for recipients would require service within the chapter, or maybe as an industry liaison between their company and the chapter…somehow the professional should gain from the experience within the chapter or with the efforts of building relationships between the company and the members.

    Times like these cause many to consider non-traditional ways of being involved in the industry, and I will always attest that any industry experience is valuable to your professional development.

    Hope this helps…and that we see you in the chapter and at the annual meeting.

    #161781
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Andrew, I would love to see all accredited LA programs include a required internship or co-op. As part of my first degree (Associates in Landscape Contracting and Construction), an internship was (and still is) required and this really sets a student up for success. Having progressed to the BSLA degree which I achieved afterward, the owner felt that I was more qualified for the job in his LA firm, which followed soon after graduation. Even if there are few if any LA firms seeking intern jobs, a seasonal job in a landscape contracting company, nursery, engineering firm, or city/county parks/rec/hort. depts, etc. could really do wonders for practical field experience. This may not solve the specific site planning concern you brought up, but it would really help these soon-to-graduate students be more aware of their impact in the industry and do a much better job at site design and yes even site layout. Purdue is an example relative to LA graduates; these students who were required to take internships are snatched up by either the companies with which they interned, or others who found value in their experience.

    #162297
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Miles, Many projects I did in Ohio included iron work from Fortin Ironworks…their website has a gallery http://www.fortinironworks.com/images/fen/index.php which displays their projects, and they have a catalogue that allows you to see what they do typically…but custom work is always fun. They typically were also a good resource to talk with before proposing work, because they could help recognize how to implement projects with manufacturing “dos” and “don’ts”, so if you can find local fabricators in the area near your project, they might have the same thing..but perhaps this link could give some examples, too.

    #162635
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    I think the issue of licensure for full members (or not) is still yet to be decided. Though several States have polled their members and board for an opinion to take to their Trustees, several opinions exist on either side… but to answer your question about relevancy, I would maintain that you would be hard pressed to find another professional association that advances the work of landscape architecture more than ASLA. From national efforts, like meeting with national legislators last week, seeking support on several House and Senate bills up for consideration, which would help provide more work for landscape architects in areas of transportation, green infrastructure and complete streets, and others that promote better stewardship of our environment. Also in State efforts, where within just a few days, the Florida Chapter of ASLA rallied its members and non-member LAs to challenge a bill within their state legislature that would have removed landscape architects from the list of professionals that require licensure for practice.

    #163113
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    “Way back” in the 1990s, at the Ohio State University, we used GIS to help make the best choice from available land for our class projects…not much different than would occur in the real world, but the progression of its use really didn’t start migrating to smaller scale land planning usage until the last few years. As you see LEED and Sustainable Sites Initiative guidelines requiring more forethought about site selection, even for smaller scale commercial projects, you will see a bigger reliance on GIS data. A specific example is prime farmland. Both LEED and SITES requires that projects avoid the use of land considered prime farmland…as a matter of protecting viable soil for agriculture. What best way would you expect to get info about soils and use that in your digital planning workflows? GIS. Back in my day, we uses books of Soil Catalogs, but with the availability of GIS shapefiles from USDA/NRCS and each state’s Soil Data Mart, you can get these soil units in SHP files, and bring them into your CAD application and begin using that to help in Site Selection…this is something all firms are educated, trained and hopefully experienced to do…but getting them to use GIS data to do it is the next step. Same thing goes for vegetated areas for Biomass and so on…now that you are in this firm, Roland, you should bring up the need to use GIS in site selection…and what’s better is that once your site is selected, these imported GIS files can help to establish your base map for the following stages. I have done this within Vectorworks Landmark for a project in inner-city Washington, DC.

    #163194
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Thomas, not sure about Filemaker, but you may want to check out Include Software’s Censeo. They also have a larger version called Asset that has been around for over 2 years. They could also help you with the conversion of your files, I’d expect.

    #163967
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    The use of programs like DynaSCAPE and Vectorworks offers the user the ability to do purpose built design intended for landscapes. Vectorworks Landmark is actually like taking AutoCAD, a landscape plugin, Photoshop and SketchUp and putting it all together in one program. The objects you design with have intelligence, and hybrid representation, and has worksheet functionality…so in the end, you have BIM functions in a landscape/site design program. Jeff D mentions Civil 3D, and I highly recommend using a tool like Civil3D or Vectorworks to do 3D site design, as it really helps to study the work you are doing in both 2D and 3D. The analysis alone can help make better decisions about design. In Vectorworks Landmark, you have the ability to not only make those terrains, but the modifiers then help to more accurately study proposed vs existing slopes and cut/fill. This also can be why Design/Build firms like these programs…it makes estimating so much easier and faster…especially with revisions.

    #174411
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Hey Laith, Vectorworks has a guardrail tool and a wall tool. A tool specific to fences has been discussed for development, but not yet a current feature. Landscape features/site furniture are symbol objects and are available for use. Data can be assigned to them, and routinely, we release vendor specific libraries of these objects where data will already be assigned to use in scheduling (by worksheets). Wall finishes are handled by component driven, parametric wall objects. A wall can be unstyled but know how thick and tall it is, or you can choose a wall that knows its components (i.e. gyp board, metal framing and brick veneer). The texture seen in 3D of those walls would be specific to the component chosen, or another texture applied as an override). If you take a section cut through the wall or site and wall, you would see where the grade meets the wall and the components within the wall. Though you can use 3D modeled geometry to represent the subsurface drainage, there is at least one plug-in tool that I know of that will help manage civil oriented tasks such as subssurface utilities, among some other tools. There are some tools within Landmark that handle roads and parking layout as well. The parking tools are a couple of my favorites.

    The LinkedIn discussion is within ASLA’s Group. The person posting has not had a lot of responses yet, so I’m sure she would appreciate your input. Now that I say this, she will probably get a great deal…which is probably a good thing. There will be a great deal of BIM workflow sessions at this year’s ASLA conference in San Diego. Hope you can make it to them.

    #174413
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Laith, There is a similar discussion just now happening in LinkedIn, and I’m glad to hear you are using a tool that uses information associated with the 2D and 3D objects within your CAD workflow. In seeking a CAD application that does it all for landscape architects, I think you may be surprised to see that Vectorworks Landmark actually does the functions you are finding worthwhile in Civil 3D, like digital terrain modeling, as well as slope analysis and cut and fill calcs. It also provides other landscape specific tools such as planting, plant databasing, hardscapes like pavement and walls, GIS file management, etc. and does this all with an integrated 2D/3D environment. Its DWG import and export allows for collaboration with others using AutoCAD and Civil 3D, and with the Vectorworks Architect module added, it can import and export IFC files to collaborate with other BIM applications

    #164312
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    This would actually be really cool if those turf areas were community garden plots…oh wait this is Santa Monica….never mind.

    #164411
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Jonathan, if you’re looking for solutions that are cheaper than $1000, then BricsCAD comes to mind. My experience with using older versions of AutoCAD brings at least two challenges…lack of Autodesk support and the pain of having your collaborating design team members save back to the version in which you are working. Though on the surface this seems to not be a problem, other than always making sure they know to do this for you, if there is functionality that is newer than your version, then saving it back, may risk how that gets translated backward to a version that does not support it, and how those objects work in your earlier version. If financing is an option to make the price a little more manageable, I would recommend Vectorworks, as it imports and exports DXF/DWG and is significantly cheaper than AutoCAD…plus you get the functionality of landscape specific CAD and 3D modeling. Throw in the Renderworks module and its like adding photo enhancement software, without having to leave the same application. Best of luck.

    #165018
    Eric Gilbey
    Participant

    Chad, I think there have been other discussions regarding estimation software suggestions, but I’ll throw these your way, just in case I’m wrong. If you are looking for design/build related estimation software that utilizes assemblies for the materials you would be quantifying and turning around for a proposal to build said design, Include Software’s Censeo, and more comprehensively, Asset will certainly do this. As a matter of design software that speaks to software like this to extend the workflow from design to estimates to proposals and invoices, you may also look at Vectorworks Landmark. You can do the quantity estimates (and preliminary pricing) with their objects, such as plants, hardscapes, landscape areas, site model (for cut and fill), and other objects. Sounds like you need an application that involves worksheet capabilities that can harvest the materials you are specifying and that would certainly happen with Vectorworks Landmark.

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