Chife Foundation Design Team Collecting Site Data
With the range of new online and digital tools available for mapping, the Anam City design team has developed a cutting-edge approach to converting site data into a workable design format such as Autocad or Google Sketchup. Engineering surveys can be costly and time consuming, so for a non-profit community-based project, purchasing a third-party survey was not immediately feasible. Integrating free online software (Google) with our tried and true standbys (Autocad) this low cost and fairly quick process took about 2 weeks to collect and synthesize for our 200-hectare site. With a handheld GPS any community could execute their own mapping project for local development projects and planning initiatives. With the constellation of GPS data from our site visit, we were able to convert the data for use in Autocad and later in Google Earth, Maps and Sketchup for mapping and 3-D modeling.
We are using the data to generate an existing conditions survey which will be the base for our urban design drawings. In this way, we are able to create an accurate site adaptive plan efficiently. The GPS data also includes elevations, so as needed you can extrapolate topographic information as well. As the city develops, individual buildings and infrastructure can be created in Google Sketchup and submitted to the Google Earth online database.
Check out the ANAM CITY GPS data in a shared Google Map below:
ANAM CITY Blog 