The first week of March 2009 has proven to be rather eventful. On Sunday/Monday Richmond, VA saw it’s first real snow since 2005. Geeks got to celebrate square root day for the first time since 2/2/04 on Tuesday (3/3/09). As if each of those weren’t noteworthy in their own right, Autodesk posted two new Civil 3D customer success stories on their website. Among the customers featured was a stream restoration project completed by my firms Environmental “Stream Team”.
Last fall our Environmental group was just getting started on a new stream restoration project for Magnolia Green in Chesterfield, VA. Magnolia Green is a pretty substantial mixed-use development zoned for nearly 5,000 residential units. Heading into the project, our “Stream Team” knew they had some difficult design challenges ahead of them. Knowing this we first started discussing the pros and cons of using Civil 3D vs. Land Desktop. In the end the team decided Civil 3D was the tool for them, and our first Civil 3D stream restoration project was underway.
Knowing Dana Probert had some experience in this area, we asked if she would be willing to host a lunch and learn session for our team. To our delight she accepted, and provided us the insight we needed to get the project started on the right foot. From there the design team took the concepts Dana shared with us, and created one of the most impressive corridors I have ever seen!
As expected, there were some growing pains transitioning from Land Desktop to Civil 3D, but in the end the effort paid off. One of our senior designers is quoted in the success story:
Senior environmental designer Ken Hoen tackled the initial Civil 3D implementation. Although he had to invest time up front to learn the new software, it was worth the effort. “Streams represent a complex geometry that is extremely difficult to represent by hand or with 2D tools,” says Hoen. “Civil 3D freed us up to run with our ideas and make the streams appear exactly as we wanted.”
I won’t lie, Ken Hoen is an incredible designer and one of my firms power users. His technical aptitude proved itself to be an extreme asset to the project, but equally valuable was the support from our Environmental Services Manager, Chris Dodson. His foresight about the potential of Civil 3D is really the whole reason we even considered Civil 3D for this project. In the end I’d say it was the right decision, as Chris was is quoted in the story:
With Civil 3D, we work faster and produce a better design than our competition. That translates into happy clients and a distinct advantage to us in a very competitive marketplace.
Read the complete success story on the Autodesk website
About Timmons Group
Timmons Group is an ENR 500 multi-disciplined professional services firm and a leading provider of civil engineering, environmental services, GIS and Geospatial technology services, geotechnical engineering, construction management, landscape architecture and land surveying. The firm’s subject-matter experts deliver a wide-range of specialties including site development, transportation engineering and highway design, water and wastewater facilities design, land and community planning, traditional neighborhood design, stormwater management, LEED® and sustainable design and urban planning to both public and private clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The firm employs more than 350 people and has corporate headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, and regional offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Charlottesville, Virginia; Prince George, Virginia; Ashburn, Virginia; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
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