Grand Park Sports Campus

This project was less about visualization and more about the engineering process. Our project role was civil engineering, for which we used Autodesk's AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 to design the drainage, grading, roadway, and all utility infrastructure, including sanitary, water, and storm sewers. Grading and drainage were the most important parts of this project, because you can't have ponding (water collecting) on a site of sports fields. There were also three regulated drains we had to reroute.

One of the main advantages of using the Civil 3D software was managing the designs of four design engineers who worked simultaneously on separate sections of the site. The site was divided into four sections where features such as high pressure gas pipelines and streams crossed the site, causing the existing and proposed grades to meet. Each design engineer worked on around 100 acres. This simultaneous design helped expedite the process to meet the tight schedule. They had to tie together the designs where each section met. This process also kept the file size of designs down and allowed us to work more efficiently in Civil 3D.

With Building Information Modeling (BIM) infrastructure, you create a surface that's shown on your profile and referenced throughout your construction plans. Once you update the surface, it automatically updates throughout the remainder of the construction plans. It's efficient and improves quality control. So, even though we had several design engineers updating designs simultaneously, the software adjusted the other surfaces automatically. We also used the proposed surface to generate earthwork quantities for use in preparing a cost estimate for the developer.

If we didn't have Civil 3D to do this job, it wouldn't have been as efficient, smart, or dynamic between the surfaces on profiles. We did it all with a team of eight people. Without Civil 3D, this same job would've required 20 people or more and would have taken a substantially longer time to complete the design (if they were using Land Development Desktop).

In addition, Autodesk worked with us directly once the design of the project began. We showed them our design process; they validated it, and gave us constructive feedback. Then we provided Autodesk developers with wish-list items to expand on the software's development. It was a win-win that enhanced our overall relationship with Autodesk.