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“You could say the landscape looked a lot prettier
with the cattle and horses and post-and-pole fences,
but that’s progress for you,” says Gavin Clunnie, of
Klunene Consulting Engineers, which is heavily engaged
in data-capturing and mapping the spread of new
territories for land-hungry private developers.
Essentially, the work involves producing comprehensive
maps carrying a mass of geographical, social,
demographic and physical data to aid and simplify the
infrastructural development process.
And the most important tool which Clunnie calls upon
to present this information in an intelligible and
instantly understandable form is an interactive
software package called Civil Designer. Developed by
software house Knowledge Base, Civil Designer
incorporates a suite of modules embracing the entire
sweep of the civil engineering disciplines required in
such developments.
Equipped with Civil Designer and AllyCAD, a
computer-aided draughting programme, Clunnie works
exclusively as a consultant for private developers of
residential and commercial complexes in the region
stretching from Roodepoort in the west to Midrand in
the east. Individual developments range from a few
hectares to almost 100.
“Civil Designer is widely regarded as leader in
integrated infrastructure design in South Africa,” he
says. “It deserves the reputation, because no software
I know gives so many benefits when working in a visual
design environment.”
Interactive design tool modules at his command include
Survey + Terrain, for earthworks design; |
Roads, for and calculations for urban and rural roads
and freeways embankment design and calculations; as
well other interactive design modules for water,
storm-water and sewerage.
“With these instruments I am able to provide a
complete township planning service,” says Clunnie.
”The big challenge is always to be able to create an
accurate set of topographical data from a variety of
different sources. No problem: the software enables me
to import this information from whatever source, and
overlay it on the basic geographical image. I can
present the entire picture – or a permutation of
images highlighting specified features and data.”
This information could concern roads, drainage, lands
and survey data, town planning data, traffic patterns,
population, aerial maps – “any information which may
be relevant to the particular piece of land we are
developing,” Clunnie says. “Being able to superimpose
all of this information onto one image means that the
developers – and, indeed, anyone else involved – can
look at the entire project from a holistic
perspective, and not in isolation.”
“Anyone else involved” can mean a lot people.
“We are a source of information for civic officials,
municipal engineers, environment bodies, land survey,
traffic departments, town planners…Some don’t have
this kind of data readily available and if it helps in
the development process, we supply it.”
It wasn’t always so easy.
“Once upon a time we did it by hand, using tracing
paper. What used to take weeks, Civil Designer now
does it in hours or minutes.” |
