topographical maps for initial routing

[Chris Parker]

I'm not a golf course architect, but I have a keen interest in maps and GCA, which is obviously why I'm a member of this discussion group.  I have a few map-related questions that I was hoping some of the architects out there could help me answer:  What type of topo maps are most helpful when doing a routing?  Are there any standard gov't agency maps that are suitable?  What's the best contour interval to work with?  What the most readily obtainable ci?  I'm from Ontario, Canada, and the best topo series I know of is the OBM (Ontario Base Map), which has a ci of 5 metres (or roughly 15 feet).  Do any Canadian architects know of a better topo map to work with?

[Ian Andrew]

We get Engineering outfits (like Marshal Macklin Monahan) to do the work. Ontario Base Mapping is useless for our work, only some Conservation Mapping is useable (floodplane mapping usually). MMM use aerial photos, combined with ground control surveying to generate a half metre contour plan of the site. That's 18" for the Imperialist Americans

I have this for Kawartha if your curious. You will see that intimate details like green contours do not show up well on this mapping, but the entire flow of the land certainly does.

[Joe Hancock]

.....combined with ground control surveying to generate a half metre contour plan of the site. That's 18" for the Imperialist Americans

Approximately......

Canada...where close is good enough!

Joe

[Jeff_Brauer]

We American gca types usually ask for 2 foot contour intervals, and when using paper, work at 1"= 100 or 200 feet.  I have used USGS maps for real prelim work, which have 10 foot contour interval.  Not bad, if you are doing fun excersises.  Certainly, you would have to imagine intricate contours, but you would get the general idea of how a course might fit on the property.

[Tyler Kearns]

In order to get a good feel for the site, having an engineering outfit, like Ian described, derive a 0.5 or 1.0 interval contour map is ideal. It allows you to locate green and tee sites with a fair amount of confidence, as well as finding interesting topography to play golf over. It's very handy when you have an excellent site full of interesting terrain. Further, it takes a lot of guess work out of the equation, and saves much planning time and effort in between site visits.

TK

[Jeremy_Glenn.]

Hey Ian,

How much would an engineering outfit charge to do a topo survey for a property, and how long would it take?

We constantly struggle to get accurate topo information.  Government maps at 5 metre interval (if we're lucky), might be okay for very initial conceptual plans, when the client is really just trying to get his project off the ground, using our concept plans for promotion, etc...  But for construction plans, it's a joke.  It's one of the most frustrating part of our job, the "penny-wise, pound-foolish" mentality of not wanting to invest in the best topo map one can create.  As Ian said, half-metre (or even 1 metre) gives us an amazing confidence to work our design on, and also importantly gives the contractor confidence when it comes to making his bid.  In other words, an accurate topo map will pay for itself many times over.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeremy:

A good topographic map with 2-foot contours for a property the size of a golf course will generally cost between $10,000 and $25,000.

[Gary_Mahanay]

What drives the price up?  Amount of acres to be mapped?  Heavy timber?  Elevation change?  Contour intervals?

Gary

[Scott Witter]

Tom:

I'm not sure who, or by what process you are using to generate your topo maps, but I'll say this, I would like to be your surveyor/photogrammetrist.  Then again, perhaps your properties are larger than most, but you did say "for a property the size of a golf course"

Historically for us and over the past 7 years, our clients have never paid more than $8000 for a complete planimetric and digitally mapped topo for their golf properties.  The smallest property was 167 acres and the largest, a current project is 425 acres.  This entails the cost for aerial photos, ground control by the surveyor and digital mapping by the photogrammetrist and the contour interval has always been 1 foot, better than that rough and rumble, best guess, pretty picture stuff from Canada!

Gary:

Certainly the amount of acreage has an influence on the mapping cost, this would be logical and it also has an impact on the aerial photo costs.  Depending on the property size, the planes need to use more than one single flight line.  If they do, the relationship between the accuracy scale and the overlapping of their photos will, cause the price to jump a bit.  For a single flight line the cost is usually around $1600 and for two flight lines the cost is about $2400.  Also, if the property is large, the photogrammetrist will require more ground control points in order to map accurately and therefore, this will drive up the cost of the surveyor to set more control points in the field.  Control points generally run around about $150-$200/point.

Heavy timber has no 'real' affect on the costs of the mapping, though if it is thick heavy timber say with a lot of conifers the photos will not "see" down through the tree canopy and the photogrammetrist will not be able to see in order to map the contours in this area accurately.  This then brings up the absolute need for the aerial photos to be taken, at least here in the northeast and east, either in the early spring or the late fall when the leaves have dropped and before the snow falls or after it has melted.  The cameras in the planes must be able to 'see' through the tree canopies, and the snow must be melted in order to map actual ground surface.

Elevation changes again has no real affect on costs, but if there is much steep elevation change all over the site, some photo mappers will whine because they have a hard time seeing all the contour to map and it wil take them longer.

[Tyler Kearns]

Jeremy,

We've found the cost of contour mapping is more in line with the amount Scott mentioned, although in Cdn dollars, and that is for an exceptionally large site.

TK

[Forrest Richardson]

Although 2-ft. contour intervals works for new course sites, I prefer 1-ft intervals because it is so much more useful.

I, too, have used government issued topo for preliminary plans. But it is often so unreliable that it can get you in trouble. At a site in Arizona we now have final surveyed topo and it is very different from the USGS topo that was probably mapped in the 1970s.

For renovation/remodel work we specify topographic surveys at 1-ft. intervals and ask for certain site data to be included; trees, paths, irrigation, buildings, pond depths, etc.

[Jeff_Mingay]

How about routing a course without a topo map... by simply scouting the property? Who's used this method?

I participated in such an exercise last week...

[Forrest Richardson]

I have done it.

It is as casual as getting lost in Rome. Fun? Sure. But if I were responsible for a travel guide to enjoying Rome, I would certainly take a map in order to get the details accurate and complete.

[Ian Andrew]

Between $ 5,000 and 6,000 on average provides contours, trees, boundary, etc.


Jeff,

I'm not sure of the point of your post.

Are you saying this is not nessasary to build a golf course? Are you saying that we should be able to estimate everything in the field ? Are you saying contour plans for basic routings don't lead to good golf courses ? Are you saying the greats from the Golden Age didn't use contour mapping and that is was all field fit ?

Why do you think a routing found in the field can not be found on the topography first? All architects will usually walk the property first look for holes or green sites and note them on the topography. Why do you look down at this form of routing ? Would you do a field routing on tight property with only 150-175 arcres ? What about a site with adjacent housing and enviornmental constraints ?

[Scott Witter]

Ian:

You aren't serious with your reply to Jeff are you?

Okay I didn't think so...I believe Jeff was being sarcastic and in a subtle way, nice Jeff!

Besides that Ian, aren't you one of those old masters not unlike some of the modern guys who say they can do it from the field?  Come on now, where is your spirit of adventure man!

[Chris Parker]

Jeff,

Obviously you want to walk the course to do the final routing, but I was thinking more along the lines of what kind of map would be useful to do some background research before an initial visit to the property, without having to go in "blind".
 
...or, in my case, if you just want to route an imaginary course on property you have no title to... without trespassing!  

Ian,

$6000?  I guess I'll stick to the OBMs...

What about air photos?  How useful are they?

[Forrest Richardson]

For your purposes, Chris, a government topo will do fine. We often use these — as Sr. Brauer has indicated also — for site selection and before anyone is too motivated to get full blown survey work underway. Check out...

usgs.gov

Or, terraserver.com where you can often download topo data for specific sites.

[Forrest Richardson]

By the way, Chris. There is a red leaf rotating on your posts. You may want to get rid of it before more fall.

[Tom_Doak]

Whoops!  I guess you guys haven't worked on any 5000-acre sites lately.  For us it seems to be pretty standard nowadays.

I knew I was aiming a bit high with those numbers; I've become accustomed to estimating numbers high instead of low in all my dealings, so no one is disappointed later at the final cost of things.  My bad!

[RJ_Daley]

I guess you guys haven't worked on any 5000-acre sites lately.  For us it seems to be pretty standard nowadays.

Sorry for my obtuse, but that is B.S tongue in cheek, isn't it?

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:  Cape Kidnappers was 5000 acres.  Rock Creek is 80,000 acres altogether, which brings our "average" up considerably.

Our others are smaller:

Ballyneal 1000 acres
Stone Eagle 640 acres
Sebonack 350 acres

One new project I haven't announced yet is about 2000 acres.

[Mike Nuzzo]

I recently had a large Doaklike   property flown.

Here was the breakdown:
Control survey - includes making big X's and centimeter GPS - $5,000
Flying and aerial photography - $2,200
Photo lab and scanning - $1,000
Aerotriangulation - $2,000
Stereo compilation - $3,500
CAD $1,000
Digital Orthophotography - $1,200
Misc - $1,000

The site was very large, I had it all flown, and processed 1' foot contours in an area where the course will most likely reside.  If I need more data, it will be added, without flying again for a few bucks an acre.

I did some preliminary routings using available USGS topo and aerial photography and walking some of the property - then worked with the routes on the property to confirm or alter some ideas.  

If you have an existing course - you can map with a sub-meter system and get 2 meter elevation data- unless you post process for better accuracy.

Cheers

[Tyler Kearns]

How about routing a course without a topo map... by simply scouting the property? Who's used this method?

Jeff,

Walking a site repeatedly is priceless, and doing so with an accurate topo map helps the process further. On larger properties, you can literally get lost on site, and a quick referral to the topo map enables you to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. We are currently routing a course over an 800 acre property, with lots of topography, and the topo map has helped me immensely in grasping the scale of such a large tract of land.

The topo map helps the initial planning, and confirms proper golf feature locations, while the details can be ironed out on site.

TK

[Gary_Mahanay]

Going along the lines of what Jeff Mingay was asking, on a small site of say 150 to 200 acres with no heavy timber, couldn't you walk the property with a laser range finder and find your turning points and your green sites with a little trial and error?  Was Bill Coore working off a topo of 1 foot interval when walking the site for routing Sand Hills?

Gary

[Tom_Doak]

They had a five-foot contour map of the property at Sand Hills, but Bill and Ben said they never used it because it was too hard to make sense of, so they did everything by walking the site.  

That's feasible when you don't have any vegetation blocking your sightlines and you don't have any property lines to worry about ... I'm not sure it's as efficient as going back and forth with the maps, but it can obviously produce decent results!

Jeff:  I would always rather have the topo map.  If I was developing the site myself, I'd pay for it, because it would make my life easier.  And if you have a client who really has trouble springing for the topo map, well, I hope you have a nice trust fund to live on.