Armchr Arch Cont... Judges; the moment of truth is NIGH

[Charlie Goerges]

Charlie,

Just got everything downloaded..

thanks.. you've given us more challenge than most want.. 

on the map_02 jpeg..  I can't seem to make out the scale.. is it :

|___|________|________________|
|      100 ft      300 ft                       900 ft


Also map_01 seems to be an inverse view of the topo map..  is that correct?

Are you defining any soils at the site?  You could really get folks going with a SCS type soils map.  I assume there's plenty of clay near those marshes..

Where does run off drainage go currently when it crosses site boundary, other than to marshes and their discharge points.. is regional drainge to N, S, E, or W?  Is there run-on?

To answer in order of easiest to most difficult (for me to answer):

The scale is pretty much correct as you posted it, you can find out for sure by downloading the High-res version of the map in the second post. The scale in the sketchup file however is 1 inch = 1 yard (you won't need to use the printed scale because there is a handy measurement tool in sketchup that is explained in the videos).

The property is higher than pretty much all of the surrounding area, so probably not much drainage onto the site. As to regional run-off, I have no idea.

The two images (map_01 and map_02) were only for the purpose of the contest post. You'll want to work off the files linked in the second post. That said, Map_01 is not an inverse, its actually a screenshot of the 3D terrain file derived from the topo. If you watch the tutorial videos you should get a feel for how it works.

Soils...I don't even wanna know!

That said, Welcome aboard Steve!

Best of luck.

[Steve Lang]

  Thanks Charlie,

I measure the site property's area to be about 362 acres with the assumed scale.. with Acrobat..

Routing HO!

[Charlie Goerges]

That sounds about right, I measured in sketchup and got about 366. Dive in an let me know if you have any questions/problems.

[Garland Bayley]

...
Are you defining any soils at the site?  You could really get folks going with a SCS type soils map.  I assume there's plenty of clay near those marshes..

Where does run off drainage go currently when it crosses site boundary, other than to marshes and their discharge points.. is regional drainge to N, S, E, or W?  Is there run-on?

Steve,

It's a routing contest, not a drainage contest.   

[Charlie Goerges]

I keep looking on this thread for something to judge but I can't find anything yet... 

Hey, they have until the day after Groundhog Day! No course is served before its time.

[Charlie Goerges]

Do they have to leave the range and parking where they are?  I understand the clubhouse, but what about the range and parking?

For that matter, what about the road?

Originally, they were asked to leave everything, but with the caveat that if they felt that they should move something to make it better, they could. Though the judges would get to decide whether the improvement in the course was sufficient to go against the "client" orders.

Unfortunately, I misunderadjudicamestimicated the location of the clubhouse (and probably the range, though just barely) so they shouldn't be held back due to my mistake. On the other hand, the road must enter the property approximately where it does on the map, and since the area to the side of the road and the area where the range is depicted are both flatter than everywhere else, I don't see why anyone would want to go there. And if someone were to try to use the area occupied by the range for golf hole(s) they'd be painting themselves into a corner pretty badly.

I'm hoping to see a routing in the shape of a backward "J" as an homage to Honourable Company.

[Charlie Goerges]

Actually, in looking at an aerial of The Old Course, it appears to be an homage to the Standard Jans. Put that in your architectural ancestral pipe and smoke it!

[Garland Bayley]

Kirk, Michael, Garland, Feel free to send your files to me at ccgoergesAThotmail.com (replace AT with the proper symbol) and I'll take a look at them. If I find a common thread, it may make everyone's life easier.  Sorry for the trouble you've had.

Charlie

Oh, and if you can't load up an email attachment that size, just save a copy and delete the map layer and then try again. If that doesn't work, delete the Contours and Mesh layer and send me just your hole designs.

Hi Charlie,

email says it can't deliver, because your mailbox is full.
Hope you are not completely buried with our incompetence.

[Charlie Goerges]

Hi Charlie,

email says it can't deliver, because your mailbox is full.
Hope you are not completely buried with our incompetence.

I've emptied my inbox, so hopefully that's no longer a problem. The other issue is that hotmail may not accept attachments of that size. If that's the case, delete the "Map" layer and try again. If you have a hotmail email address, I could also set up a collaboration folder on skydrive that you could upload to.

Again, sorry about the difficulties. I'll try to think of the technical issues as learning opportunities!

[Garland Bayley]

I tried sending again. hotmail apparently won't accept a file that big.
The map was not visible although I did nothing to delete it. I just tried again after going to the layers, selecting the map, and pushing the minus button. I assume it is now deleted for sure.

Earlier, I received notification quickly that it did not go through. I am guessing it went through now, because I haven't received such a notification.

All eighteen holes are layed out on the surface as far as I can tell. It is just that the ponds are at the high points and my tees and greens are in the low points!

[Steve Lang]

  Can we submit more than one entry?

[Charlie Goerges]

I got it Garland, replied via email. You're doing well, no major issues.

Steve, Just one, sorry. (But do I detect a ringleader for the next contest? )

[Garland Bayley]

I could not understand or make work the drawing tool Charlie suggested. Therefore, I went off on my own and found something I could understand and use. I turned on the drawing tool bar, by the menu selection
View->Toolbars->Drawing
This gave me the freeform drawing tool that would allow me to make lines where I wanted them.

To draw as I did do as follows:
From the new tool set select the freeform drawing tool.

Position over start point. Hold down button and draw by moving mouse. When completing the figure you are drawing make sure you cross the line you started with and release the mouse button.
This will give you a filled curve. Select the selection tool. Click on the inside shaded area of the curve and hit delete.

Position pointer over the curve drawn and click so tht it is selected. Right click and select convert to polyline.
Right click again and select done.
Click outside the figure to deselect the border and its new fill. Click on the fill again to select it and hit the delete key.

Hover over the border again and click to select it. Right click and select
Convert to uniform b-spline. A pop up box will ask you for a number. I always put in 100. Charlie may be able to explain what this is about. This usually decreases to size of the drawing you have made. If you draw a little larger than you want, then it may decrease to the size you intended. When it is smaller than the shape you want, click on one of the + marks on your old line and drag it out to increase the size of the b-spline. Repeat as necessary to return the shape to what you intended. Another thing it does is take some of the dog out of your leg Therefore, you can click and drag to reshape doglegs to what you intended.
Right click and select done. Click outside the figure to deselect it and its fill. Click on the fill and hit delete.
I notice there is a close loop nicely in the right button menu. I never used it, because I thought I had all my loops closed. However, when Charlie looked at my work,he discovered I didn't have them all closed. Perhaps this is what he used to close them for me.

Zoom in to the green area and draw its shape within the existing shape just as you drew the fairway. When drawn, select the green outline by clicking on it. Hold down the ctrl key and additionally select the fairway outline by clicking on it. Right click an select make group. You now have a hole ready for draping.

Note there may be tails of you lines at the end where you crossed over to complete loops. These can be selected and deleted to clean up your drawing. Or, send your drawing to Charlie and he is such a nice guy he will clean them up for you unasked.

Hope this helps anyone that may have been discouraged by using the tool as originally described.

[Charlie Goerges]

Thanks for the tip Garland. If it works, go with it. I do just want to mention (and I mean absolutely no disrespect Garland) that it is somewhat more convoluted that should be necessary; but that's my fault for not giving enough training/time up-front.

I know that I did not cover many of the other ways of getting your designs down on the map and I never got to the advanced tutorial (and probably never will), so I apologize for throwing you guys to the wolves without enough training.





I implore anyone who's having difficulty, but wants to participate, to let me know. Also, How is the timeframe working for everyone? Does February 3rd seem doable?


P.S. Seeing what I did of your design Garland, reminded me of why I chose sketchup for this. Holes that I would have had a difficult time visualizing on a Topo map looked fantastic in 3D (and that was without any color or shadows added).

[Steve Lang]

  Bump..

Charlie,

So we get to name the course and make our own card logo too?

This seems more an exercise in who has time to learn Sketchup7, I have used other programs to get creative work done.. now coming up the learning curve to submit something..i.e.,  have yet to save a model after playing with it..

is design outside of Sketchup going to be acceptable/competitive with folks?

I can't seem to see the topo contour elevation labels clearly.. or measure them.. they seem to be 2 or 3 digits..  what elevation is the heavy red line and the intervals?

[Charlie Goerges]

Steve, you can download the high-res version of the map in jpeg format in the second post on this thread. Sketchup won't display the image in sufficient resolution to make the actual elevation numbers readable.

I understand there's a learning curve to sketchup, and I'll do what I can to make it so everyone who wants to try the contest out to do so. If one can't get sketchup to work, let me know, we'll try to get something figured out. I may be able to help with one aspect of sketchup to get you over the hump. If there is no way to make sketchup work, feel free to print out a map and make a design, or to use a drawing program of your choice. I don't know if non-sketchup entrants will be at a disadvantage, that's up to the judges.



Also, to everyone: Does the due date of February 3rd seem doable? If not, let me know. I'd rather extend the deadline a bit than have a bunch of pissed-off GCAers put a price on my head! (I definitely don't want Agent Jeff Brauer to come after me  )

[Ian_L]

Steve, what exactly is the problem you're having with Sketchup?

I can't seem to see the topo contour elevation labels clearly.. or measure them.. they seem to be 2 or 3 digits..  what elevation is the heavy red line and the intervals?

The contours are three feet, and the red lines as I recall are 15 feet apart.


For people having trouble using the bezier tools, I'd just recomment using the freeform drawing tool included in Sketchup.  It might not look quite as smooth, but it works.


Charlie, I'd appreciate a couple more weeks as this is a busy time for me.

[Steve Lang]

  Ian,

So far I have used Acrobat for general routing, moved product to Power Point to look at hole by hole details and was trying to simply enter revised design into Sketchup.. 

the absolute values of the topo lines didn't matter until considering some detail options.. I am used to 1 or 2 foot contour topo maps, the three foot one i saw yesterday just made things a little more dramatic.

I got what I needed on the hi res jpeg map,.. which i hadn't opened. 

I went through the condensed tutorial twice, which was very helpful to get started and will go through the others Charlie provided tonight.. luckily i have two screeens and can watch on one and practice real time on the other

So far, I find the measuring tool very awkward and slow at large scales on my PC

 Its not that intuitive to this old dog, and i have to open and try everything.. I've been able to twist and folder the base map pretty well!! hey,.. i"ve normally got people for drafting..

If I have another week I will learn how to use it.   Will I use it again, can't say.  Being free from Google, I have to wonder about it's long term utility, is it just a teaser to sell a full feature version?

~2 more weeks charlie.. the ides of Feb?

 

[Charlie Goerges]

Okay, I've moved the deadline on the thread title to February 15. I'll send a PM to the judges later today sometime.

The free sketchup version is meant to sell a more full-featured version. It has been since google bought it at version 5. The pro version features compatibility with a greater variety of file types, as well as better animation options, and other plugins. But the free version is its equal in most ways. Remember that sketchup isn't CAD, nor is it a traditional solid modeller. It's kind of unique in it's category.

[John Foley]

I have been playing around w/ the topo map to try and come up w/ a routing.

Many is that tough!!!! No idea what it's going to look like on sketch-up yet.

A whole new respect for the talent of the guys who actually get to do this for a living.

[Garland Bayley]

Either I don't have the proper machine to make Sketchup work correctly, or I am stupid, or this tool is extremely buggy, and they should not expect to sell any product based on use of this free tool. Don't you just love it when they specify a bunch of computer requirements that you have no understanding of. I understand I have a PC running XP. If it doesn't run on that, it's Google's fault.

I figured I would just make a first draft routing and try to get it done up in Sketchup as I figured learning the tool would take most of my time. Boy did I underestimate. Even after sending the design to Charlie, I still do not have all my holes draped. I finally left trying to drape the last holes, and tried stamping bunkers. That's proving to be more problem prone that draping so far.

I hope the rest of you computer geniuses are having a better time than me.

[Charlie Goerges]

Garland, I draped all of your golf holes already. Did you decide to change the holes or create different holes? We'll try to get this all figured out, I promise.

[Garland Bayley]

Charlie,

They all appear to be draped, but coloring three of them doesn't work, and on further examination the drapings of those three seem to exist in never/never land. Sometimes they show up on the mesh, and sometimes they don't.

[Garland Bayley]

How do you "drag up and down"?

...

Now you need to choose the vertical offset, drag up and down until it looks right to you.


...

[Charlie Goerges]

Garland, once you've clicked on the 3D mesh surface, the computer has to process the change (if the progress bar along the bottom of the screen is visible, it is processing). Once that's done, your cursor will change to a vertical 2-sided arrow with a dot in the middle (it isn't shown in my tutorial because the screen capture software I used, substituted a standard arrow for every type of cursor). Move that cursor up or down while you're looking at the affected area and then click. Sometimes it can be difficult to get precise because of the background.

Without clicking the left mouse button, get to the best angle for making the adjustment by clicking and holding the scroll-wheel and rotate and/or pan (hold the shift key down while clicking/holding the scroll wheel to pan) down so you are viewing the tee box from the angle you'd be seeing it if you were standing on the ground near it.

Then you let go of the scroll wheel and the vertical 2-sided arrow should be showing again. Now move it up or down on screen to get the height of the box or depth of the bunker to the level you want.