AutoCAD Land Development Desktop software has features and functionality optimised especially for the land development environment. The functionality of the specialist design software includes powerful and intuitive tools for mapping, planning, editing, and visualising, as well as the capability to create and label survey points, define and edit parcels and roadway plan alignments, create terrain models and calculate volumes and contours.

"Typically, the most important deliverables in a land development project are the drawings and project data," says Errol Ashwell, Managing Director of Autodesk Africa. "Whether it is for selecting a site, proposing roadway routes, or for filing for permits, AutoCAD Land Development Desktop software helps produce the drawings required. That is because all critical data - points, terrain models, alignments and parcels - is stored in a central location where users can exploit it to create drawings and share it with others during collaborative projects."

All project team members need to share data. It helps reduce cycle time and errors and enables the entire project team to work from the same data. More importantly, however, it communicates the impact of every change to all members of the project team. For example: land planners and mappers need a way to deal with old maps and town and city planners whose deeds and drawings are largely paper-based or without current digital model equivalents. Joining these users are surveyors, who have on-the-ground data from conventional surveys or GPS and must augment the planner's data. Surveyors also need to analyse boundaries to create a base map and then pass along sufficient data in the form of terrain models, point files and other data to a design engineer so that a project can move forward without time delays.

Often data needs to be accessed and shared simultaneously without compromising data integrity and control. AutoCAD Land Development Desktop software overcomes data incompatibility, avoiding bottlenecks that cause cost overruns and reduce the overall profitability of a project.

Local infrastructure design specialists, PHP Engineering Design, recently saved 30% design time with the application of Autodesk Land Development Desktop during a project in which it was commissioned to design a slope stability solution to prevent the slipping of embankments of a chlorine slimes dam near Tembisa.

"Without the implementation of AutoCAD Land Development Desktop by Autodesk reseller, CMS, I would not have been able to produce the quality, quantity and exacting design that I did within the time frame that I was given," says Steve Pearse of PHP Engineering Design.

While providing an environment and streamlined interface designed specifically for land development solutions, AutoCAD Land Development is also a platform for two add-ons - Autodesk Civil Design software for earthworks, road design and automated drawing production, and Autodesk Survey, the most efficient way to share field-captured data.

Autodesk

(011) 318 2900

geo-south-africa@autodesk.com

www.autodesk.com