A broad stretch of gently undulating land running more than 20 km across from the foothills of Gauteng's West Rand to Midrand in the east is said to be the fastest-developing area in South Africa.

Formerly agricultural holdings, much of it is now being transformed into a sprawling urban grid of residential, commercial and industrial estates. "You could say the landscape looked a lot prettier with the cattle and horses and post-and-rail fences, but that is progress for you," says Gavin Clunnie, of Klunene Consulting Engineers, which is engaged in data-capturing and mapping the spread of new territories for land-hungry private developers and home-seekers.

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.

The tool that 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. Interactive design tool modules at his command include Survey and 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 an holistic perspective, and not in isolation. "We are a source of information for civic officials, municipal engineers, environment bodies, land survey, traffic departments, town planners... Some do not have this kind of data readily available and if it helps in the development process, we supply it," concludes Clunnie.

For more information contact Knowledge Base, 011 701 1850.