Land Plots

[Polslad]

If anyone who is any good at this Geocom plot business wishes to supply me with land plots for Shinnecock Hills or Sleepy Hollow in New York State, I would seriously consider building a course on them?

[BrianZ111]

I can fairly easily create the plots for you. I don't have time to draw shapes on the plot in the proper locations though. Maybe I could show you how to do that part?

[Polslad]

Thanks Brian,
That's all I was asking for, I can add the shapes myself, a little tuition wouldn't go amiss.
Maybe I should learn to do this stuff myself.
Reading the blog about the top 100 courses has really got my design juices flowing.
Found another this morning, Camargo in Ohio.
Does the selected plot next to have major elevations, or does it pick up the subtle rolling terain on most courses?
Methinks I may need to go to school on this terra-forming technique.

[ADC]

Polslad,

Yeah, Shinnecock is actually fairly easy to find. As for your question about details, the answer is, most of the rolling terrain is still left up to you. The finest resolution capable is one elevation mark ever 10 meters, so the fine toothed comb is still in your hands. But the general elevation details are there. And let's face it, that's more than enough compared to our best guesstimates.

A word of warning, though, as I've discovered from Pebble Beach. The terrain data maps as far it can along a coastline, including elevations that to us would be under water. This can make pinpointing the exact location of a coast line a bit tricky, but thoroughly doable. While I know Shinnecock isn't on the coast itself, any plot containing it will probably have some bits of it. Getting it right is just a matter time, patience, and a keen eye. Google Earth or some other satellite imaging that also includes these elevations helps a lot.

I've looked at Shinnecock and National Golf Links of America several times. Letting you know, it's not the easiest plot to work with, simple because Shinnecock dwells in a rather bowl like valley. The edges are fine, but that interior is rather flat. Getting the routing right may be tricky. My advice is to lay it out, stake your shot points, and then locate one point that you know is accurate. For me, it ended up being the 9th green at Pebble. For you, it may be the 1st tee, or the large hill around the 13th. However you want to do it, the point is to find the most obvious point of reference you can verify correctly, and then orient everything else around that.

Good luck!

Alex

[BrianZ111]

Yeah there's 10 meter and even LiDAR down to 1 meter, which is amazing in WGC, but unfortunately for PGA 2000 the Terrain Assist program can only import at 20 meters I think it is, even if you use the higher resolution data. So you get an accurate height point every 20 meters or a little more then 20 yards. With that you get the general lay of the land but you'll still have to do greens, bunkers, tee boxes and smaller mounds. For shapes I would use Terrain Assist rather then guessing. More accurate and easier once you know how to do it. The hard part I guess is creating the image to line up with the plot but I can do that part too. Then you just draw your shapes in Terrain Assist and export them to the arch file. I will give you more detailed instructions on that later. You may find it's off a few yards in places, like putting your green just over the edge of a hill or something but it should be close enough that you can figure out where it should go.

[Polslad]

Wow.
Sounds like astro physics to me at the moment.
Maybe I don't want to be that advanced!

[BrianZ111]

Nah, it's only as hard as you want to make it. It's there to help you make it easier than doing everything by hand. My obsession with perfection and realism just makes it harder than it should be sometimes.

[BrianZ111]

I'll probably have time to do one over the weekend. Let me know which one you would want done first.

[Polslad]

I would think it wise to cut my teeth on a lesser know track that the No2 ranked course in the world and the site of this years US Open!
So that would mean Sleepy Hollow or even Camargo.

There's no rush at all though, I am working on my project at the moment, so it would be a while before I got around to anything anyway.

[DC#1]

I don't mean to butt in on this thread but i've been wanting to do a real course and have read the tutorial on BrianZ site and still not sure how to do it. I would like to learn to do it myself so I could do a second if wanted. Maybe Brian could explain it and kill 2 Dave's in 1 thread. LOL Any help would be appreciated. Again didn't mean to hijack your thread Pols.