Bird's Eye View

September 28, 2011 9:42 AM

Best way to create a overview of my property?

I want to create a digital overview of my property that is relatively accurate for use in plotting landscaping, watering systems, etc. I have the following items to use as a starting point.

Assessors diagram of the plot and the Assessors outline of the house that includes dimensions.

I was going to do the following, but thought I check in here first in case there is something I am missing.

Create a new Photoshop document with grid lines that would correspond to one foot increments (maybe 5 foot would be better)

Bring in the two existing diagrams as layers (which only exist as low res images files) and trace the contours respectively after aligning them to the proper dimensions.

The final product does not have to be dead accurate, I just want a decent guide that I can duplicate and play with for landscaping ideas and to keep track of the utilities and watering systems I keep discovering in my new home.

Thoughts?

posted by silsurf to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

I used Sketchup with a copy of my localisation plan which I imported and used as a reference. It is so easy! Once I had the scaled model I used it to produce two maps for permit requests for my city (a new balcony and a garage) and both times it was accepted. Two things you need to know is how to draw 2D designs and how to import an image. Once you do that you can take an existing mesure on the localisation plan and use that to scale your drawing.
posted by ddaavviidd at 10:02 AM on September 28, 2011

Does your state/county have their GIS data available on line ?
posted by k5.user at 10:04 AM on September 28, 2011

I should have added, check with your county extension. Ours has a soil sample service, where for some $20 or so, they come out and sample your soil to tell you if it needs lime/fertilizer etc.
As a nice bonus, you get a well-drafted, to-scale plot of your yard. (So you know how many sq ft, and can thus apply fertilizer at the correct lbs-per-1000ft*ft)
posted by k5.user at 10:54 AM on September 28, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks for the insights, I had a feeling Sketchup was the way to go.

I played with it for a few minutes and I could use a little specific guidance on scaling my existing floor plan into actual feet and inches.

I found this tutorial:



I believe it is what I would do, but here is the question. Do I trace out my existing house as a new layer, with each wall a unique entity and then use this guide to create a scaling entity?

AM I completely off base here?

Thanks again.

Henry
posted by silsurf at 5:38 AM on October 3, 2011