Jump to content
  • 0

Plant placement on slopes - tool modification


Dave Mansergh

Question

It would be very useful if landmark plant placement tool allowed the user to either define the slope of the ground being planting on and compensated by increasing plant numbers appropriately; or at least allow both X,Y spacing to be defined so this can be done manually.

An issue arises where using the planting tool to place plants on a plan view of steep slopes can lead to significant errors in plant number caluculation. This is because a significant difference may exist between the plan view area depicted and actual surface area it represents.

There appears to be no way to compensate for this within the programme and I find myself relying on manually calculating compensatory plant spacing to give the right answer.

To give an idea of the problem, a 100 sq. m, slope (measured in plan view) representing 45 degree slope has an "actual" surface area of approx. 141 sq m. This would mean that 41% more plants (at 1m spacing)are required to be shown in the plant schedule to fill this space.

The maths is relativly simple. Using trigonometry, the hypotenuse side of a right angle triangle (c.f. the actual surface lenght/area of the land) is longer than its adjacent side (i.e. plan view of the same). The greater the slope, the the greater the difference between these two lenghts (until 90 degrees is reached and the triangle is no more.

Cos(angle)=adjacent/hypotenues.

Link to comment

1 answer to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

This is a very typical & common problem facing all project designers especially those living in mountainous terrain. One owner kept insisting on redesigning his mansion to fit the plan area within the survey. The only problem was the site is on a very steep slope... the fellow simply refused to acknowledge the rule of the cosine.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...