# software to design a bike park



## El Presidente (Aug 5, 2007)

Can anyone recommend a software program to use to put together a plan for a bike park?


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## kevin marley (Aug 29, 2005)

I use xara xtreme on Ubuntu linux. Also you can use inkscape for a free windows program.


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## dburatti (Feb 14, 2004)

Try Google SketchUp.

D


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## redriderbb (Aug 30, 2005)

I have found sketch up good for creating wooden features, but doesn't work as well for soil-based, organic shapes and forms. 

I think your best bet, honestly, is to work with someone who owns CAD. It seems to do a good job creating overlays for site maps and such. See if your club maybe has an engineer in it or a landscape architect. You can draw things out to scale on graph paper and then pass it on to them.

CAD is the only thing I have found that works well.


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## Spindelatron (Aug 15, 2006)

Use gmap pedometer image of a contour map of the area, stick that image into a word document, then import to autocadLT as an OLE and then scale it. If you can use autocad for a long time then draw up your plans on there. 

If you don't own autocadLT find someone that does and have them print out the image to scale on a 24x36 page, make a couple copies, and go to town with a pencil, french curve, straight edge and an arch. scale. 

You will probably want to do some detailed elevations of TTF, that may/maynot be harder.

good luck!


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## General Hickey (Jan 6, 2008)

Linerider


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## catalicnate0 (Dec 3, 2007)

General Hickey said:


> Linerider


El Oh El


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## Megashnauzer (Nov 2, 2005)

how big is your area? i used AutoCAD and the software that came with my GPS but i'm dealing with several hundred acres. if it's small, why not pencil and paper?


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## El Presidente (Aug 5, 2007)

Thanks for all the feedback!

I am on a Mac and xara xtreme is not available to Mac users yet. The site says they are working on a Mac version. I downloaded Inkscape but have not messed around with it yet. I did check out sketchup and like the fact that you can use it with google earth. The few proposals I have done so far I have used google earth. Like redrider mentioned it seems like it will be good for drawing up TTF's and maybe a pump track but as far as drawing in trails.. I don't think it will work well or maybe I just have to play with it more?

I had thought about doing the plans by hand but since they are for proposals I want them to look professional. 

One guy told me he uses a landscape program and illustrator. He did not mention which landcape program he uses?

Any one using illustrator? I hear it is not an easy program to learn.


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## kevin marley (Aug 29, 2005)

Illustrator, Xara, Inkscape are all vector drawing programs. Illustrator is the expensive version of the three.

I would say that all three are around the same difficulty to use. I basically used Xara like a CAD system. I laid out a grid with my paper the size of my park dimensions, then I drew all my jumps, berms etc. to scale, then copied them and placed everything where I wanted.

For drawing trails I've used a gps and overlayed the recorded GPS track onto a satellite or topo image. I used to have a program that mapped gps coordinates to satellite images download from somewhere other than google, but I fogot the name.

I'm not a great artist, so I'm sure others can do better, but here's my park map:


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## El Presidente (Aug 5, 2007)

kevin marley said:


> Illustrator, Xara, Inkscape are all vector drawing programs. Illustrator is the expensive version of the three.
> 
> I would say that all three are around the same difficulty to use. I basically used Xara like a CAD system. I laid out a grid with my paper the size of my park dimensions, then I drew all my jumps, berms etc. to scale, then copied them and placed everything where I wanted.
> 
> ...


Looks good!

Thanks for the info! I am giving Inkscape a try! I like that it is free! Can't go wrong with that!


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## SunDog (Feb 21, 2004)

*Topofusion?*



kevin marley said:


> I used to have a program that mapped gps coordinates to satellite images download from somewhere other than google, but I fogot the name.[/IMG]


BTW: nice work.


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