Daniel Van Dyk

Interactive 3D model presentationsWeb builderCapital Region, Upstate NY and Vermont

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Project

Van Dyk Farm

South parcel land development · Washington County, NY

A 97-acre family farm on Black Creek, planned entirely from data before a shovel goes in the ground: the land shaped from lidar, the parcel checked against county records, wetlands, floodplain and steep ground mapped out, and every cabin, road, trail and a 58 ft utility-pole bridge placed on it in one interactive 3D model.

Open interactive model
The whole Van Dyk Farm south parcel in 3D: the property line in magenta, Black Creek in cyan, the pond, cabins, roads and trails on the hillside

How the data was collected

No survey crew and no guesswork. The model is built from public map data, a drone scan and photos, each layer checked against the others.

Colour slope map draped over the parcel: green for gentle ground, yellow and red for steeper slopes

01 · The ground

Lidar, down to the bare earth

The terrain comes from bare-earth lidar on a 1-metre grid, which sees through the trees to the ground underneath. That gives true elevations for every road grade, cabin pad and creek bank.

  • About 1.2 million ground points across the south parcel and its surroundings
  • 10 ft topo lines, with the water line traced around the creek and ponds
  • A colour slope map that shows at a glance where building is easy and where it isn't
  • A 2022 aerial photo draped over the terrain, so every tree line and field edge sits where it really is
Acreage layers over the parcel: wetland, floodplain, wetland buffer and steep ground in blue, yellow and orange

02 · The paperwork

Parcel lines, wetlands and floodplain

The property line was matched against Washington County's tax-parcel GIS: three parcels totalling 97.16 acres, lined up to within a centimetre. Then the public screening maps were laid over it to find the ground that can actually be used.

Parcel (county tax map)97.2 ac
Federal wetland (NWI)12.5 ac
DEC wetland (informational)19.3 ac
FEMA flood zone A1.6 ac
100-ft wetland buffer20.1 ac

Layers overlap, so they don't add up to the parcel. These are screening maps, not a wetland delineation or a survey.

The road along the farm in 3D with neighbouring houses and barns modelled from street-level photos

03 · The surroundings

Drone scan, street photos and the road

The context around the farm helps anyone viewing the model get their bearings straight away.

  • A drone scan of the farm buildings to set their true size and height
  • Neighbouring houses and barns rebuilt from street-level photos, so the road looks the way it does when you drive it
  • The road, creek and fences traced from the lidar and the aerial photo
  • Hay bales, sheds and fences placed where the photo shows them

How the plan came together

With the ground and the limits mapped, every piece of the plan was placed on the real terrain and checked against it.

The bridge site where the farm road meets Black Creek, next to the pond, with the creek and pond filled in

04 · The crossing

A 58 ft utility-pole bridge over Black Creek

The hill side of the farm sits across Black Creek, so everything starts with the crossing. The bridge was placed where the creek is narrowest, a short way upstream of where the farm road reaches it.

  • A simple single span of utility poles bearing on gravel and stone pads on each bank
  • Placed on a lidar cross-section of the creek, with the water level and banks to scale
  • A step-by-step build animation in the model, from pad excavation to deck
  • Permit questions for work near the creek were researched before any design was settled
The hillside with the summit road switchbacks, the hill trail, cabin sites and trail signs

05 · Roads, trails and cabins

Laid out on the real slopes

Roads and trails follow the contours, with grades measured along their length. Cabins sit on posts so they stay level on sloped ground.

  • A main road, lanes to each cabin, and a switchback road up to a summit lookout
  • Every trail signed with its length and steepest grade, and the steepest stretch flagged as a danger zone
  • Cabins taken from the Shed Builder: large side-porch camps on the featured sites and long-shed camps on the rest
  • Porches turned for the best sun, and a generator with a hookup behind every cabin and bathhouse
  • Bathhouses, a well and septic placed to serve the cabin clusters
The farm under a full moon, with porch lights glowing at the cabins and the creek and pond in the moonlight

06 · Light

Day, full moon and dark night

The model places the sun by date and time for this exact spot, so you can see how the morning light reaches the porches and how far the hill shades the valley in winter.

  • Pick a date and drag through the day, or press play
  • Full-moon and dark-night modes, with the cabin porch lights on
  • Real shadows from the buildings and the hill

How the 3D model helps

One model the owner, a buyer and an engineer can all look at and agree on.

Know the usable land

Net usable acreage is worked out from wetland, flood and slope maps before anyone pays for engineering.

See the hill as it is

Lidar shows the true grades, so roads and cabin sites are placed where they can actually be built.

Walk the plan

Jump between cabins, the bridge and the summit, double-tap anything to see what it is, and follow the trail signs.

Start the permit conversation

Wetlands, buffers and the creek crossing are all on the map, so the questions for the state are clear from the start.

Ready for the next step

A screening-level plan that a licensed surveyor and engineer can take forward, not a sketch on a napkin.

Explore the model

Drag to orbit, pinch or scroll to zoom, step through the views, switch on the slope map and acreage layers, and play the bridge build.

Open interactive model