Green thumb up: 3D BIM CAD models of Grasscalm artificial turf edging available on BIMcatalogs.net

Augsburg, Germany 26th September 2017. Landscape gardeners and passionate hobby gardeners know the problem all too well: After mowing the lawn, the edges of the flower beds and the lawn itself usually have to be carefully trimmed by hand. In this case, artificial turf edging can help. The so-called mowing edge borders are made of artificial grass and are used for lawn edges as well as areas difficult to mow. Trimming around the lawn edges is a thing of the past. In order that landscape architects and planners can include the innovative Grasscalm solutions in their plans right away, they can download the 3D BIM CAD models of their products directly from the 3D CAD download portal BIMcatalogs.net by CADENAS and integrate into their plans.

Both CEOs of the Formenbau Güntner company hit upon the product idea through hobby golfing, which led to the founding of Grasscalm. The greenkeeper spoke to Heribert Güntner at the golf course about how quickly the grass grows in over the sprinkler systems and that cutting the sprinklers free involved a lot of time and work. "Our family company Formenbau Güntner has been around for 24 years now and specialises in injection-moulded parts. With the new Grasscalm company, we were able to fall back on our existing know-how and previous experience and have developed the prototype of our artificial turf edging within one year," reports Andreas Güntner, CEO of Grasscalm GmbH. In 2015, then, the product was ready for series production.

Artificial turf edging consists of an artificial lawn mat sprayed with hot plastic. The grating enables the product to grow in together with the real lawn and is thus firmly anchored in the ground. The applications of artificial turf edging include commercial and public areas such as traffic islands, playgrounds, football fields and golf courses, as well as in private gardens along waysides or plant and flower beds and sprinkler nozzles or garden lighting.

The landscape architect Manfred Schachenmayr, of the Brugger Landschaftsarchitekten, also knows the advantages of using artificial grass in landscaping: "I use artificial grass products in my planning more and more. It has proved to look nearly identical to normal grass. Easy-care artificial turf products can be used very well for outdoor facilities such as schools or playgrounds. Those are places where normal grass lawns would no longer make any sense. For golf and sports facilities, I have mainly put artificial turf to use in the tee-off areas as well as for the sprinkler systems." Manfred Schachenmayr specialises in planning the outdoor facillities of hotels as well as playgrounds and golf courses, designing under the motto "living like on holiday". "My facilities should give people the feeling of beauty and aesthetics," confirms Manfred Schachenmayr. Currently, the landscape architect is working on the designing of an 18-hole golf course on the island of Rügen:

The increasing use of artificial grass products in landscape planning also means that the planners and landscape architects increasingly require digital product data in the form of BIM CAD models for their planning and request such data from the manufacturers.

To enable landscape architects and planners to easily include artificial turf products of Grasscalm in their planning and design projects, the manufacturer has recently started offering 3D CAD models of their products on the download portal BIMcatalogs.net, based on the proven PARTcommunity and eCATALOGsolutions technology by CADENAS. The digital product data of Grasscalm can be downloaded in more than 100 BIM CAD formats and directly integrated into common programs of the architect and construction branch such as Revit, ARCHICAD, Nemetschek Allplan, etc. Moreover, lots of additional information about Grasscalm products is available for customers and interested parties.

"If they are in need of a Grasscalm product, planners can now look directly on the Internet and do their own configuring. Afterwards, they can easily download the CAD model as well as further information and thus obtain the exact product they desire. This reduces the risk of potential errors and saves the landscape architect as well as Grasscalm a lot of time," says Andreas Güntner of Grasscalm GmbH. "Thanks to the download portal, our aim is to be involved with our products directly in the planning process."

Manfred Schachenmayr is sure that the creation of detailed plans will be much easier when landscape architects and planners have access to a pool of products and building materials with 3D CAD models, such as from Grasscalm. "At this time, we are in a transitional period in the field of landscape architecture, from 2D to 3D planning," says Manfred Schachenmayr.

The Grasscalm company took up the trend of 3D BIM product data in landscaping early on, with its 3D BIM CAD download portal, excellently positioned for the future.

The 3D CAD download portal BIMcatalogs.net of Grasscalm can be found at:
www.grasscalm.partcommunity.com

More about the BIMcatalogs.net portal by CADENAS can be found here:
www.bimcatalogs.partcommunity.com

Further information about Grasscalm can be found at:
www.grasscalm.com

More information can be found in the Grasscalm Case Study.