OpenCADIrrigation Open the app

Design workflow

The workflow follows established irrigation design practice (inventory and terrain, layout, zones, management, mainline, materials and plotting), adapted to a browser app.

  1. Project details (File → Project details…): name, client, site, designer and notes, which go to the sheet title block and the reports; File → Title block and technical lead… adds the technical lead, the records and the logo of a professional title block (Title block and technical documents). Units (metric or US) in Tools → Units.
  2. Background information: import the base (DXF, DWG, DGN, a PDF plan, KML/KMZ, SHP, GeoJSON, GPX, survey CSV, GeoTIFF, satellite image), draw boundaries, buildings and roads, or walk them with the device GPS (Draw → GPS in the field). Images and plans out of scale are fitted with Align by 2 points (AL). Georeference the project (File → Georeference…) when you want base maps, online elevation and climate or KML/GeoJSON/GPX export. Design → Automatic design → Detect vegetation in the image… turns the lawns and tree crowns of an aerial view into irrigated areas, and Draw → Trace on the image (WAND) outlines a field, lawn or pond from a click inside it on the satellite image. Survey points come in through a wizard (columns, decimal mark, coordinate system, a preview on the world map), and File → Insert project… merges another project in its place.
  3. Terrain: draw contour lines (CT), breaklines (BRK) and spot heights (SP), import a survey, a LAS point cloud, a LandXML surface or an elevation GeoTIFF, or download the elevation from the internet for a coordinate. Generate contours from the model and check them in 3D or on the slope map.
  4. Hydraulic layout: water supply (WS), pump (PU), mainline (MP), zone valves (V) and, downstream of each valve, zone pipes (ZP), laterals (SL), tapes (DT), emitters (OUT), devices (F). The lateral block (B) and sprinkler grid (AH) generators and the automatic design tools (Design → Automatic design) do the repetitive work: heads laid out, zoned and piped, fields cut into blocks, drip rings, turf templates, pivots fitted to a field. Irrigated areas (AR) carry crop, soil, efficiency and water balance; Design → Site climate… gives them the monthly climate, and Edit → Geometry → Subtract from area leaves a pond or a building out of an area as an island.
  5. Management (Design → System flows): system flows (which valves, pivots and valve-in-head stations open together, start time and duration). Without defined flows, all valves are assumed to open together (the worst case for the mainline and the supply). Automatic… groups the zones into the fewest flows that fit the supply flow (or a flow and a number of zones you choose), largest demands first; Design → Group zones for energy… groups zones of similar head, and Time-of-use tariff and flow schedule… chooses the start hours of least energy cost; Design → Agronomy → Irrigation programme… lays the flows out in the daily irrigation window, with cycle and soak (Agronomy and irrigation scheduling). Wiring: a controller (CTRL) and the wire routes (WR) to the valves, drawn by hand or along the pipe trenches (Zone → Automatic wire routes…), sized in the design.
  6. Check (Design → Design check…): unconnected items, pipes crossing without a junction, dead ends, zones without emitters or mixing emitter kinds, missing catalogue items, missing terrain.
  7. Design (F5): zones, mainline, telescoping, flushing, water hammer, mechanised machines and materials. You can also design only the zones, only the mainline, or just analyse with the current diameters (also automatically after every edit). The Mainline menu then checks the mainline further: hydraulic transients, air valves, a 24-hour simulation, on-demand operation, pipe criticality, roughness calibration, the design over its life and fertigation. The pump house electrics, solar pumping and the water analysis join the design once switched on (Power, water and machines).
  8. Reports and plotting: reports panel, PDF sheets (one sheet, or an overview and a sheet per zone or area) with title block, legend, north arrow, scale bar, bill of materials, construction details and charts; a commercial quote; document packages by reader and the technical documents (Reports → Technical documents); exports to other CADs, GIS, BIM, EPANET and spreadsheets.