Landscape Design Software Or Drawings?

[lawns by design]

Originally Posted by PaperCutter

Some cities or counties have them online, but most don't. What I do if a client doesn't have their plat is this:

- I measure whatever portion of the house is relevant to the area I'm designing, but at least one whole side
- I locate a few key detail points (driveway, trees, whatever)
- I then get the aerial imagery from GoiLawn and print it out to scale and use that for a base just like I would a plat.

It's not as accurate as a plat, but if I also have some exact field measurements of key areas, it's close enough for a planting plan.

If you're doing hardscapes or carpentry stuff and you can't get a plat, you need to suck it up and do a really thorough job measuring. It's a hassle, but it beats screwing up an estimate.

I must say I agree it make sense I already use go I lawn so I will continue to use it to help me move forward . You must have been designing for a long time you are a pro at this ! Thanks
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[New2TheGreenIndustry]

Papercutter,

Thanks for the info. Have you had any experience with Pro Landscape?

[PaperCutter]

Originally Posted by New2TheGreenIndustry

Papercutter,

Thanks for the info. Have you had any experience with Pro Landscape?

I have not. For a while I was trying to demo as many alternatives to AutoCAD as I could but they don't offer a free trial. I haven't been super impressed with what I've seen done with it, and if they don't have the confidence in their product to offer a trial version...

[dieselfuel]

I have both autocad and pro landscape. Pro landscape is great for quickly putting in a house and then dropping in standard plant symbols. Its photo imaging is nice as well because you can drag graphics of certain plants into a photo of the house and have a rendering to show the client in half an hour. But, the labeling in the planner software sucks, and the images of the plants show them in bloom. Well all plants don't bloom at the same exact time, so its not an accurate way to show the clients what it will look like after you have finished the job.

When I use pro landscape for a plan view, I still use autocad to label it. It's just easier for me this way. Autocad is completely customizable, but if you don't have a library of already made symbols then you won't be productive trying to use cad. You can go all out and purchase autocad/ land fx but you're at a couple thousand dollars for those two pieces of software.

[PaperCutter]

diesel - check out cben.net and other sharing sites for free CAD blocks. I put together a pretty impressive set of CAD blocks this way.

[dieselfuel]

Originally Posted by PaperCutter

diesel - check out cben.net and other sharing sites for free CAD blocks. I put together a pretty impressive set of CAD blocks this way.

I have a pretty decent CAD library from my last job and other projects. I usually just open up a previous project and copy a lot of those symbols. In my mind you really don't need too many symbols for trees and shrubs, and then I use different hatch patterns for masses of varying perennial combinations. Keeps the rendering simple and clean, whereas Pro Landscape you would have individual symbols for every perennial - way too cluster f*d for my liking.

[SDLandscapes VT]

Dynascape is superior to Prolandscape but the price tag can be intimidating. I agree with the poster who suggested taking a drafting class first--it will significantly help you manipulating your drawing and will help decrease your time to market.

[New2TheGreenIndustry]

What os are you guys using? I'd like to get a iMac desktop, but afraid I might be limited by program compatibility.

[TheOakGroveGardeners]

My design process often begins with a plat of survey or an onsite takeoff measurement. From there, I'll input the measurements into Google Sketchup (great for MacOS and easy to learn) before printing them to scale and tracing them onto marker paper. The attached drawing probably took me four hours from measurement through rendering. I ended up selling it, too. That always helps.

[lawns by design]

Hey Thanks for the upload looks really good. I have a question i see in drawings alot the big circles over the planting beds and never understood what they were for? I also never understood what the lines inside the circles indicated ? It looks like the circle is being broke into 3rds. Can someone help me understand what the purpose of those lines are and the over size circles on the designs are used for?
Thanks