Landscape design software
Landscape design software is used by landscape architects, landscape designers and garden designers to create planting, softworks, groundworks and hardworks (see definitions below) plans before constructing a landscape.
There are two levels of software available, amateur and professional. The former is usually aimed at simple visualisation of a garden design whilst the latter provides tools that allow stylistic representations of a design to be accurately labelled and dimensioned for contractors to interpret and land authorities or local government to sight and approve or otherwise. Since the advent of the personal computer, several software packages have come into existence the main professional software being CS Design Software's CS Artisan, Idea Spectrum's Realtime Landscaping Architect, LANDWorksCAD, LandCADD, Landmark, PRO Landscape, Structure Studio's VizTerra, VisionScape's VirtualProperty Architect, and Visual Impact's Earthscapes.
Professional landscape design software requires detailed information to be output for contract documentation, which will usually constitute drawings, specifications and reports (schedules/bills of quantity). The more sophisticated landscape design software solutions automate the process of generating reports (schedules/bills of quantity) from intelligent data in the drawing; such intelligence is usually contained within labels (annotations) which include, in the case of planting, automatic calculation routines to determine the number of individual plants based on plant spacings (centres) per area or length. When labelled areas or lengths are modified (stretched or shrunk), associated labels are recalculated at the same time as reports (schedules/bills of quantity) contained in or associated with the same drawing.
Below is a list of some features provided by such software:
- Video Tutorials
- Digital Photo Import
- 3-D View creation
- Plant Encyclopaedia
- Plant Selector
- Growth Zones & Hardiness Maps
- Images of Plants and Objects
- Print Shopping Lists
- Print Design
- Visualize Plant Growth
- Outdoor Lighting
- Irrigation Design
- Outdoor Furniture
- Reports/Schedules/Bills of Quantity
- Labels/Annotation
- Photorealistic Design Presentations
- Generating Quotes, Invoices, Reports, Plant Information
Definitions
- Softworks: Products and services including horticultural sundries, soil preparation and conditioning, chemical applications, turfing and seeding.
- Groundworks: Products and services including excavations, drainage, irrigation, erosion control and earth works.
- Hardworks: Products and services including concrete, fencing, edging, masonry, metalwork, finishes, paving, stone, structures and timber.