PRO seems to be the favorite amongst landscape contractors. Another segment likes Dynascape a lot. It is a plan drafting cad program that is set up to make better looking plans than a beginner might with a basic cad program.

I use Autocad lite which is not an industry specific cad program and has a very big learing curve that I got through in school and working full time with it alongside more experienced people. I think it would be better to stick with a lesser learning curve.

If you use MAC, you might want to check out VectorWorks. I know some architects who are very happy with it. I don't happen to know any landscape designers using it. There is a landscape specific version whose name escapes me, but you'll find it on VectorWorks web site.

Is it LandFX for Vectorworks, laag?

I haven't tried Earthscapes, and I'm really frustrated by the fact that PRO doesn't have a trial version- it's pony up $1400 to even try it. I use AutoCAD as well, and I found it pretty intuitive- a community college class to get up to speed, and then just practice. I tried Dynascape and hated it... what I've found with several landscape-specific programs is that they try to do so much for you, it's really hard to do things a different way if it works better for you.

I wish I could help with either of the programs you mentioned, but that's my two cents. AutoCAD LT is just so cheap, and it's so easy to share files with architects and engineers, and it's JUST a drafting tool, nothing else. I like that, because anything I can do on paper, I can do just as easily in CAD. If you want to see some examples of how you can use CAD and still get an organic-looking presentation document, let me know and I'll share some of my stuff.

Dave

It is Landmark. LandFX is another one. There is also RainCad. A good autocad clone is Intellicad, but it has some issues if you are integrating with other Autocad users. By itself it is OK and only about $300 last time I checked (Progecad out of Italy has a good version of Intellicad).

Autocad is easy enough if you are starting drawings from scratch, but if you are getting files from others there are so many variables that they can have set in different ways that can really mess you up if you are not up to speed. I like it because I don't have to deal with tons of dialog boxes where the program wants to lead me through the process because it can be time consuming.

I have used Pro in the past. As the others stated, a lot of contractors use it. Which shows it's ease of use, but also means your competitions designs may look very similar to your own.

The key is to modify the plant blocks/images so they are unique to your company.

I currently use AutoCAD. It was an easy transition after using Pro, and a few hours of training from our AutoCAD drafter.

One very nice feature of any of these programs is they will count your plants for you.

Caution: it will count your double plants and the errant plant 497' off of the site as well.

I purchased the latest version of PRO Landscape recently but returned because it wasn't doing the job I needed. They have much simplified the use by automating many functions seen in other CAD programs. This has heavily restricted what you can actually drawn. It is a good program for a 'quick and dirty' sketch but if you are a professional landscape designer, and need to produce flexible, accurate CAD plans and working drawings, I don't think you would like it. I have found that the more 'landscape-graphic oriented' a program is, the less flexible it is. I prefer Dynascape, which is excellent. If you budget doesn't run to Dynascape just yet, I would recommend a basic cheap straightout CAD program like TurboCad or AutoSketch. They aren't flashy and have no bells and whistles, but at least you can draw anything you want.

Who are you making the design for? The customer or the installer? Most customers can't make head nor tails of a schematic design and I found it makes a poor sales tool. It is also cumbersome if changes need to be made during installation, by you or the Landscape contractor.
I'm on vacation and inernet access is limited for now. More later.
Aloha

A plan view to scale is solid layout. Images and perspetives are much harder to use for layout, so what is it that you suggest is the easiest to follow document for contractors?

For customers, it's amazing how even a little color rendering can make a plan make more sense. Grass is green, water is blue... it's a much better sales tool than pulling a b & w plan off the plotter and jumping in the truck.

As for layout and install... I don't find that my plans get modified much in the field. Through the magic of AutoCAD, I've drawn the plan to a ridiculous degree of accuracy, and I've provided the installer with a layout page that shows where to pull string lines, how to locate the radius points, and what grades to set where.

I think the plan is certainly for both the client and the installer. It's a communication tool, telling the homeowner what they're buying, and showing the contractor what he or she is building. It's our job to provide whatever supporting documents we need to facilitate understanding of the plan (elevations, photos of similar work, maybe perspective drawings if the design fees accommodate that), but it all comes back to a solid plan, doesn't it?

Dave

Yes it does.

We are now on the pro side of the forum so hopefully I can say stuff like this without being pilloried. It doesn't matter how a designers 'vision' for a site is shown to a client, after all it is a garden or a landscape that we are designing and the purpose of anything we bring to the table is to convince the client that we have correctly interpreted what they want. The guys that do the job require a different motivation and more precision. The end result is the product that people hope to jump to with a magical computer program and this is not available. If you can draw or if you can manipulate a computer program this will help in the presentation of your design. In case I wasn't clear: there is more to the design of the place where we live than drafting a picture of it in its improved state. But when it comes down to it we (as designers) should use whatever means best conveys our ability to do the job.

gardengal- you've been pretty silent throughout. Have you decided on a software package?

Just another plug for why I prefer AutoCAD: I was drafting permit plans for a screen porch today and calling out USP connectors. Their website has a plug-in for AutoCAD that allows you, within the drawing, to go to a dedicated menu and drop pre-made blocks into your drawing. Love it!

Dave

OK.......I haven't made any decision yet. Primarily because it represents a significant $$ outlay and I'm not convinced one way or the other. I am not looking for a sales tool and I'm not much concerned about the need to present to contractors - the hand drafting accomplishes both just as well as the computer generated plan. What I am interested in is speeding up my process, as hand drafting is becoming increasingly time consuming. I see the computer drafted plans of my peers and I'm a little jealous they can turn them out so quickly. OTOH, I look at one of my drafted plans and feel a great deal of pride in the quality of my presentation. Apparently clients feel the same - I've had some frame the dang things and hang them on the wall! You'd think after all these years, it would just get a bit faster :-(

ps. I'm leaning heavily to PRO Landscape but haven't ruled out Dynascapes. Earthscapes is out of the running.

If you are considering Pro Landscape then I would suggest getting AutoSketch release 9 (only around US$100). AutoSketch and Pro Landscape were built on the same CAD engine, until Pro was modified so much that the true CAD functions were crippled in favor of 'photo-realistic' graphics and quick and simple design. If you need to produce quality scaled plans and working drawings, then a straightout CAD program is what you need for now, until you can afford something better like Dynascape or AutoCAD. BTW - AutoSketch is produced by AutoDesk, the same people that produce AutoCAD. Switching from hand drawing to CAD is difficult so best to start with a simpler program but not one that has been so simplified that it has lost its functionality. Like a good landscape design, it is the functionality that makes it a success, not the bells and whistles.

downunder- in a nutshell, what functionality from full AutoCAD do you give up in AutoSketch?

I'm getting the impression that PRO Landscape (version 13) is not held in such high regard. As I've never worked with any of these programs directly before and am woefully under educated when it comes to CAD at all, would anyone care to enlighten me as to the pros and cons each of the better professional systems offer? I don't know enough to know what features each has and what I need, other than what I am reading from their sales material.

I doubt photoimaging is a big priority for me - I don't care for most of it and it's not my style. I can always do hand drawn presentations for this purpose like I've done in the past. I am more concerned about a very low learning curve, the actual drafting ease and capacity of the software, the symbol library and the ability to generate a plant schedule and specs.

Photo imaging is a blight upon the design profession. There. I said it. Ugly crap.

Decent symbol libraries are pretty easy to come by for CAD. www.cben.net has literally thousands, you just need to browse the site. I'm sure you can buy some libraries, too.

If you're looking to have the program count your plant blocks and put the data in a table, you can do that too. I don't, but that's a workflow thing. You can create boundaries and get accurate square footages of irregularly shaped areas. The tool I miss the most when I'm at the board is circle- tangent, tangent, radius. No more guessing where to center the compass.

I take that back- sometimes, at the board, when I get rolling with the electric eraser, I find myself wishing for an undo button.

If all you're after is an electronic archiver and drafting board, you don't need bells and whistles. And don't think that just because you did the plan in AutoCAD (or equivalent), you can't add your hand-drawn flair and color rendering to it.

Dave

The difference between AutoSketch and AutoCAD are not that great for a landscaper designer. Sure, AutoCAD is a very sophisticated program catering for all disciplines of complex engineering and while it does a lot more stuff than AutoSketch, most is not needed by a landscape designer working mainly residential designs. What AutoSketch does do is produce scaled drawing just like AutoCAD, and includes all the essential CAD functions, as well as being heaps cheaper and easier to learn. For the price, you can't go wrong and if you ever find it limiting, then it is easier to move to a more complex program because you have mastered the basics. I trained with Autosketch and still use it for my work. Once you have learned how to get the most from it, you can create very attractive drawings, and if you hand color them you can produce artistic masterpieces. I totally agree with marcinde about photo imaging design. It is 'drag and drop' non-design, and fine for the home garden designer but not for a professional. I use it sometimes to help get a visualization of an idea, but never use it to replace properly drafted plans. Software that is image oriented seldom incorporates real or full CAD functions.

Intellicad is a "clone" of Auocad. It is owned by a consortium that wants to provide a less expensive alternative to Autocad as I understand it. Bricscad is one of many companies that offer Intellicad.

It is very close to Acad, but if you use it very deeply there are some bugs that can rear their heads. Chances are that you won't be that deep into it to be affected by them. I had lots of problems with it because it did not handle multiple layered blocks the same way that Acad did. This was a problem for me mostly to do with survey points in drawings which were very important to me.

The full blown program is about half the cost of Acad Lt and about a tenth of the cost of full blown Acad last time I checked.

Also, Eaglepoint was providing Intellicad as its cad engine at no additional charge a few years ago. I dont know if it still does.

Be very careful not to call it a "type of Autocad" because Acad is very protective of its copyrights.

laag, have you heard anything about zwcad? They claim to have all the functionality of ACAD, including lisp routines, etc., but at a much lower price. I can't find a price on their website, though, and even though they claim they're what Honda uses for CADD I couldn't find any actual user reviews through a Google search- at least in the first ten pages.

Dave

I have not, but I'm not out there looking for new programs either. It is possible that it is one of the Intellicad producers, but I do not know.

I looked at the web site.In the bottom right corner is the Intellicad Consortium logo.

Garden gal,

I have been learning Auto CAD for about 9 months, I am now getting comfortable with it and like it a lot. Learning it however was tough ( for me) I took a Cad landscape class last spring through our local college, and learning cad
was a big challenge for me. But I did, and I am now taking it again this semester independent study. So I can get quicker and more professional looking drawings.

The main drawback with my learning curve is that the instructor Is not a designer, but a techie, so he was not so interested in my designs as he was having me execute the program.

Hey Dave, for my independent study final I am supposed to upgrade my last semesters final in comparison with a professional drawing, learning to match lint types etc.... if you are interested in mentoring??? I.E.Sharing a good drawing I could learn from, I would be eternally grateful.

My favorite things about using cad, the ease of a redraw, xref plant lists, and emailing the drawings to the printer, just walking in and they are ready.

I am still struggling having the drawings look ' nice' IE artsy, but seriously thats not important to either my clients nor the installer, its just that they look a little sterile to me, but maybe thats cause I am still learning! deb

deb- shoot me an email at david [at] davidmarciniakdesigns dot com and we can talk about it. I do a fair bit of post-processing work after it's plotted, but I'll try and help you out.

Dave

I am new here, have a question about software as well. Started using Autosketch/Autodesk, but does not give me the desired look I would like. Recently sent off for a sample of Dynascape. I am very impressed with it so far.If I can get someone to fund this for me I will start using it. I am new to landscape design. I have taken tons of classes via internet, courses through technical college, and am a Master Gardener. Now I would like to go to work as a designer. I am looking for someone to work under in the Columbia, SC area. Anybody know of someone?

What is it you don't like about the look of CAD?

I am looking for a way to color AUTOCAD drawings quickly and easily. I have a lot of experience with CAD and find it great for base plans and layouts. It is, however, difficult to get anything to look "artistic". I have just changed to residential landscape design from larger landscape architectural projects and I would like to make my drawings more attractive/aesthetic for homeowners. Any suggestions? I currently add color to my plant blocks in CAD which is OK but it is really difficult to add color in the areas around the plants. The color also uses a lot of memory and can slow drafting as well as printing. thanks a million!

Some people will print to an image file and then color it in photoshop. Some will then use one of the effects such as "watercolor" to loosen the rendering up a bit.

I don't color render very often. When I do it is usually for a commercial project that is not overly detailed with landscape plants. What I do is to take my plant blocks used in the drawing and re-insert them into the drawing at a scale of one. I snap a line to the insertiom point of the block and then explode the block. Then I draw a circle around the outline of the plant on its own layer. I copy the circle twice, placing one so the center is slightly up to the left of the center of the original and one slightly down to the right. I trim the part of the upper right circle which goes outside of the one that fits the plant symbol. I also trim the part of the lower right circle that is inside of the plant circle. That gives me three areas to color with solid hatching. I do light, shade,& shadow. Then use the drawing order command to push them behind the linework of the symbol. Then I redefine the block and it changes all of them in the drawing to have the color.You can freeze the color layers if you want to print just the line work.

Then I solid hatch other areas being careful to manage the drawing order to keep linework on top. (sorry about the blue linework, it is usually black, but I was in a hurry - this one is also done with the shadow to the lower left and I described it to the lower right)

Export the AutoCAD drawing to .eps and bring into Photoshop (or Elements), gradient color the open areas and bring in the 2d plant symbols from www.entouragearts.com

Thanks you guys!
I like your method laag- I usually just fill my plant symbol with a gradient hatch and make it part of the block. I will try your way.
I hesitate to use photoshop because if I need to make any changes to the drawing I have to re-render the whole thing in color. I am trying to present with color earlier on in the process so this seems risky.
One more question- can Autocad create a plant legend based on the plant blocks you have in your drawing. I know you can count the individual blocks but can it actually create a table based on the names you give your blocks. This would be invaluable.
thanks