CAD Computer Aided Landscape Design, KeyStrokes, ProGardenBiz Magazine V1 Issue 2

Landsoft introduced Landcadd in the landscape and irrigation market to take some of the tedious work out of landscape design. Riding on top of a full design software package called "Autocad", it can produce site plans, irrigation systems, planting plans, grading plans, cost estimates, and flow charts. Landcadd is now owned and supported by Eagle Point Software. Landcadd and Autocad can run concurrently or separately. The packages contained in Landcadd are illustrative site graphics, site planning, landscape design and construction documents, irrigation design, takeoffs and cost estimating, flow charts and more.

The following is a description of each of the features:

1) Illustrative site graphics — By providing an extensive library of graphic symbols the user can render many types of trees, shrubs, ground/plant treatments (brick patterns, ground cover, and lawns), and site elements (people, autos, boulders, picnic tables, benches, etc), It even has the ability to create tree shadows and crown diameter. If any symbol is placed in the wrong location it can be easily moved in seconds to its proper place or completely deleted.

2) Site planning — In this module, with the use of parallel lines, the user can quickly create walkways, curbs, streets, walls, and many other elements of the site plan. Parking lots and stalls are a snap to design at any angle. Also available are symbols for recreational facilities such as baseball, football, and soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, tracks, and many others. Standard graphic features such as north arrows, graphic scales, arrowheads (for automatic dimensioning) and asterisks have been included for assistance.

3) Landscape design and construction documents — Once generated contour lines can be viewed in 3D from any angle. From this design grading calculations for cut/fill and percent of slope can be performed. Groups of plants can be automatically counted and labeled. Plant names and container sizes can be changed during any design phase, either individually or globally.

4) Irrigation design — This module has the ability to design either sprinkler or drip irrigation systems. Through the use of the symbol library a designer can locate and place sprinklers, emitters, valves, laterals, and mainlines. After selecting turf head and spray angle, the program will ask for spray radii, which can be turned on and off at will. Based on the GPM for the sprinklers being used, the program will automatically size mainline and lateral pipes. It can also calculate the pressure loss and velocity for a single lateral or the entire system. There are commands that will hide pipelines from view under the sprinkler heads and show arcs where pipes cross over each other. At any time, conversion factors can be called up to determine spacing requirements, precipitation rates, and pressure losses among other data.

5) Takeoffs and cost estimating — One of the best on the market. Few if any in the computer environment will do linear takeoffs. This program does. It also provides information about item descriptions, sizes, quantities, and unit costs. Subtotals can be displayed for each subject and a grand total for all individual subtotals can be shown as well as area amounts. It will also take into account inflation costs and labor rate changes. This is an extremely powerful program and can be used regardless of the complexity or size of the drawing.

6) Flow charts — The entities for developing a flow chart are stored in the library, boxes, circles, triangles, squares, and ellipses which can be drawn at any size. Flow charts are very helpful for project management. For text management, different text fonts are available, such as boldface, freehand. simplex, italic, and complex.

This program represents a major breakthrough for the landscape architect and designer. The functional design of this package simplifies and speeds up the process of creating designs and production drawings regardless of the number of revisions required. The revisions are almost invited. As with most CAD programs redundant drawing is virtually eliminated. This program is a vary valuable time saving tool that can create drawings of superior quality. The 3D renderings that can be generated for client evaluations is just incredible. With just a very basic idea the architect/designer can, in a few minutes, sitting with the client, develop a very clear and aesthetic 3D image of what the property is going to look like. This program was on display at the Landscape Industry Show in Long Beach, and was clearly the "hit" of the show.

For more of Keystrokes read previous installments of this column in our magazine archives.

Landcadd is a program of Eagle Point Software. For more information on Landcadd and Eagle Point Software see: http://www.eaglepoint.com/landscape/

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Landcadd: A Landscape & Irrigation CAD Package!