VECTORWORKS and LANDMARK RENDERWORKS

A section for the review of technology is a new feature of Landscape Journal.

The opinions and ideas expressed in the reviews are those of the reviewers and do not necessarily represent the views of the Journal's editors or the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Suggestions for books to be reviewed are always welcome, as are comments regarding the reviews published. All correspondence regarding software should be sent directly to the Journal:
Landscape Journal
SUNY ESF
1 Forestry Drive
Syracuse, NY 13210
(315) 470-6539
landscapejournal@esf.edu

Note from the editors. Technology reviews are intended for computing software, hardware, and other technologies important to this rapidly changing aspect of practice and instruction. We are introducing technology reviews on a trial basis and would appreciate hearing from our readers about their appropriateness for Landscape Journal.

VECTORWORKS and LANDMARK RENDERWORKS

Nemetschek N.A., 7150 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046

Vectorworks 12 Fundamentals $995, Landmark $1,295, Landmark with Renderworks $1,795.
Academic purchasing: Vectorworks Designer with Renderworks $390, Student Edition $160.

Reviewed by Madis Pihlak

Vectorworks is an easy to use, graphically rich, general purpose computer-aided drafting (CAD) software package aimed at the professional mass market. It is a hybrid software program with two dimensional, three-dimensional, and animation capabilities. This mass marketing approach allows the company to charge a third of what the legacy CAD companies, AutoDesk and Bentley, charge for their base two-dimensional AutoCAD and Micro- Station software. Similar savings are available for educational institutions.

Landmark is the enhanced version of Vectorworks created for landscape architects and designers. One Landmark can import an AutoCAD file in its entirety, including external references (Xrefs). AutoCAD files from version 2.5 to 2005 are supported. AutoCAD blocks and database information are translated as symbols and reports within Vectorworks. It is possible to export a Vectorworks file to an AutoCAD native dwg file without any loss of data or line quality. In fact there is no way to distinguish that the file ever left the AutoCAD software environment. AutoCAD paper space layouts are imported to a Vectorworks sheet layer. DXF viewports are imported as Vectorworks viewports with the same scale, view and projection. Paper space layout entities are imported as sheet layer objects and viewport entities are imported as viewport objects. Any translation problems are introduced by incorrect units settings, such as importing an AutoCAD file with imperial feet units into a Vectorworks file with imperial inches and feet settings. A particularly useful feature is the ability to import a number of dxf or dwg files into the same Vectorworks file automatically with all of the files geo-referenced. Landmark includes specialized tools such as two-dimensional and three-dimensional automated gradmajor advantage of Vectorworks Landmark is that the company has focused on the landscape architecture profession and discipline as a growth market for their company. AutoDesk and Bentley do not mention the landscape architecture profession or discipline on their web sites. Bentley does sell software for the civil engineering profession called Bentley Power Civil. AutoDesk sells Land Desktop "for land planners and surveyors" and Civil 3D for civil engineers. Landscape architects may use all of these engineering oriented software packages. In contrast the Nemetschek NA website focuses their commercial efforts on landscape architects and designers. Nemetschek also has a vice president trained as a landscape architect at Rutgers University. The company invests software engineering resources to address software needs that landscape architects express to the company. Version 12 will support full ArcGIS shape file import and export without requiring ownership of the complex ESRI software products.

All of the Vectorworks software packages have the most reliable and extensive AutoCAD dwg and dxf file import and export function of any non AutoDesk software package. Landmark can import an AutoCAD file in its entirety, including external references (Xrefs). AutoCAD files from version 2.5 to 2005 are supported. AutoCAD blocks and database information are translated as symbols and reports within Vectorworks. It is possible to export a Vectorworks file to an AutoCAD native dwg file without any loss of data or line quality. In fact there is no way to distinguish that the file ever left the AutoCAD software environment. AutoCAD paper space layouts are imported to a Vectorworks sheet layer. DXF viewports are imported as Vectorworks viewports with the same scale, view and projection. Paper space layout entities are imported as sheet layer objects and viewport entities are imported as viewport objects. Any translation problems are introduced by incorrect units settings, such as importing an AutoCAD file with imperial feet units into a Vectorworks file with imperial inches and feet settings. A particularly useful feature is the ability to import a number of dxf or dwg files into the same Vectorworks file automatically with all of the files geo-referenced.

Landmark includes specialized tools such as two-dimensional and three-dimensional automated grading, roads, parking lots, hardscape ground plane, extensive plant database and irrigation. Perhaps most important to a design-based profession, Landmark gives the designer great graphic control over the expressive quality of the drawing. If the Renderworks option is purchased you can render all drawings with a sketch line quality or a photo realistic rendered quality. Accurate shadow casting is generated from latitude and longitude. Other software products such as formZ purchase the same rendering engine from Lightworks in the United Kingdom. To get similar functionality from AutoCAD, 3ds Studio Max ($3,495) would need to be purchased.

Vectorworks Landmark is the Swiss army knife of professional CAD software programs. The program can be used to span the Geographic Information Systems world (GIS) to detail design of one-to-one scale shop drawings of site components. The manner in which the program deals with layer scale allows this flexibility. From the beginning Landmark allowed the user to select any scale for any layer. Also the postscript screen environment accurately displays what will be plotted or printed. There is no on-screen guessing or color-coding of line weights. The default background color is white with black lines similar to Adobe Illustrator. The background color may be set to black with white lines, just like AutoCAD. AutoCAD's cumbersome paper space and model space conventions make printing and plotting a complex arrangement. AutoCAD training sessions typically devote a full eight-hour session for participants to understand how to accurately print and plot using standard AutoCAD software. All of the Vectorworks pull down menus support standard Architecture A to E paper sizes and also the ANSI international system.

Many landscape architecture offices and schools export AutoCAD files to Photoshop for graphic embellishment. This is another cumbersome AutoCAD procedure. Within the AutoCAD software the user must pretend to plot to an Adobe PDF file and then open this file within Photoshop. Given Vectorworks greater graphic capability there is a straightforward Export Image File function that directly supports the Photoshop native file format. Eleven other graphic file formats are also supported. The graphic dialogue box allows the user to specify resolution, pixel dimensions or print size.

Landmark is unique as a professional CAD software package with its hybrid two-dimensional and three-dimensional drawing world. Approximately 60 percent of the over 2500 symbols exist both as twodimensional and three-dimensional symbols. All of these symbols may be included in a relational database for planting plans and other site material schedules. All of the commercially available North American woody plant materials, perennials and annuals are available to use with the place plant tool, which then creates a relational database for a planting plan. Recently a separate palette of three dimensional surface and solid modeling tools were added to allow the creation of organic three-dimensional shapes. Boolean operations of addition and subtraction of threedimensional form are possible. The other unique feature is the graphic control that has been an integral part of the program since its inception. In its earlier manifestation it supported postscript fonts and full color photographic integration. Other legacy CAD packages did not support these features until relatively recently. Landmark interfaces with Photoshop quite easily. Whereas other CAD packages require convoluted procedures to export a CAD file into a Photoshop file, Landmark has a simple export image file command supporting Photoshop, TIFF, PICT, JPEG, BMP, Maya IFF Image, and others.

Vectorworks Landmark has sitemodeling capabilities to create complex three dimensional site terrain models. The site information may arrive as three-dimensional loci, three-dimensional polygons, or surveyor data usually in the AutoCAD file format. The site model created from the source data is a hybrid symbol containing both two-dimensional and three-dimensional site information. "When the site model is generated, two hybrid digital terrain modeling symbols (DTM) are created, the existing DTM and the proposed DTM. The proposed DTM is the existing DTM, plus the geometric effects of site modifiers, such as roads and [building] pads" (page 3-1 Vectorworks landmark User's Guide 2004). Landmark automatically produces its best guess site grading applying best practice civil engineering principles. This grading may be altered with the site modifier tools. In two-dimensions the site may be displayed as 2D triangles, 2D contour lines or smoothed 2D contour lines. Surface water flow arrows and colored slope analysis may be turned on or off. The three dimensional display settings include, 3D contour polygons, 3D rectangular mesh, 3D solid mesh, 3D Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN). This provides the greatest accuracy. Cut and fill calculations are produced automatically from the existing and proposed Digital Terrain Model (DTM or DEM). The site model also allows site analysis of elevation, slope, and zone of visual influence.

It is difficult to be constructively critical of a capable CAD software program such as Landmark. Perhaps the biggest criticism is that Landmark is not AutoCAD. Landscape architects often deal with drawing files that come from other design professionals - surveyors, civil engineers, architects and planners. Many times these files are AutoCAD files. To use Landmark a landscape architect must become proficient at importing AutoCAD dwg or dxf files. Some landscape architects are just not willing to do this conversion. Like all software programs occasionally there are software bugs. Landmark has had bugs but is generally much more stable than other wellknown landscape architecture software packages. When used with the most recent Mac OS 10.4, a version of the UNIX operating system, Vectorworks is extremely stable and rarely crashes. Vectorworks is also available for Windows versions 98 and above.

One of the annoying problems with software packages is knowing how to begin. This frustration is what keeps many landscape architects and designers from incorporating designcomputing into their day-to-day design and planning work. Landmark is simple and logical to learn. No student has ever said Vectorworks or Landmark is too hard to learn. The company is very user-oriented and provides free telephone technical support and a ninety-day money back guarantee. There is also a very helpful free ListServ administrated by the company but intellectually controlled by the users.

Vectorworks 12 is the first CAD software package to fully support Shapefile import and export with geo-referenced data without the need for ArcGIS. This support allows full data import and export from and to GIS software programs. Similarly Vectorworks now supports the 3DS file format, which is the defacto standard of three-dimensional models on the web. This three-dimensional file format supports texture mapping so there is no loss of visual detail. Global illumination rendering with radiosity has also been added. A simplified Custom Radiosity Option window allows simplified image manipulation. Over 1,500 xfrog botanically correct trees and shrubs have been included. http://www.xfrogdownloads.com/ greenwebNew/products/product- Start.htm.

Madis Pihlak, ASLA is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. Professor Pihlak has lectured widely on digital design media.

:: Vectorworks News ::