Topic Number: 136
VectorWorks Landscape Tools
By: Madis Pihlak
Date: 06 March 2002
Web Address:
http://www.architectureweek.com/articles/tools_articles.html
Presented By:
Aliaa Hussein El-Sadaty
VectorWorks Landscape Tools
Last year, Nemetschek North America,
maker of VectorWorks Architect, came out
with a companion system, VectorWorks
Landmark
University of Maryland
student project using
VectorWorks Landmark.
by: David King
Since its origins in the early 1980s as
MiniCAD, VectorWorks has integrated
2D drawing with increasing degrees
of 3D modeling. A designer can draw
in plan, numerically specify a height,
and be creating a three dimensional
model. This capability is invaluable for
design development.
A digital terrain modeling tool performs
cut-and-fill calculations for site grading. A
new tool grades a simple low-speed
roadway with curbs and sets the road into
the terrain model.
Topographic map
imported from AutoCAD.
By: Madis Pihlak
Landmark incorporates other professionspecific tools for landscape architects as a
parking lot layout tool, which helps the
designer create the geometry for a variety
of parking configurations.
Third-year student
project.
by: Nathan Pepple
it also does well in handling the large files
required for detailed site-level landscape
work. There are other software packages
that support some of these design
activities, but I believe Landmark is unique
in its combination of simplicity, reliability,
and elegant graphic quality.
Other civil engineering software such as
Autodesk Land Desktop gives more robust
performance at the site level yet lacks
some of the graphic flexibility of Landmark
or ArchiSITE.
However both the Autodesk and Bentley
packages are intended more for civil
engineers than for landscape architects or
architects manipulating site data.
Landmark at Work
It can import data (using DXF or DWG)
from a geographical information system
(GIS) and manipulate the data or export it
(using DXF or DWG) into other 2D and 3D
CAD, design, and visualization
applications.
VectorWorks is simple and intuitive
enough for everyone in the office to use.
contrast it with the CAD operator model
that was popular when software was too
complex and annoying for designers to
use.
VectorWorks is still as simple and
straightforward to use as MiniCAD was. .
One of the appreciated features about
VectorWorks is the way it deals with scale
without "model space" or "paper space"
jargon to grapple with.
Printing and plotting requires only a
straightforward selection of paper size and
drawing scale.
The ability to close polygons with only three
sides. Automatically generating a fourth
side is useful in getting big GIS databases
into a Landmark-useable format.
The ability to read native AutoCAD files is
extremely important
Yet most of the professors in our
department believe VectorWorks offers a
better value in terms of time invested and
output produced.
Words of Caution
For instance, you need to add
RenderWorks to your collection to produce
color renderings.
In sum, Landmark is a powerful, robust,
and easy-to-learn software package.
The VectorWorks family of design software
is now owned by the large German
company Nemetschek, whose
architectural CAD system AllPlan is a bestseller in Europe.
Having a mix of Macintosh and Windows
computers, and finding reliable and useful
design computing software that works on
both platforms can be challenging.
But finding software that will run under both
the older Mac OS 9 and the new Mac OS
10 is even more difficult. The newest
release of VectorWorks Landmark works
with all these operating systems.
In other ways too, Nemetschek is a good
digital citizen. They employ a software
engineer whose sole job is to ensure that
VectorWorks remains compatible with any
changes in Autodesk or ESRI file formats.