In article ,
J Kolenovsky wrote:
Bill, you're pretty slick with all the gear. Very impressive.
"downloading DEM files from USGS for the area, texture-mapped colorized
satellite imagery onto the 3D surface, and then populated the forest
with 3D trees, created hardscape, running water, etc."
Most people who ask the question about landscape software are looking
for a prima donna application and won't get that involved nor seek
educational discounts. If it's not on the shelf at Comp-USA,
Micro-Center and the likes, they won't go for it.


It may sound "slick" but it really isn't all that hard. And
that's an important point. DEM files are free. The satellite
imagery is free (one source is www.terraserver.microsoft.com).
Maya is expensive, but there are free alternatives such as
Blender (see www.blender.org) which may suffice for a specific
task. I just happen to like Maya a lot, personally, and I
have a copy where I work.

Sure, there is some overhead in learning how to do this stuff,
but there are learning curves for everything. The point is
that it *can* be done, and if one is willing to devote a little
effort, it can be done cheaply.

There are tutorials for Blender all over, and one of the UK
Linux mags runs a regular tutorial column. For each step in
doing this, one can Google up a bunch of tutorials.



The CAD apps are cool but again, I don't think most would spring for
that to do a design.
(I liked Neil's response - get a designer)

There are some CAD apps out there which, for this kind of
stuff, are cheap or free. For instance QCad is open source
and runs on Linux, Windoze, and Mac OS X.

Take a look at www.ribbonsoft.com

(Note, I haven't used QCad myself, but I have some friends
who like it.)