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Garden design software
We're thinking of a major redesign of our back garden. We started looking
for a design(CAD) package. There seem to be a lot out there in webland, but none of them seem to get rave reviews. What have you tried? Did it do what you wanted? and lastly, would you recommend it to a fellow usenet newsgrouper? Cheers! |
#2
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Garden design software
On Feb 21, 2:07*pm, (Brian) wrote:
We're thinking of a major redesign of our back garden. We started looking for a design(CAD) package. There seem to be a lot out there in webland, but none of them seem to get rave reviews. What have you tried? Did it do what you wanted? and lastly, would you recommend it to a fellow usenet newsgrouper? Cheers! http://www.tmac.clara.co.uk/urgring/faqsoftw.htm Don't know if it's up to date though. Amongst the comments given, I'd add that the measurementation can't be trusted. My old one, which fested my computer with nothing but problems, was the sierra (pro) and no, I would wish it on you. Along with the question as to whether one really needs such software, I would like to know from you why you do? What are you expecting other than the relative pleasure of mucking about with it? It won't measure the garden for you. It may give tree growth dimensions in say, 10 years time, but these probably wont take root development into account (nor soil/water shortage/excess) It wont actually inspire you and may even limit your potential to the rather limited variations it'll have for say, walls, fences, arches etc.. In short, it wont really design squat for you. You'll have to do that. You'll have to scribble down measurements. Get ideas read up on stuff. Walk the plot. Think. It wont do your thinking. HTH |
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Garden design software
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#4
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Garden design software
On 21/2/09 16:00, in article ,
"Brian" wrote: In article , (aquachimp) wrote: In short, it wont really design squat for you. You'll have to do that. You'll have to scribble down measurements. Get ideas read up on stuff. Walk the plot. Think. It wont do your thinking. HTH Yes, we realise that. We have measured what's there already, and I'm in the process of turning that into an Autocad plan. That will be our starting point. The software it to 'jiggle' things around, and then to view 3D/walkthrough in say 10 years time. Cheers! The subject has come up a few times over the years here. The overall view seems to be that you're just as well off with a pad of paper and a stub of pencil. I can well see that it's fun to plan it as you suggest but I think that most people start on their garden and then go "hang on a minute, over there would be better for the sandpit/washing line/pergola/gazebo etc" and it all gets changed. Then, having done your planting, which for many gardeners consists of wandering around with x numbers of pots plonking them down, picking them up and moving them somewhere else, you tend to find that you really do have to find a bit of space for 3 or 5 or 9 of whatever-it-is that caught your eyes in the local nursery today! -- Sacha http://www.hillhousenursery.com South Devon Perennials & shrubs online |
#6
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Garden design software
On 21/2/09 22:00, in article ,
"Brian" wrote: In article , (Sacha) wrote: *Subject:* Garden design software *From:* Sacha *Date:* Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:13:34 +0000 On 21/2/09 16:00, in article , "Brian" wrote: In article , (aquachimp) wrote: In short, it wont really design squat for you. You'll have to do that. You'll have to scribble down measurements. Get ideas read up on stuff. Walk the plot. Think. It wont do your thinking. HTH Yes, we realise that. We have measured what's there already, and I'm in the process of turning that into an Autocad plan. That will be our starting point. The software it to 'jiggle' things around, and then to view 3D/walkthrough in say 10 years time. Cheers! The subject has come up a few times over the years here. The overall view seems to be that you're just as well off with a pad of paper and a stub of pencil. snip Well, the plan is complete, and printed out a few times... since then it's been pencil and rubber ;-) Very many thanks. Cheers! Let us know how you get on, won't you? ;-) -- Sacha http://www.hillhousenursery.com South Devon Perennials & shrubs online |
#7
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Garden design software
On Feb 21, 5:59*pm, (Brian) wrote:
In article , (aquachimp) wrote: In short, it wont really design squat for you. You'll have to do that. You'll have to scribble down measurements. Get ideas read up on stuff. Walk the plot. Think. It wont do your thinking. HTH Yes, we realise that. We have measured what's there already, and I'm in the process of turning that into an Autocad plan. That will be our starting point. The software it to 'jiggle' things around, and then *to view 3D/walkthrough in say 10 years time. Cheers! Ah yes, jiggling around is easier than on paper, though there may be an argument that the greater difficulty of paper causes one to 'think' more and so creates greater room for potential advancement. There of course the other aspects of garden design. There are those terms , like balance and continuity, 9etc) which I can't say I've seen software trying to tackle. Ditto with the use of colour, or lack of, nor stuff like the golden ration or fibonacci sequences and there's more. And here's one I doubt you'll have ever even heard of; It something I used to do when presented with a garden acclaimed to be a certain type of garden, e.g. a representation of an authentic Japanese garden, or an English Cottage garden, a 'natural' landscape, and so on. I had already studied these long enough to be able to 'see' invisible qualities and patterns. So, what I 'saw' each time were numbers and letters. I don't know why, but I'd 'see' these gardens as a sort of (usually) square shaped picture and consisting of just numbers and letters. In the case of the Jap. garden, I would picture it as having a base line 9botom sixth) made up of a small scattering of even numbers with the majority of that base space taken up consonants. Beyond that base, there were odd numbers and quite a number of vowels and in fairly specific places. Cottage gardens were mostly even numbers with consonants making up a general background base (in this case the "base" is like a first coat of paint). The thing is, creations representing 'authentic' garden type always came up with the same pattern of numbers and letters no matter how different the gardens themselves within each category might be. I used to try and work out why I was able to 'see' like this and why. I wondered if my interpretation (which is what I viewed it as) related to a context that I couldn't actually see in each garden but caused a reaction personal to me. That meant I wanted to check if others could do something similar so occasionally I'd ask someone if they wouldn't mind indulging me by, naming a particular tree by a number. But these never worked. they'd want to know what I meant by a number. I'd say, any number and how it's a bit like seeing someone called Max and saying yeah, the name suits, so, "see that tree, what number do you think would suit it in the same way". It never worked, they couldn't grasp what I was getting at {maybe you can't either(-:} But that all just to underline the difference with the human mind and garden software. have fun |
#8
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Garden design software
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#9
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Garden design software
On Feb 21, 11:47*pm, (Brian) wrote:
In article , (aquachimp) wrote: *Subject:* Garden design software *From:* aquachimp *Date:* Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:19:37 -0800 (PST) On Feb 21, 5:59*pm, (Brian) wrote: In article , (aquachimp) wrote: In short, it wont really design squat for you. You'll have to do that. You'll have to scribble down measurements. Get ideas read up on stuff. Walk the plot. Think. It wont do your thinking. HTH Yes, we realise that. We have measured what's there already, and I'm in the process of turning that into an Autocad plan. That will be our starting point. The software it to 'jiggle' things around, and then *to view 3D/walkthrough in say 10 years time. Cheers! Ah yes, jiggling around is easier than on paper, though there may be an argument that the greater difficulty of paper causes one to 'think' more and so creates greater room for potential advancement. There of course the other aspects of garden design. There are those terms , like balance and continuity, 9etc) which I can't say I've seen software trying to tackle. Ditto with the use of colour, or lack of, nor stuff like the golden ration or fibonacci sequences and there's more. And here's one I doubt you'll have ever even heard of; It something I used to do when presented with a garden acclaimed to be a certain type of garden, e.g. a representation of an authentic Japanese garden, or an English Cottage garden, a 'natural' landscape, and so on. I had already studied these long enough to be able to 'see' invisible qualities and patterns. So, what I 'saw' each time were numbers and letters. I don't know why, but I'd 'see' these gardens as a sort of (usually) square shaped picture and consisting of just numbers and letters. In the case of the Jap. garden, I would picture it as having a base line 9botom sixth) made up of a small scattering of even numbers with the majority of that base space *taken up consonants. Beyond that base, there were odd numbers and quite a number of vowels and in fairly specific places. Cottage gardens were mostly even numbers with consonants making up a general background base (in this case the "base" *is like a first coat of paint). The thing is, creations representing 'authentic' garden type always came up with the same pattern of numbers and letters no matter how different the gardens themselves within each category might be. I used to try and work out why I was able to 'see' like this and why. I wondered if my interpretation (which is what I viewed it as) related to a context that I couldn't actually see in each garden but caused a reaction personal to me. That meant I wanted to check if others could do something similar so occasionally I'd ask someone if they wouldn't mind indulging me by, naming a particular tree by a number. But these never worked. they'd want to know what I meant by a number. I'd say, any number and how it's a bit like seeing someone called Max and saying yeah, the name suits, so, "see that tree, what number do you think would suit it in the same way". It never worked, they couldn't grasp what I was getting at {maybe you can't either(-:} But that all just to underline the difference with the human mind and garden software. have fun That's a very different way of viewing things! I'm a bit more 'engineer', and I like straight lines... Sounds like a 'Belgium' garden. Lots of buxus, taxus and even ligustrum to create little hedges within the garden and hedges within those hedged in places too. Along with , though not always with formal looking water features. Lines of trees. Straight sections of grass. Quite Arty looking sometimes. Other times simply pretentiously over designed Block planting not unlike a design style system for a factory or office where the designer is resolutely ensuring that the landscape contractor doesn't have to apply any personal input, or thinking. (not much 'soul') It's just 20 of this next to 30 of that, where this block is square, the next rectangular, the next a triangle(ish) and so on. It is possible to do this and yet give it plenty of 'soul'. The only place I can recall seeing it done very well was along the main route from Ilford (Essex) towards Seven Kings up the road. I don't know who was responsible, but he/she certainly knew what they were doing, I'd say. (one has to walk it though to get the full sense of what is at work.) but that's going to be part of the fun. Not ending up with something that looks like Bézier got there before me. ;-) I'm sure I could get 'phi' in there somewhere... http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal...iIndproof.html any help? aesthetic reasons only of course. (or just to be awkward I'd bend that to make 'e' or root two!) Anyway, I digress, as I've said to Sacha elsewhere in this thread, the plan now exists on paper and is being scribbled on with pencil and rubber. Cheers! |
#10
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Garden design software
"Brian" wrote We're thinking of a major redesign of our back garden. We started looking for a design(CAD) package. There seem to be a lot out there in webland, but none of them seem to get rave reviews. What have you tried? Did it do what you wanted? and lastly, would you recommend it to a fellow usenet newsgrouper? This has been discussed often on this Ng and the consensus has always been that other than the professional type programs (at considerable cost) they are rubbish, toys only. -- Regards Bob Hobden |
#11
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Garden design software
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#12
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Garden design software
In article ,
Brian wrote: In article , (Bob Hobden) wrote: We're thinking of a major redesign of our back garden. We started looking for a design(CAD) package. There seem to be a lot out there in webland, but none of them seem to get rave reviews. What have you tried? Did it do what you wanted? and lastly, would you recommend it to a fellow usenet newsgrouper? This has been discussed often on this Ng and the consensus has always been that other than the professional type programs (at considerable cost) they are rubbish, toys only. That's pretty much the conclusion we had drawn. A pity really, something like SoldWorks for gardeners would be fantastic.. but at what price ;-) If I were being systematic, I would use something like xfig. It is NOT a CAD package, but merely a very simple drawing package. I use it for producing slides for courses. I use Gimp only in extremis. xfig could almost certainly be built on a Microsoft system, but anyone who can do that will almost certainly use Linux at home, anyway. From the point of view of CAD/CAM, xfig is a toy. But it's intended to tackle just the simplest tasks, rather than to handle the whole job in a simplistic fashion, and so is useful. There are doubtless other programs with similar properties. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#13
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#14
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Garden design software
I know it's already been mentioned but SketchUp is very good if you spend
the time to learn the basics. One thing it will do which might be of interest to people here is generate sun studies where you put in the location of your garden on the earth and the date you want in the year and you can see what will be shaded if you put up new trees or fencing. BTW there are 100's well a lot anyway of r=free tutorials to help you get to grips with it http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en... Search&meta= Just checked and it looks like sun studies aren't included in the free version but there are work arounds discussed in here http://groups.google.com/group/sketc...57e7cd3e?pli=1 HTH Tim http://www.flickr.com/photos/lusername/ |
#15
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Garden design software
In article ,
Martin wrote: From the point of view of CAD/CAM, xfig is a toy. But it's intended to tackle just the simplest tasks, rather than to handle the whole job in a simplistic fashion, and so is useful. There are doubtless other programs with similar properties. Google Sketch Up is free, and easy to learn, or so I am told by my son. http://sketchup.google.com/ A quick glance indicates that it's a lot more complicated than xfig, but could well be worth trying. I can't be bothered to fire up a Microsoft system to look. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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