Landscape Add-on for ArchiCAD
Cadimage have just developed a very nice landscape add-on for ArchiCAD which will address this. It is a collection of new tools to automate the layout, labelling and scheduling of plant symbols. You can place plant symbols via normal click, or you can convert any poly line into a row of plant symbols. Or you can convert a fill area into a planting area. Each group of plants is connected by a line and labelled with number of plants plus the plant code. Once a string of plants is created you can move individual plants around and remove or add symbols to the string. Plants are managed and selected from a spreadsheet type database which holds the code, group, name, and symbol of a plant. This means users can manage the database to suit their needs. (For NZ we are investigating having this database pre populated by a plant supplier.) At any time you can create a schedule to place on the site plan. The scheduling can be for the whole plan or per area controlled by a Zone. The user can also control the display of the plant symbols as Presentation Mode: (detailed symbols) or Construction Mode: (circles.) The Add-On is about to go into Beta test phase. I can send anyone the user manual for comment if interested. Obviously keen to see how close this tool works for markets other than NZ.
