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GardenCAD is a
tool which allows you to rapidly produce garden plans with a
professional look.
It has
been designed to work
in an intuitive way, mimicking the manner in which garden designers work on paper.
The software
produces true, accurate CAD (Computer Aided Design) plans which
accurately reflect what will be built when your design is implemented.
 In
developing this software, we have taken account of lots of feedback from garden design students.
You will see some of their work in the modules which follow. GardenCAD
has its own web site and we welcome
any feedback that you may care to supply. Please email
any comments to info@gardencad.net or info@landscapetutor.net.
Due to its innovative design,
GardenCAD is easy to learn and operate. It rapidly produces
plans,
with much of the
look and feel of hand drawn plans. In addition,
GardenCAD helps you adopt a more professional approach
to your work - you are working with true CAD models in the same way as other
land management
professionals.
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A typical garden design plan produced using
GardenCAD. The image
retains some of the look and feel of hand drawn designs and was
produced in a very short space of time. The drawing is partly finished - we have
not yet added added text identifying individual plants, digital
images indicating construction details or comprehensive
planting notes; all can be added using
GardenCAD. |
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Click
here to play a
small movie which
shows GardenCAD in action. It is by no means
an exhaustive demonstration of the capability of the software and does
not show all of its features; we will show
you other aspects of GardenCAD later.
To play a movie, click on the word 'here' above (with the blue
underline). Note that after you click on the word 'here', a
new web page will appear and a movie will load and subsequently
play within it. You do not have to do anything while
the movie plays; just watch the screen. You can click on the
play button when approx 25% of the movie has loaded. Controls are shown at
the bottom of the page. When you have watched the movie, click
the close button (or the red cross at the top right of the screen).
You will automatically be returned to this point in the notes. |
Here is another GardenCAD design; this time
for a more formal
courtyard. Unlike the design above, which shows the print preview view, the figure below shows the actual
GardenCAD drawing environment, with
various toolbars and other controlling devices.
We have not shown the
cross hair pointer which we use to place objects.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used to apply
some colour to a water feature in the design shown in the figure below. |
GardenCAD offers some serious advantages over other
garden design tools.
A picture is worth a thousand words! GardenCAD enables
images from your photo library to be included in your design work. This
saves much time and helps more effectively convey your design ideas to
others.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used to
attach an image to a plan. |
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Here photos from our image library are being
used to 'dress up' a design. We provide details of a water
feature (a fountain made from stainless steel), some planting and constructional
information. |
You can use GardenCAD to lay out designs for large sites
as well as conventional gardens. The example shown below comes from our
'public space' case study which will be covered in one of the course
modules.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used in
designing a layout for a site 200 by 80 meters - a large public space. |
We supply a comprehensive image library. You can
create additional symbols of your own, but those supplied will help
initially. All symbols are drawn inside a 1
meter diameter circle and can be re-sized once they have been placed into
a drawing.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used to
develop a planting symbol for a new Zealand flax - Phormium tenax. |
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One of the symbols
from the plant library - a New Zealand flax? |
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Using the
symbol (block) library. |
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Using the
symbol (block) library. |
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Click
here to play a
second movie which shows how to use the block library to place
GardenCAD symbols. We activate the Tracking Tool and place
some edging plants in a line along a boundary. |
Because GardenCAD allows such fine control over raster
(pixel based) images (and allows you to control the stacking order of
layers), it is possible to add your own individual style to your designs.
In the figure below, we have picked up a detail for the proposed water
feature and placed it on a watermark layer at the back of the design.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used to
attach a background image to a plan. |
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Combining images with design work in
GardenCAD. Click
here
to view a PDF print of this design. |
You can use GardenCAD to produce small detailed designs.
the figure below shows a complex paving design for an area 4 meters by 3
meters.
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Design for a tiled
paving area. the white lines a set out guides and not part of
the design. |
In many different disciplines, the advent of computers
has radically changed the way professionals work; this includes the
field of garden design. Most construction managers and (increasingly)
clients, now expect that drawings describing design work will be created
using some type of CAD software. They also assume that the work
will be delivered in both printed and electronic format. In most
design professions, work on
paper drawings alone is no longer acceptable.
While we would accept that this reliance on CAD software
is not yet the case where all garden design is concerned, you are likely
to receive commissions from more sophisticated clients. These clients
might well have used other professionals such as engineers, planners and
architects to design for them. There may well be an expectation that you
should prepare garden plans based on base maps constructed using CAD
software. If you cannot use CAD, you may well find that these
commissions are denied to you if you cannot work with other
professionals in the digital world. GardenCAD
lets you work with others!
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used to work
on an architectural plan. |
One of the more difficult things to
manage in garden design is your plant list. The symbols in GardenCAD
enable you to store non graphic information such as species name and
common name with the symbol.
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows how GardenCAD can be used to
store non graphic information behind symbols used in your design. |
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Click
here to play a
movie which
shows GardenCAD being used for
other design work. You could (and should) use it to create a CAD version
of your logo. |
The figure below shows
one example of the type of plan you can produce with
GardenCAD. This is a
relatively simple design, but the complexity of your designs is limited only
by your imagination.
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A simple design
for a courtyard generated using GardenCAD.
If you would like to see the plan as it may appear in the
hands of a client, click on the
image itself. The design will open in Adobe's Acrobat reader
- a free software tool commonly found installed on computers
in common use. We hope that this
showcases the capability of GardenCAD. Note that we have not yet
added text, nor a logo to the design. |
A GardenCAD design can
be printed to any size sheet and retain high resolution. Pixilation does
not occur as you increase the size of the print.
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Printing the design
from GardenCAD to PDF (Acrobat Reader) format. |
We take you on a journey showing how
GardenCAD might be used. We install
the program, explain how the program works, examine the drawing
interface, the draw and edit commands, set up several sites ranging from
an outdoor class room to a rear garden for a courtyard home and a large
design for some public open space. We add some construction details, some planting
and finally print the design.
The series of modules which we will
work through is listed below.
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Module Title |
Description |
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Introduction (this module) |
About
GardenCAD. Some simple designs showing
the accurate placement of lines using the software. Using plant symbols from the
GardenCAD library. Placing raster images
(digital photos) into GardenCAD designs
to help convey design ideas. Re-arranging
the layer stacking order to improve design layout.
Previewing and printing designs on different size presentation sheets. |
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Sample Designs |
Showcasing some sample
plans - GardenCAD designs produced by
some early users of
the program and incorporated into the program so that you can practice
on real jobs before building your own. |
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Tutorial |
Learn GardenCAD by example. We create a
complete garden design from scratch. It is a real job - we lay out a
design for the back garden of a house in Canberra, Australian Capitol
Territory. |
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The GardenCAD interface |
Examining the way in
which GardenCAD works. The drawing
editor, drop down menus, the coordinate system used by
GardenCAD. Drawing lines of defined
length using Cartesian coordinates. Using Polar coordinates. |
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Using drafting aids |
Setting and using a user
defined grid, applying polar tracking and adjusting entity snap
settings in GardenCAD drawings. |
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The draw commands |
A quick look at many of
GardenCAD's draw
commands. Using polar tracking. The LINE, ARC, CIRCLE, POLYLINE, POINT,
ELLIPSE, POLYGON, MULTI LINES, TEXT, RECTANGLE, HATCH, insert BLOCK,
insert RASTER. |
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Editing commands |
Editing in
GardenCAD -
using the Move, Copy, Explode, Mirror commands. |
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Using plant symbols |
Planting symbols have a
major influence over the
look and a feel to your designs. Here we examine the in-built plant symbols
available in
GardenCAD. In a later module, we show how to
create symbols of your own. Each symbol has been carefully built using
layers. We show how from one drawing, several different drawings can be generated,
simply by turning layers on or off. |
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Using layers |
From one drawing (model)
many drawings can be generated, one for the client, one for the
construction team, one for council submission etc. |
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Printing GardenCAD drawings |
An overview of printing
a
GardenCAD design. Simple printing from model space,
choosing a suitable drawing sheet, installing a PDF writer, printing to
fit. Preparing pages for printing from paper space. Creating several
paper space pages. Preparing a page for printing at a defined scale e.g.
a 1-1000 plot on an Iso A1 sheet. |
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Case Study 1 |
Using
GardenCAD to
create a design for a courtyard home. |
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Case Study 2 |
Using
GardenCAD to
create a design for a school teaching garden. |
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Case Study 3 |
Using
GardenCAD to
create a design a public space. |
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Case Study 4 |
Using
GardenCAD to
create a design for some intricate paving. |
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Gallery of student
drawings |
Survey some drawings
created using GardenCAD. |
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Printing GardenCAD
drawings |
Installing a PDF writer,
printing a drawing to a plotter,
printing a drawing (GardenCAD file) to a PDF
writer, , Taking a PDF file to a copy centre. |
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Download Sample
Files |
Download
GardenCAD sample files. |
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Installing GardenCAD |
How to download and install
GardenCAD. Configuring GardenCAD in your computer. |
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Installing GardenCAD from CD-ROM |
Click
here to install GardenCAD on your computer. |
Please review your knowledge of the material in this
module before progressing to the next stage.
If you are taking this
course by CD-ROM based learning, click the back button on your browser.
If you are taking this course by broadband earning, click the Resources
link at the top of the page.
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