Paul Saito, FASLA, has an appointment with a client for a design consultation. As he prepares to leave the office, he gathers his portfolio of materials, a list of completed projects and samples of preliminary plans, a portfolio of his work and a company brochure. Standard fare for an initial design presentation. Saito has been in business for more than a decade and is considered an experienced, reliable and creative designer. Until recently, Saito underwent a tedious but necessary process to convey design ideas, producing rough preliminary plans and sketches that were sometimes difficult for his clients to understand. Now, he presents his astonished clients with a variety of photo-realistic design concepts. More amazingly, he frequently delivers hardcopy ideas overnight. What sets Saito apart from his competitors is innovation and a new tool for Landscape Architects: image processing.

A new technology revolutionizing the way Landscape Architects and other designers present design ideas, this presentation medium combines the advanced processing capabilities of a computer with the simplicity of photography and video tape. Traditional hand-drawn elevations, sections and plan views can be combined with site photos. Photographs from a manufacturer’s catalog can be positioned within the context of an actual site. A visual computer database of hundreds of photographs can be saved in the computer and later manipulated in size and shape and rendered in thousands of colors. Imaging is redefining the way designers market their services, allowing an unprecedented flexibility to present a variety of concepts almost overnight. The client can enter into the design process in a way never before imagined to suggest revisions and changes.

Peter Jennings of ABC News calls image processing “a computerized crystal ball,” and Ann McDermott of CNN called it “a real boon...for people who have difficulty visualizing from blueprints and artistic renderings.” A sophisticated technical tool, it is surprisingly simple to learn and use.

What is Design Imaging?

A Landscape Architect contracted to produce a design idea for a residential project would, for example, go out to the site and record the property on video tape. Returning to the office, the output jack on the camera is plugged into a computer using a special adapter. Viewing the video on the computer screen, the designer selects and saves a view of the house to serve a background for the landscaping concept. The designer then chooses elements from a data base index and places lawn, groundcover, trees, shrubs, paving and other site amenities to build a final design. This final concept is then output as a hardcopy print or recorded back onto video, perhaps with a prerecorded portfolio of the designer’s work, or a narrated analysis of the prior site film. If, after reviewing the design, a client wants to substitute a design element, that element can be removed in seconds and replaced with a more appropriate material. In addition, new concepts can be created quickly to present a variety of ideas.

How it Works: Software and Imaging Board

The cornerstone of this new design capability is an integrated circuitry card called an image processing board. These videographic boards translate video tape (analog) input information to computer (digital) data. Once translated, the computer’s processing capabilities can manipulate this data in any way imaginable. A variety of imaging boards are available that function within the IBM and Macintosh computer environments. Boards can vary by the range of colors they can display and screen resolution. One of the most popular boards, the Targa 16, displays more than 32,000 colors at a resolution of 512 X 482.

Once you purchase an imaging board, a good software package is needed to manipulate the image data. Presently, few packages manage the information effectively for Landscape Architects. Nearly all available software products are devoid of working data bases, which forces the Landscape Architect to create his or her visual data base from scratch. This can be a time consuming, but ultimately rewarding, process.

If the Landscape Architect is pressed for time, there are alternatives. The imaging company that I am currently working with, New Image Industries of Canoga Park, California, offers more than 1,000 different design elements from its architectural library, available in five expandable volumes of 200 elements each. Promotional and advertising materials written specifically for Landscape Architects’ use and distribution also are available from New Image, as well as new botanical data libraries for specific regions of the United States. New volume databases for architecture and interior design also are under development.

Input and Output

Finished designs can be output to videotape or as hardcopy prints. Thermal film transfer printers are the preferred method of output for hardcopy. These new technology printers produce clean, photo-realistic copy at a relatively low price per unit. In order to circumvent the added cost of a printer, however, many users choose to shoot the computer screen with a tripod-mounted 35MM camera equipped with a cable release. The film can then be sent out for same-day developing and individual shots enlarged to the desired size.

Whatever the method of input and output, the benefits of imaging far outweigh the expense. The ability to import a variety of design elements, manipulate them in any way imaginable, add text and logos, and produce a myriad of visual designs are features that should convince even the most skeptical client.

CADD and Design Imaging

Landscape Architects who take advantage of CADD (computer-aided design and drafting) can not only produce clean & plans and quick revisions, but give photo-realistic presentations as well. Currently, Autocadd and Versacadd “DXF” type file & format wireframes can be translated into the Targa imaging format. Within a year, many more CADD formats will be addressed by a Targa file conversion software package. What this means to those who already own CADD systems is the ability to not only render CADD wireframes in more than 32,000 colors, but to add textures as well. Autocadd wireframe buildings, for example, can be rendered in brick, stone, concrete, wood or stucco. Landcadd sections can be created using actual trees, shrubs and groundcovers. Photos of site amenities can be taken directly from manufacturers’ literature and placed onto the site image. Perpendicular views of paving or wall surfaces can be placed into perspective to add depth. More complex presentations are being created using CADD’s 3-dimensional capabilities to “fly through” a project site, and choose a selection of viewpoints. These views can then be image processed to provide a photo-realistic look.

Image processing can be a good beginning for a Landscape Architect who is thinking about getting started with a computer. Unlike computer-aided drafting and design, which is essentially a production tool, image processing is used primarily as a presentation or sales tool. Because imaging can actually create design revenue rather than merely save production time, it can be an important consideration before moving to CADD. The necessary training time to learn imaging can be learned in hours. Some sophisticated CADD systems take weeks to learn.

Landscape Architects from across the country are beginning to take advantage of imaging capabilities to create realistic presentations. Blueprint elevations, xeroxed sketches and 35MM shots of foamcore models are being transferred onto site photos. Images can be projected onto a big screen and revised via live projection by city councils and zoning commissions. Homeowner associations can review planting, maintenance and signage guidelines quickly and easily. Manufacturers can show their product in place, as a service to designers. The vertical-market possibilities of imaging present Landscape Architects with a lucrative new format within which to network design consultations.

How is Imaging Marketed?

Because image processing is a presentation medium still in its infancy, standardized pricing has not been set for the industry. Although many designers from across the country are taking advantage of imaging, pricing varies widely according to client and market area. A fair pricing standard can be set by applying an hourly charge and carrying this out to image completion. Some designers assign a lump sum based on an estimation of the project’s complexity. Such factors as travel distance, complexity of the image, additional concepts and the types of output need to be taken into account. A comparison can be made to what a good sketch might cost to produce. Design imaging, however, is more realistic, can be revised and completed in a fraction of the time of traditional hand-drawn color graphics.

It is clear that image processing can increase the demand for design services and open up new markets for Landscape Architects

New Image’s client’s charges are as varied as the designs they create. One California landscape design/ build contractor charges $750 for a four-view set of front/back/sides on a common residential project. Another Landscape Architect in Florida contracts imaging at $100-250 per hour. Many contractors perform Imaging services at no obligation and later credit the imaging charges back to the client within an installation contract. Some designers actually perform the work as a subcontract to satisfy the presentation needs of realtors, developers or pool contractors. In many cases, these types of images can be tied to exclusive contracts for design/build work. It is now possible, for example, to image in a view of a model home or building elevation onto a future site, paint the structure in any combination of 32,000 colors and quickly add landscaping and site amenities to fit a specific budget.

Imaging and the ASLA

During the 1988 ASLA Convention in Seattle, the symposium “Seeing the Future,” a discussion on design imaging presented by Brian Orland of the University of Illinois became one of the most-attended lectures in ASLA history. The works of Gary Clay, (EDSA), the Soil & Water Conservation Service, Design Workshops, Dames & Moore and Ohio State University also were shown. Orland is one of the pioneering researchers in image processing for landscape architecture and his writings are available in back issues of Landscape Architecture magazine. Orland and Jot Carpenter of Ohio State University will present a panel discussion on ethics and image processing at the 1989 ASLA convention in Orlando. Look for a discussion on the new technology of still video as well. In addition, New Image Industries is sponsoring the noted environmental artist Tom Van Sant as the keynote speaker at the opening general assembly of the 1989 convention. Van Sant will discuss his experiences with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Van Sant’s work, “Eyes on Earth,” a montage of images that simulate an amazing fall through space toward earth, will be shown (Ed. note: Look for coverage in the December issue of LASN).

It is clear that image processing can increase the demand for design services and open up new markets for Landscape Architects. By taking advantage of this new computer medium, Landscape Architects can stimulate the demand for their services and provide the client with an amazing variety of realistic design ideas.

W. Alan Burke is a Design Imaging Consultant with New Image Industries, Inc., located in Canoga Park, California.