Finally there’s product called “Landsoft TM” introduced in the landscape and irrigation marketplace to take some of the tedious work out of landscape design. Riding on top of a full design software package called “Autocad TM,” it can produce site plans, irrigation systems, planting plans, grading plans, cost estimates and flow charts. Landsoft and Autocad can run concurrently or separately. The packages contained in Landsoft are illustrative site graphics, site planning, landscape design and construction documents, irrigation design, takeoffs and cost estimating and flow charts. A breakdown of each follows:

1. ILLUSTRATIVE SITE GRAPHICS – By providing a n extensive library of graphic symbols the user can render many types of trees, shrubs, ground plant treatment (brick patterns and lawn covers) and site elements (autos, boulders, people, picnic tables, benches, etc.). It even has the ability to create tree shadows and crown diameter. If any symbol is placed in the wrong location it can easily be moved in seconds to its proper place or completely deleted.
2. SITE PLANNING – In this module, with the use of parallel lines, the user can quickly create walkways, curbs, streets, walls and many other elements of a site plan Parking lots and stalls are a snap to design and at any angle. Also available are symbols for recreation facilities such as baseball, football and soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, tracks and others. Standard graphic symbols such as north arrows, graphic scales, arrowheads (for automatic dimensioning) and asterisks have been included for assistance.
3. LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS – Once generated, contour lines can be viewed in 3D from any angle From this design grading calculations for cut/fill and percent of slope can be performed. Groups of plants can be automatically counted and labeled. Plant names and container sizes can be changed during any design phase, either individually or globally.
4. IRRIGATION DESIGN – This module has the ability to design either sprinkler or drip irrigation systems. Through the use of the symbol library a designer can locate and place sprinklers, emitters, valves, laterals and mainlines. After selecting turf head and spray angle, the program will ask for spray radii, which can be turned on and off at will. Based on the GPM for sprinklers being used, the program will automatically size mainline and lateral pipes. It can also calculate the pressure loss and velocity for a single lateral or an entire system. There are commands that will hide pipe lines from view under sprinkler heads and show arcs where pipes cross over each other. At any time, conversion factors can be called up to determine spacing requirements, precipitation rates and pressure losses among other data.
5. TAKEOFFS AND COST ESTIMATING – One of the best on the market. Few if any in the PC environment will do linear takeoffs. This does. It also provides information about item descriptions, sizes, quantities and unit costs. Subtotals can be displayed for each subject and a grand total for all individual subtotals can be shown as well as area amounts. It will also take into account inflation costs and labor rate changes. This is an extremely powerful program and can be used regardless of the complexity or size of the drawing.
6. FLOW CHARTS – The entities for developing a flow chart are stores in the library, boxes, circles, triangles, squares and ellipses, which can be drawn at any size. Flow charts are very helpful for project management. For text management, different text fonts are available, such as bold face, freehand, simplex, italic and complex.

All in all, this program presents a major breakthrough for the landscape architect. For a long time it appeared as though the computer industry was going to pass this profession by. The functional design of this package simplifies and speeds up the process of creating designs and production drawings regardless of the number o revisions required. They are almost invited. As with most Cad programs redundant drawing is virtually eliminated. This program is a very valuable time saving tools that can create drawings of superior quality. The 3D renderings that can be generated for client evaluations is just incredible. With just a very basic idea the architect can in a few minutes, sitting with the client, develop a very clear and aesthetic 3D view of what that property is going to look like. Our company showed this program at the Landscape Industry Show, at the Long Beach Convention Center, and was clearly the hit of the show “Landsoft TM,” developed Landcadd, Inc., is located at 5435 Midvale Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85746. For further information about the sofware and dealer locations call (602) 578-0171.