Landscape Special Interest Group July 2018 PM

In this session, we discussed libraries and plant databases.

Topics Covered:

• 00:05    To cover libraries, we began by discussing how to build a library out of the plants that you are using and to save them to your favorites. Generally, I save all of my favorite resources in one library file, but, today, we created a new Plant Library file. Vectorworks saves each plant as an individual file—which can be frustrating. We set up a hierarchy of plant folders—plants are symbols in Vectorworks, so you need to save plant resources in a Symbol Folder—with Plant Library Folder as the main folder and then subfolders such as Cacti Succulents, Trees, and Ground Cover. Now that we had our new favorites folders, we could drag and drop plants from an open landscape file into them. We made sure to add the Plant Library Folder to our favorites in the Resource Manager. The trick is to regularly save your favorite resources to the folder as you go along.
• 10:29    Someone had plant images that he wanted to save, and I wondered why we don’t use the Vectorworks Plant Database more. Images can be attached to a plant entry in the database. You can also paste images from a plant database into your file. After you resize the image how you want it, you can save it as a symbol—clicking Next Mouse Click for the Insertion Point and being consistent from symbol to symbol to make things easier on yourself—and put it in a new Plant Images folder. We went through the steps for making sure the photos were uniform in size. If the layout on your drawing requires the same spacing between images, you can include that space as part of the symbol. If you often need to lay out plant images for projects, you could have plant images all laid out in a template file and simply use the Replace command to exchange the template images for the images required by your current project. Adding tags to images can make them easier to find. Little by little, you save up the resources that you need, making each job much easier on yourself.
• 31:15    We covered an easy way to add a number to a photo, as well as how to use the Number Stamp tool. You can give a Number Stamp various shapes and it has a background so that it shows up easily. You can restart the sequence by opening up the tool preferences and inputting the new number that you want to start from.
• 38:03    Many people store things in the User folder—but the folder can be difficult to find and the subfolder hierarchy can make it difficult to put a new symbol in the correct folder. The beauty of the User folder is that there is a Templates subfolder that is never lost when you update Vectorworks. But, similarly, because you’ve saved your library folder to your Favorites, it will never get removed either. In the past, I would try to organize my favorite resources in the Vectorworks Libraries folders, but I’ve come to realize that it’s easier to just put all of my resources in one library file—that way, everything is in one place. The important thing is that you follow a system that works for you—a system where you’re saving your useful resources regularly! We also discussed the difference between an object—whether a rectangle, a 3D object or a plug-in object such as a door—and a symbol. There are lots of little tricks for working with symbols, such as having a planter symbol that already has a plant in it—it may be the wrong plant, but you can easily replace it with the correct one without having to look around for it. Other objects that you might want to store in your library are things that help your client connect emotionally to the visual of your projects, such as a cup of coffee, a newspaper, paintings, and furniture.

Landscape July 2018 pm
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