LANDWorksCAD® v.6 Stand-Alone Software

Professional Landscape Design Software

Getting Started Tutorial

(Metric Edition)

CAD International

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IntroductionWelcome to the world of LANDWorksCAD®, the most versatile and easy-to-use professional Landscape program available.

LANDWorksCAD® is available as stand-alone software that includes RealCAD general purpose CAD software as its core. You can alternatively purchase LANDWorksCAD® as a plug-in application for other CAD software such as AutoCAD® or BricsCAD® etc.

This tutorial uses the stand-alone version that includes RealCAD. It is intended to provide you with an introduction to the features and power of LANDWorksCAD®. We hope you find it helpful and fun to use.

We know you are keen to start and may even want to jump ahead but, let’s spend a few minutes on the basics:

The LANDWorksCAD Screen Layout

Start LANDWorksCAD. Your screen will look like Fig 1 below.

Fig 1

The small window in the middle of the screen entitled ‘LANDWorksCAD’ is called a “Startup menu”. It’s displayed every time you start LANDWorksCAD. Be sure to read the “Did You Know” section for some tips on how to best use the software. You can read more tips by clicking on the “Previous Tip” and “Next Tip” buttons. Each time you start LANDWorksCAD a different tip will randomly be displayed.

The buttons on the right hand side of the menu should be fairly self-explanatory:

Open Existing Drawing –select a CAD file that you have drawn previously. Start New Drawing –start a completely new drawing from scratch. Open Template Drawing – open a special drawing called a ‘Template’. Templates are simply

drawings that have been set up for specific applications, e.g. architectural, engineering, landscaping, etc. Obviously, in your case, you would choose a landscaping template. In a template, scales, line-styles, values, etc, have been pre-set for the appropriate application. There may even be a title block or some lines and text already in the drawing.

Play Video Manual – short learning videos to help you with the basics of LANDWorksCAD. Getting Started Tutorial – opens this document that you are reading now.

Visit Web Site –takes you to the LANDWorksCAD website

The “Recent Files” box lists the last 9 drawings you worked on. Selecting a name from the list opens that drawing immediately.

Always show this dialog tick box - un-ticking it to prevent this dialog from appearing in the future. If you want to have the startup menu displayed again, select Options, System from the drop down menu and tick the “Show startup dialog” option.

Start-up Menu

Close - closes the startup menu. The ESC key also closes the menu.

OK, now you know what the startup menu does, let’s get going with LANDWorksCAD. For now, please click on “Start New Drawing” to start. Your screen should look like Fig 2.

Fig 2

NOTE: If your screen does not show the LANDWorksCAD menu please do the following:

1. Click on the Tools menu 2. Click Load Application from the drop down menu 3. Click on LANDWorksCAD in the dialog box that appears 4. Click on OK

The LANDWorksCAD menu should now appear. It may not appear in the same position as shown above, but it can be moved anywhere on the screen.

To ensure the LANDWorksCAD menu always appears in the future, do the following:

1. Click on the File menu 2. Click on Save Options

Click OK in the dialog box that appears after a few seconds.

Prompt

Coordinates Bar Interrupt Toolbar Main Toolbar Title Bar

Click Status Quick Toolbar Style Bar

LANDWorksCAD Menu

Background Crosshair

Work Plane Icon

Drawing Window

Menu Bar

Now let’s look at the screen.

It may look a little daunting at first with icons and words all over the place, yet it won’t take long to get used to it. You’ll find it’s all very logically laid out when you start using it… just like driving a car really.

Starting from the top, you can see the following:

Title Bar – shows the name of the software, LANDWorksCAD, followed by the name of the open file. (As you have only just started LANDWorksCAD, the file has no name and is thus labelled “untitled”). The abbreviations that follow indicate the current drawing settings. These will be explained later in the tutorial.

Menu Bar – drop-down menus such as File, Edit, Transform, etc. just like any other program.

Main Toolbar – icon commands for drawing and editing. These are called the primary operations.

Interrupt Toolbar – this contains icon commands that allow the primary operation to be interrupted so that additional functions, such as zooming (second icon on top row), are made available making the primary operation easier to perform.

Coordinates Bar – this contains spaces (fields) to enter distances and angles or X, Y and Z coordinates from your keyboard. You will use this when drawing accurately. You can also ‘lock’ distances and angles to assist in inserting and editing entities. The Padlock icons show as locked or unlocked.

Prompt – lets you know what input is expected from you. The prompt changes as you work. The colour of the prompt also changes depending on what you are doing. ALWAYS LOOK AT THE PROMPT!!!!!

Drawing Window – this is where you create your drawing. Multiple drawing windows (views) can be opened as desired.

The title bar of each view displays the view name, zoom value and plot scale (print scale)

NOTE: The white space in the drawing window does not represent a piece of paper. Rather it represents a small part of an infinite space in which we can draw.

There is no limit to the size of what you can draw. Everything is to be drawn at real-size and then scaled to fit onto whatever size paper you want.

Workplane Icon – indicate the X and Y directions. Where X and Y meet is known as ‘absolute zero’ or ‘the origin’ and is often a good place to begin a drawing.

Crosshair – moves with your mouse movement and is also known as the crosshair cursor.

LANDWorksCAD Menu – contains the commands specific to landscape architecture and design.

Background – is where you display your drawing windows. You can’t draw on the background. The background area is always white whilst the drawing windows can be any colour you desire.

Style Bar – this is where you set or change the basic properties of the entities you are inserting.

Quick Toolbar – provides quick access to the Delete, Repaint, Undo, Redo and Grid commands.

Click Status – reports how you just clicked; either DIG, SNAP or ENT-LOC is displayed.

Conventions Used in This Tutorial

It is HIGHLY recommended that you use a quality mouse with a roller wheel on top. For this tutorial it is assumed you are using such a mouse.

You may need to select two icons, one top and one bottom, to activate a command as shown in Fig 3.

Fig 3

Certain terms are used repeatedly when explaining the steps in this tutorial. To save space, they are defined below. Please be sure you understand these terms.

Term Action Required

Select Left click once

Click Left click once

Right-Click Right click once

Double-Click Left click twice in quick succession

Drag Click and hold down the button or roller wheel (you’ll be told which) whilst moving the actual mouse

Snap Crosshair shows as a SQUARE then click

Locate Crosshair appears as a DIAMOND then Click

Tick/Un-tick Click in the tick box to toggle a tick on or off

Type Key-in the text using the keyboard

Enter Press the “Enter” key on the keyboard

Shift+ Hold down the “Shift” Key – used with other functions. Eg Shift + Drag

Ctrl+ Hold down the “Ctrl” key on the keyboard – used with other functions eg. Ctrl + Drag

Alt+ Hold down the “Alt” key on the keyboard – used with other functions eg. Alt + Z = Zoom

LH / RH Left hand / right hand Table 1

RELAX If you make mistake, it can be fixed!

We have tried our best to make the instructions in this tutorial as clear and easy to read as possible, and yet you may make mistakes occasionally. Fortunately LANDWorksCAD has 2 methods of recovering from mistakes.

The ‘Esc’ key

Look at the top LH corner of your keyboard; you will see a key labelled ‘Esc’. This stands for Escape. Pressing this key stops the current command without completing it. (It does not undo your mistakes – see below). It has no effect once you have completed the command. So, if you’re following the instructions in this tutorial or you’re in the middle of a command and you make a mistake or get confused, simply press the Esc key to stop the command at that point. You can then go back and re-do the steps in the tutorial.

Undo

Even more powerful than the Esc key is the ability to “Undo” whatever you have done. If you have made a mistake – drawn the wrong thing or put something in the wrong position, even deleted something by mistake – the Undo command will reverse your steps and your mistake will disappear!

The Undo command can be found in the Quick Toolbar at the bottom of the screen as shown in Fig 4 below. You can Undo as many times as you like.

Fig 4 (Ctrl + Z also performs an Undo)

The arrow next to the Undo command is the Redo command. If you Undo a command because you think you made a mistake, but then realise it was correct in the first place, the Redo command does the command again for you. You can use the Undo and Redo commands repeatedly.

Well, that should be enough basics to get you going. Let’s move on and start the real tutorial.

……… and remember to enjoy yourself!!!!!!

Simple exercises to show how things workOK, let’s spend some time getting familiar with the workings of LANDWorksCAD as we have been discussing.

Move your cursor around the screen. You’ll see the crosshair in the drawing window and a small arrow in the toolbar and menu areas. As you pass your cursor over the icons on any of the toolbars, note how the Prompt Bar displays the appropriate command prompts.

Holding your cursor over any icon for a short time, without pressing a mouse button, will also display a small box with the same command prompt words described above. This is known as a “tool tip”.

We’ll now work with LANDWorksCAD, just a bit, to get used to it.

Drawing Lines and Circles

To create something in a CAD system such as LANDWorksCAD you have to draw it. As a quick demonstration we’ll draw a few lines and circles to see how it is done.

1. Select the Line Commands icon from the top row of the Main Toolbar, followed by the Insert Line icon from the bottom row as shown in Fig 5 (LH group of icons).

Fig 5 2. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the start of the line”.

3. Position your crosshair towards the bottom LH corner of the drawing window and click. Don’t go too close to the corner; you need to leave some space for later work

4. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the end of the line”.

5. Move your crosshair towards the middle of the drawing window. As you move it a line will appear, stretching between the point you just clicked and the crosshair.

6. Move the crosshair around the screen, but don’t click yet. Notice how the line continues to stretch and follow the crosshair? This is called “rubber-banding”. If you happen to move your crosshair out of the drawing window, the rubber-band will disappear as the arrow cursor appears, but it will re-appear when you move back into the drawing window.

7. Notice also the constantly changing number that appears next to your crosshair. This number shows the distance the crosshair has moved from the last point selected. It’s referred to as “distance tracking” and can be used simply as a guide to how far it is between points or to draw accurately in conjunction with other options in LANDWorksCAD, eg, the grid. More on this in other tutorials.

8. Without trying to draw a perfectly straight line, position your crosshair towards the top LH corner of the drawing window and click. Again, don’t go too close to the corner. A line will be drawn between the two points you clicked and another rubber-band will appear following the crosshair from the second point you clicked.

9. Move your crosshair across to the top RH corner of the drawing window and click. Again don’t try to be accurate or too straight.

10. Move your crosshair down to the bottom RH corner of the drawing window and click.

11. Now position your crosshair approximately over the middle of the first line you drew, but don’t click yet!

12. A small diamond should appear on the crosshair as shown in Fig 6. Still don’t click yet! This diamond indicates that LANDWorksCAD has “seen” the line and can use it in various ways if you want it to. This will be explored more in later tutorials.

Fig 6

13. Move your crosshair down along the line to the beginning of the line. Don’t worry if the diamond disappears, it means you’ve moved your crosshair slightly off the line. Just move the crosshair back over the line again.

14. When you get close to the end of the line the diamond will be replaced by a small square as shown in Fig 7. Still don’t click yet! This square indicates that LANDWorksCAD has “found” the very end point of the line.

Fig 7

15. Make sure the square is still showing on the crosshair and now you can click!

16. Notice how the rubber-band line jumped to meet the end of the first line you drew, even if you weren’t pointing right at the end of the line? This is known as “snapping” to the end of a line and later in this tutorial it will be referred to in this way, e.g. snap to the end of the line.

17. The rubber-band is still active, but we have finished drawing lines for now.

18. Right-click – this will terminate the current sequence of lines. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the start of the line”, allowing you to draw more lines if you wish.

19. Right-click again to terminate drawing lines completely. The Prompt Bar will revert to the standard prompt “Select command or entities”.

20. You should now have a really rough rectangle displayed in the drawing window. Let’s put a circle in the middle of it.

21. Select the Circle Commands icon from the top row of the Main Toolbar followed by the Insert Circle by centre and circumference icon from the bottom row as shown in Fig 8.

Fig 8 22. The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the centre of the circle”.

23. Position your crosshair approximately in the centre of the rectangle, click and then move your crosshair away a little bit, but don’t click again just yet.

24. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select a point on the circumference of the circle” and you will see a rubber-band circle attached to your crosshair.

25. Move your crosshair until your circle looks about the same size as the circle in Fig 9 and then click. The circle will be drawn.

The Distance Tracking number has been removed from the image for clarity.

Fig 9

26. Don’t worry if your rectangle and circle don’t look exactly like these; remember, you’re just “playing” at the moment.

27. The circle command is still active, so insert a few more circles of different sizes inside the rectangle – move your crosshair to various positions and then click, move your crosshair and click again. Try putting circles within circles. Put about 6 circles in.

28. Don’t right-click yet; we haven’t finished putting in circles.

29. Now let’s try to be more accurate in our placement of a circle.

30. Move your crosshair to the top LH corner of the rectangle until the small snapping square appears and then click. It doesn’t matter which line you are closest to as they meet at the same end point.

31. The centre of the circle will be inserted exactly at the corner point. That’s the whole point of “snapping” – to be accurate. Move your crosshair and click again when you’re happy with the size of the circle.

32. Try inserting circles on the other three corners of your rectangle.

33. When you have finished inserting circles, right-click to terminate the circle command.

Zooming and Scrolling

One of the difficulties with CAD software is that you are often trying to draw an object that is much larger than the screen on which it is to be displayed, e.g. a house and surrounding gardens. To solve this, you are able to “zoom in” on an object to make it look larger on the screen or “zoom out” from an object to make it look smaller on the screen, or “scroll” sideways to see a part of the drawing that’s off the screen. It must be stressed that zooming DOES NOT change the physical size of the object, it just makes it look bigger or smaller, in the same way that a zoom lens on a camera can make objects appear larger or smaller to suit the photographer. Similarly scrolling DOES NOT physically move or re-position the entities you have drawn. Rather, it is like flying over the entities at a constant height. You are the one moving around, although it looks like the entities are being moved

Using these zooming and scrolling techniques, it is possible to view any part of your drawing at almost any scale you want. You can enlarge a really small object to work on it more easily or you can “step back” from a large object to get an overall feel for its size.

Let’s have a closer look at the circle you inserted at the top LH corner of your rectangle by “zooming” and “scrolling”.

If you’re using a mouse that DOES NOT have a roller wheel, please jump forward to the section titled “Zooming and scrolling without a mouse roller wheel” on page Error! Bookmark not defined..

Zooming and scrolling with a mouse roller wheel

1. Move your crosshair so it is roughly in the middle of the top LH circle. (don’t worry if the diamond or square appear on your crosshair, they’re ignored when zooming)

2. Roll your mouse roller wheel slowly towards you. The circle will move towards you; you are “zooming in”.

3. Continue to roll the mouse wheel until part of the circle disappears from the drawing window and then stop rolling the wheel. It doesn’t matter if the LH part, the top part, or both disappear.

4. Now roll the mouse wheel away from you. The circle will move away from you; you are “zooming out”.

5. Roll the wheel, either toward or away from you, until the rectangle and all circles are visible in the drawing area again.

6. Now we’ll “scroll” around the drawing, i.e. move sideways, without zooming in or out.

7. Move your crosshair to the centre of the drawing window.

8. Now, press and hold down the mouse wheel. Don’t let go until instructed to do so.

9. While holding down the mouse wheel, move the mouse towards the right of the drawing window. Don’t let go of the mouse wheel yet!

10. The entire drawing is moved sideways; part of it may even disappear from the drawing window, but this doesn’t matter.

11. Keep holding down the mouse wheel and move your mouse around the drawing window to see how you can “scroll” in any direction.

12. Release the mouse wheel when you’ve had enough scrolling. It doesn’t matter where your rectangle and circles end up; we’ll control them with some more zooming in a moment.

13. Notice how both these operations, zooming and scrolling, were performed without selecting a command. With LANDWorksCAD, moving around your drawing is really quick and efficient.

14. There are times when you want to “step back” and see your entire drawing displayed in the drawing window. To do this, instead of zooming out and panning around, possibly a number of times, you can simply select the Zoom fit entities to window icon from the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 10. Do this now.

Fig 10

15. There are more zoom commands available, but that will do for now. We’ll explore the others later in the tutorial.

Please jump to the section titled “Zooming during the rest of this tutorial” on page 16.

Zooming and scrolling without a mouse roller wheel

1. Select the Zoom Commands icon from the top row of the Interrupt Toolbar, followed by the Zoom in using window icon from the bottom row as shown in Fig 11.

Fig 11 2. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Locate the corner of the zoom window” and the crosshair

changes to the shape of a magnifying glass, i.e. .

3. Position your magnifying glass above and to the left of the circle, as shown in Fig 12, and click. The dot in the centre of the magnifying glass will define the start of your zoom window that you will see in a minute.

Fig 12

4. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Locate the opposite corner of the zoom window”.

5. Move your magnifying glass diagonally down and to the right; an elastic rectangle will be dragged with it.

6. Move your mouse until the rectangle looks approximately like the one shown in Fig 13 and click again.

Fig 13

7. The area enclosed by the rectangle you defined has now been enlarged to fill the screen. This is known as “zooming in” and this is only one method; there are others, which we’ll explore later.

8. The Prompt Bar prompts you again to “Locate the corner of the zoom window” – allowing you to zoom in even further, enlarging the objects even more, if you wish. We won’t do that now, so right-click to terminate the zoom in command.

9. Don’t worry if the circle doesn’t look perfectly smooth after you zoom in. This is easily fixed although we won’t do it just now.

10. To “zoom out” and see all of your drawing again, select the Zoom and View previous icon from the bottom row of the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 14. Notice you don’t have to first select the Zoom Commands icon from the top row as it is already selected.

Fig 14

11. Now we’ll “scroll” around the drawing, i.e. move sideways, without zooming in or out. Select the Zoom scroll icon from the bottom row of the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 15.

Fig 15

12. The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Locate the start of the scroll direction – Press control or drag to start dynamic scroll” and the crosshair changes to the shape of a magnifying glass

again, i.e. .

13. Position your magnifying glass roughly in the middle of the top left circle on the screen, but don’t click yet.

14. Press the left mouse button down and keep it pressed down.

15. While holding down the left mouse button, move your mouse towards the centre of the screen. Don’t let go of the button yet.

16. The entire drawing is moved sideways; part of it may even disappear from the drawing window, but this doesn’t matter.

17. Keep holding down the mouse button and move your mouse around the drawing window to see how you can “scroll” in any direction you want to.

18. Release the mouse wheel when you’ve had enough scrolling. It doesn’t matter where your rectangle and circles end up; we’ll control them with some more zooming in a moment.

19. This is how you “scroll”, i.e. move around the drawing without zooming in or out. With LANDWorksCAD, moving around your drawing is really quick and efficient.

20. The Zoom scroll command is still active – the Prompt Bar is still prompting you to “Locate the start of the scroll direction – Press control or drag to start dynamic scroll”, so right-click to terminate it.

21. There are times when you want to “step back” and see your entire drawing displayed in the drawing window. To do this, instead of working backwards though your previous zoomed views and possibly panning around, you can simply select the Zoom fit entities to window icon from the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 16. Do this now.

Fig 16

22. You may not see a big change in the display depending on where you left you drawing after scrolling.

23. There are more zoom commands available, but that will do for now. We’ll explore the others later in the tutorial.

Zooming during the rest of this tutorial

During the rest of this tutorial, rather than explain in detail how to zoom in and out and how to scroll every time you need to do so, we’ll simply say “zoom in to ……” or “zoom back to the previous view” or “zoom fit to see everything” or “scroll to the left”; statements like that, and you can choose whichever technique from the preceding sections suits you best. It might be a good idea to bookmark the section for ease of reference until you have mastered zooming and scrolling. We will, of course, provide hints during the tutorial; we won’t leave you completely stranded.

To end this tutorial and clear the drawing area, select File, New from the Menu Bar.

The dialog box shown in Fig 17 will be displayed.

Fig 17

Click on “No” – we don’t want to save what we have drawn at this time.

The LANDWorksCAD screen will revert to how it looked when we first started.

Practical Hands-On TutorialThe aim of this tutorial is to draw a plan similar to that shown in Fig 18. In creating this drawing you will learn how to:

1. Start with a template file that has been previously set up for you.

2. Save the template file as your own drawing.

3. Draw the property. 4. Draw the house outline. 5. Draw the simple rectangular patio.

6. Draw the driveway and straight path.

7. Draw some simple straight steps.

8. Draw the curved path. 9. Hatch the house outline. 10. Draw curved garden edging.

11. Insert existing trees and plants.

12. Label and size the existing trees and plants.

13. Insert a schedule for the existing trees and plants.

14. Insert proposed trees and plants.

15. Label the proposed trees and plants.

16. Insert a legend for the proposed trees and plants.

17. Update the legend. 18. Add some other figures. 19. Add a title sheet to the drawing.

20. Add text to the drawing. 21. Save the drawing. 22. Print the drawing.

Fig 18 Items such as labels and text have been left off this image for clarity.

A copy of this drawing plan showing the dimensions used throughout the tutorial can be found in Appendix 2.

Within the steps listed above you will learn to control the colour, layer, style and weight of the objects you draw. These properties will be explained during the tutorial. You will also learn how to “edit” the objects, i.e. move, copy, stretch, trim, break, etc.

The approach taken is a holistic one, i.e. rather than learning all about inserting lines by just playing with lines, in this tutorial you will learn to insert and control lines by drawing a property boundary and the outline of a house; rather than learning how to edit lines by experimenting with the different edit options, you will edit the lines using the appropriate option as and when you need to.

So, let’s go!

Start with template file that has been previously setup for you

1.Select File, New from Template from the menu.

2.Select the LWTute01.cad file. The Preview window won’t show anything because nothing has been drawn yet.

3.Click on the Open button to confirm your selection.

4.Your screen should then look like Fig 19.

Fig 19

A template file is simply a drawing that has been created and saved, often with nothing drawn in it, but all properties and parameters, such as colours, scales, grids, default angles, etc, set appropriately. You can create as many template files as you need.

Save the template file as your own drawing

It is always a good idea when starting a new drawing from a template to save it immediately. The template is only a starting point and you will lose your drawing if something happens to your computer and your drawing does not have a name to save to.

1.Select File, Save as from the menu.

2.Choose the ~My Drawings folder in the LANDWorksCAD-v5 folder and enter a name for the drawing. You can use whatever name you want really, but a suggestion for now is to add your initials to the end of the template name. For example, if your name was John Smith the drawing name would become LWTute01_JS.

3.Click on the Save button to confirm your drawing name.

4.Look at the Title Bar – your new drawing name is displayed there now, with a “.cad” extension, which is LANDWorksCAD’ way of identifying its files. You don’t have to worry about adding the .cad extension manually; LANDWorksCAD does it automatically for you.

5.While we’re saving, lets set up LANDWorksCAD to automatically save the drawing every 10 minutes. This will reduce the possibility of losing work you have done.

6.Select Options, System from the menu.

7.The dialog box shown in Fig 20 will be displayed.

Fig 20

8.Set the Auto Save options as shown and then click OK. The options may already be set, which is fine; at least now you know how to turn on Auto save.

Draw the property/lot boundary

We’ll use some simple line commands to draw the lines of the property (lot) boundary, but we must first select the correct colour, layer, style and weight for the lines. It is a bit like selecting the correct pen or pencil when drawing by hand.

It should be mentioned here that if you are supplied with a paper copy of the property boundary lines and/or

house outline, this could be scanned into LANDWorksCAD and traced over or simply used as a background

reference image. This tutorial does not cover this, but later ones do.

Colour

LANDWorksCAD has 256 active colours you can choose to draw with. The main reason for using colour is that it makes it easier to identify and select different elements of the drawing.

Layer

Think of a layers as perfectly transparent pieces of tracing paper numbered 0 – 1023. (These can also be named) All the layers are stacked on top of each other to form a drawing. Only one of these layers can be on top of the stack at any one time and this is known as the active layer. Anything you draw is always drawn on the active layer. Any layer can be made the active layer at any time. Layers can also be turned off at any time, thus temporarily hiding the objects drawn on them.

Layers can be used to group related objects together, e.g. you might put all the plants on one layer, and concrete on another layer. You can then turn off the plants layer whenever you want if you just need to work on the concrete for a while without seeing the plants.

Style

The solid, dashed or dotted appearance of lines etc are referred to in CAD as Styles. LANDWorksCAD has 256 styles to choose from and any of them can be modified to suit your needs. Six have been pre-defined for you.

Weight

The weight is the width or thickness of the lines from 0mm to 3mm. 0mm equates to the thinnest possible line that can be printed on your printer.

Warning: There are some printers that don’t print lines that have a thickness of 0mm. They read the 0 literally and print nothing!

LANDWorksCAD has an easy way of controlling these four properties, called Style Sets. A Style Set is a named combination of these properties, e.g. in this tutorial there is a Style Set named Boundary which has the colour set to 150 (khaki brown), the layer to 1, the style to 0 (solid) and the weight to 0.1mm. By selecting a Style Set, the four properties are automatically set for you.

OK, enough of the theory, let’s draw some lines!

9.To set the line properties, select the Default/Change Style Set list box from the Style Bar as shown in Fig 21. You can click anywhere in the list box.

Fig 21

10. A list of existing Style Sets will be displayed as shown in Fig 22. Select the Style Set named “Boundary” from the drop-down box as shown.

Fig 22

The Style Bar now displays the properties of the Boundary Style Set, as shown in Fig 23, including an image of a line that has those properties. The RealCAD Title Bar also displays the properties at its RH end, i.e. “Col 150 Lay 1 Sty 0 Wei 0.10”.

Fig 23

11. Select the Insert Line icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 24.

Fig 24

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the start of the line”.

We’ll draw the boundary starting from the bottom LH corner and we’ll place this corner at the position on the screen known as “absolute zero” or “the origin”, which is indicated by the workplane icon. This is a common way of starting drawings as it gives a known point of reference.

12. To do this, make sure all the fields in the Coordinates Bar are set to 0.00 (zero) as shown in Fig 25 (they will be because the template has been set up for you) and simply press Enter.

Fig 25

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the end of the line”.

13. Move your crosshair across the screen. As you move it a line will appear, stretching between the origin point you just selected and the crosshair. This is the “rubber-banding” we explained earlier in the tutorial.

If you were to click now (don’t!) you would draw a line, but you wouldn’t have any control over the length or angle of the line. You could move your crosshair across to the right from the origin until the Distance Tracking indicated approximately 20,000, which is the length of the line, but it still wouldn’t be accurate enough. To have control and accuracy for the lines we draw we type coordinates instead. LANDWorksCAD has three coordinate systems that can be used:

Cartesian: uses horizontal (X), vertical (Y) and height (Z)

Cylindrical: uses distance (D), angle (A) and height (Z)

Mapping: uses bearing (B), length (L) and height (Z)

These coordinate systems can be used interchangeably.

For this tutorial we’ll ignore the Z coordinate because we are only drawing in 2D.

We’ll start with the horizontal line and we’ll use the Mapping coordinate system.

14. Press B on the keyboard and then look at the Coordinates Bar. The X, Y, Z coordinates that were displayed before have been replaced by B, L, Z for mapping as shown in Fig 26.

Fig 26

For this horizontal line the bearing is 90° and the length is 20,000mm (20m).

15. Type 90 for the bearing.

16. Type a space (using the spacebar) – this moves the focus to the L coordinate box as shown in Fig 27.

Fig 27

17. Type 20000 for the length of the line.

18. Press Enter and the line is drawn.

You’re probably thinking it seems a lot of work just to define a line, but with only a little practice you’ll find coordinate entry quick, easy, accurate and efficient.

The Prompt Bar still prompts you to “Select the end of the line” - so you can immediately draw the vertical line.

The vertical line has a bearing of 0° and a length of 42,000mm (42m).

19. To draw the vertical line, type the following while watching the Coordinates Bar carefully:

B 0 space 42000 Enter (Note: the “0” is a zero)

The Prompt Bar still prompts you to “Select the end of the line” - so you can draw the next line.

The back line has a bearing of 250° and a length of 26,000mm (26m).

20. To draw the back line, type the following:

B 250 space 26000 Enter

To draw the LH line we can simply “snap” to the beginning of the horizontal line…

21. Move your crosshair over the LH end of the horizontal line until a small square appears (not a diamond) as shown in Fig 28. (the line is shown very thick here to make it easier to see)

Fig 28

22. When you see the square, click.

The last line will be drawn connecting exactly to the beginning of the first line.

23. Right click to terminate drawing that sequence of lines.

Draw the house outline

OK, now we’ve got the site boundary in place, let’s draw the outline of the house, ensuring it is correctly positioned on the property.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the start of the line”, but first we’ll set the line properties.

24. Select the Default/Change Style Set list box as shown in Fig 29 and select the House Style Set from the list displayed.

Fig 29

The bottom LH corner of the house is 2m from the LH property boundary and 6m back from the front property boundary. We can define this point easily using an offset construction and we’ll use XY coordinates to draw the house outline.

25. To use an offset construction, select the Locate an offset point icon from the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 30.

Fig 30

The dialog box shown in Fig 31 will be displayed, allowing you to choose whether you want to offset from one or two entities and how far the offset(s) are.

Fig 31

26. Tick the two “Fix Distance” boxes; enter the distances shown in Fig 31 and click OK.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the first offset entity”.

The first distance you entered was 6000, so the first entity to locate is the front boundary line.

27. To “Locate” the front boundary line, move your crosshair over the line until you see a diamond (not a square) and then click. It doesn’t matter where along the line you locate it.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Locate the second offset entity”.

28. Locate the LH property boundary.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Locate the intersection position”.

29. Don’t click your mouse button yet, but move your crosshair around the screen a little. Depending on where your crosshair is, you will see one of four possible intersection points, indicated by a small “+” sign where the two moving guide-lines intersect. We didn’t tell LANDWorksCAD on which side of the entities the offsets were to occur so, with two lines each having two sides to choose from, there are four possible answers.

30. Move your crosshair around until the intersecting lines look like Fig 32 and then click.

Fig 32

31. The dialog box shown in Fig 31 will be redisplayed in case you want to end the line using the offset construction, but we don’t so select the Cancel button.

A rubber band line will now be attached to your crosshair, starting at the offset point defined, as shown in Fig 33. (your Distance Tracking number may be different to this one – it’s not critical)

Fig 33

32. To draw the bottom, horizontal line of the house outline type:

X 6000 Enter

To draw the remaining lines of the house, type the following sequence:

Y 4000 Enter X 10000 Enter Y 8000 Enter X -4000 Enter (note the minus sign)

Y 4000 Enter X -12000 Enter (note the minus sign

Y -16000 Enter (note the minus sign)

The minus signs are required to ensure the line is drawn in the desired opposite direction. A positive value draws a line in direction of the Workplane arrows shown by Fig 34. Negative values draw the lines in the reverse direction.

Fig 34

33. Right click to terminate drawing the house outline.

The house outline should be complete and positioned correctly on the property. Fig 35.

Fig 35

Now we’ll draw the patio, steps, paths and driveway, starting with the patio…

Draw the simple rectangular patio

The Prompt Bar is prompting you to “Select the start of the line”, but first we’ll set the line properties again.

34. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon as shown in Fig 36 and then select the Paving Style Set from the list displayed.

Fig 36

LANDWorksCAD has a number of options that allow us to accurately control the position and placement of objects. We’ll use one of these now to start the horizontal patio line in the correct position, 1000mm back from the front of the house.

35. Select the Locate along a reference entity icon from the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 37.

Fig 37

The dialog box shown in Fig 38 will be displayed, allowing you to choose how far along a line you wish to start.

Fig 38

36. Set the distance as shown and then click OK.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the reference entity”.

37. Locate the vertical line of the house towards its bottom end but not right on the end. Fig 39.

Fig 39

38. The dialog box shown in Fig 38 will be displayed again to allow you to define the end of the line you are drawing in the same way, but we don’t want to do that so simply click Cancel.

39. Move your crosshair around the screen. You will notice the rubber-banding of the line you are drawing starting from the point you just defined.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the end of the line”.

We’ll type in coordinates now to ensure accuracy.

40. Type the following: X 6000 Enter

This draws a horizontal line 6000mm (6m) long to the right.

41. And now type: Y 3000 Enter

This draws a vertical line 3000mm (3m) going up.

The patio’s done – easy eh? It should look like Fig 40.

Fig 40

42. Right-click to terminate this sequence of lines.

43. Right-click again to terminate drawing freehand lines.

This was one of several ways we could have drawn the patio lines. You will find there is always more than one way to draw using CAD. We’ll use some other techniques to draw the paths and driveway.

Draw the driveway and straight path

It may seem a strange way of doing things, but we’ll just draw the RH driveway line and the LH path line to start with. Stay with it; it’ll make sense as you do it all.

The RH driveway line is offset 300mm in from the edge of the house and goes down to meet the boundary line. We’ll use a vertical line and the technique in step 35 in the previous section to draw this line.

44. Select the Insert vertical line icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 41.

Fig 41

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the start of the vertical line”.

45. Select the Locate along a reference entity icon from the Interrupt Toolbar as shown in Fig 37.

46. Set the distance to 300 in the dialog box that appears and click OK.

47. Locate line A towards its RH end as indicated. (A diamond not a square on your cursor please)

48. Cancel the dialog box that re-appears.

49. Move your crosshair around the screen. This time the rubber-band only moves vertically because we are drawing a vertical line and the new line starts 300mm from the end of the selected line.

50. Locate the bottom, horizontal boundary line B.

The RH line of the driveway is drawn.

Now we’ll draw the LH line of the straight path.

51. Snap to the bottom of line as shown by C.

52. Locate the bottom, horizontal boundary line again as indicated by the B.

The LH line of the path is drawn and your drawing should look like Fig 42.

Fig 42

Rather than draw the next lines the same way, we’ll “offset” the lines we have already drawn. This is an easy way of copying a line at a specified distance away.

53. Right-click to terminate drawing vertical lines.

A

B

C

D E

54. We’ll start with the driveway – locate the driveway line now, indicated by the D in Fig 42.

Notice it now appears dotted? This indicates that it is selected and any subsequent commands will work only on this line.

55. Select the Offset entities by a given distance icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 43.

Fig 43

The dialog box shown in Fig 44 will be displayed, allowing you to choose how far from the selected line you want to offset the new line.

Fig 44

56. The driveway is 3400mm wide so enter that amount into the Offset distance box as shown and then click OK.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the position of the offset profile, from the selected entity”. This basically means “which side of the line do you want the copy?”

57. Position your crosshair so it is anywhere to the LEFT of the dotted line and click.

The other driveway line will appear.

58. The Prompt Bar still prompts you to “Select the position of the offset profile, from the selected entity” so we could continue to repeatedly offset the line we selected, but we want to offset the path line now instead, so right-click to terminate the current offset sequence.

59. Locate the path line that we drew earlier, indicated by the E in Fig 42.

60. Select the Offset entities by a given distance icon from the Main Toolbar again, but set the Offset distance (the path width) to 1500 this time.

61. Position your crosshair so it is anywhere to the RIGHT of the dotted line and click.

The other path line will appear. You’ll notice it doesn’t reach the patio, but we can “trim/extend” it to meet.

62. Right-click to terminate the Offset command.

63. Right-click again to de-select the dotted path line.

Your drawing should look like Fig 45.

Fig 45

64. Select the Trim entity to another entity icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 46.

Fig 46

It may sound funny to use a “Trim” command for this, but Trimming in LANDWorksCAD really means altering the length of an entity; it can lengthen or shorten an entity. (trim or extend)

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the entity to trim”.

65. Locate the RH path line you have just drawn anywhere above its centre as indicated by the F in Fig 45. The line will appear grey and dotted to indicate it is selected.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the intersecting entity or the position to trim to”.

66. Locate anywhere along the horizontal line G of the patio. (diamond cursor)

The path line is extended to meet the patio line.

67. Right-click to terminate the trim command.

F

G

Draw some simple straight steps

We’ll draw the steps now, but first let’s zoom in to make life easier.

Remember how to zoom in? See the instructions that start on page 12 for full details, but for now position your crosshair roughly in the middle of the bottom boundary line and roll the wheel towards you until the patio area is bigger on the screen. Don’t zoom in too far.

The bottom step goes from the edge of the house across to the path and is a horizontal line.

68. Select the Insert horizontal line icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 47.

Fig 47

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the start of the horizontal line”.

69. Snap to the end of line A (shown in Fig 45)

70. Locate anywhere along the RH path line B.

71. Right-click to terminate drawing horizontal lines; there’s an even easier way of putting the rest of the steps in.

Your drawing should look like Fig 48. You may not see both boundary lines depending on how you zoomed in.

Fig 48

72. Locate the step line you just drew.

73. Select the Translate (Copy) entities icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 49.

Fig 49

The Translate (Copy) Options dialog box shown in Fig 50 will be displayed.

A

B

Fig 50

74. We need 3 more lines spaced 250mm apart going up the screen (in the Y direction) so set the fields as shown here then click OK.

Three more lines will appear, completing the steps.

75. Right-click to de-select the dotted step line.

Your drawing should look like Fig 51.

Fig 51

Draw the curved path

Now for the curved path. We’ll create this without using quite as much accuracy as the path and driveway to show how you can draw something so it “looks right” rather than based purely on coordinates. We’ll be drawing 1 arc and then offsetting it so at least the width of the path is accurate.

76. Select the Insert Arc by start, circumference and end points icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 52.

Fig 52

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the start of the arc”.

77. Click approximately where the point labelled 1 is shown in Fig 53.

Fig 53

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select a point on the circumference of the arc”.

78. Click approximately where the point labelled 2 is shown in Fig 53.

As you move your crosshair now you will see a curved rubber-band.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the end of the arc”.

79. Click approximately where the point labelled 3 is shown in Fig 53.

The arc will be drawn and should look similar to Fig 54. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look exactly the same. The idea here was to put in a path that “looks right” and that is up to you.

1 2

3

Fig 54

80. The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the start of the arc” allowing you to draw more arcs if you wish, but we’ll create the other side of the path by offsetting the arc we just drew, so right-click to terminate the command.

81. Locate the arc you just drew – it will appear dotted.

82. Select the Offset entities by a given distance icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 55.

Fig 55

The dialog box shown in Fig 56 will be displayed, allowing you to choose how far from the selected arc you want to offset the new arc.

Fig 56

83. The path is 1500mm wide so enter 1500 into the Offset distance box and then click OK.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the position of the offset profile, from the selected entity”. This means “which side of the arc do you want the copy?”

84. Position your crosshair so it is BELOW the dotted arc and click.

The arc defining the other side of the path will appear.

85. The Prompt Bar remains the same, meaning we could continue to offset the arc, but we’ve finished for now, so right-click to terminate the current offset.

86. Right-click again to de-select the dotted arc.

Your path should look similar to Fig 57.

Fig 57

Obviously it looks a little messy at the moment, but we can tidy it up easily by trimming again.

LANDWorksCAD has a fantastic tool called the “Magic Eraser”, which makes trimming and deleting linear entities amazingly quick and easy. By “linear entities” we mean lines, arcs, circles and curves. The Magic Eraser works as follows – when no command is active, ie, the prompt displays “Select command or entities”, hold down the ALT key, then hold down your LEFT mouse button and drag the crosshair over the entities to be deleted and/or trimmed. Your crosshair will change shape to look like a pencil with an eraser on the end and as it moves across the screen it displays a temporary tracking path. Any entity the eraser crosses will be deleted or trimmed, as appropriate – if the entity is not crossed by any other entity, it is deleted; if the entity is crossed by another entity or entities, the part of the entity crossed by the Magic Eraser is trimmed. We’ll use this technique to tidy up the paths.

87. Using the Magic Eraser technique described above, drag your crosshair over the RH ends of the arcs you just drew, as indicated by the wiggly line in Fig 58 below. It doesn’t matter whether you drag from top to bottom or vice versa. The end sections of the arcs will be trimmed back to the LH driveway line.

Fig 58

88. Use the Magic Eraser to trim the LH ends of the arcs. Remember, if you make a mistake simply click the Undo icon at the bottom of the screen.

Your path should now look similar to Fig 59.

Fig 59

Now we can use the Magic Eraser to tidy up where the curved path meets the straight path and driveway.

89. Using the Magic Eraser technique, drag your crosshair across the driveway and straight path lines as shown in Fig 60 below.

Fig 60

90. The sections of driveway and straight path between the 2 arcs will be trimmed, making the path look much neater. Your drawing should look similar to Fig 61.

Fig 61

91. In creating this curved path we positioned it purely by eye. The only accuracy involved was defining the width of the path. We could have positioned the first arc with far more accuracy if we wished by defining the centre of the arc using coordinates. The point to be made here is that LANDWorksCAD can be as accurate or free-form as you want it to be.

Let’s zoom out so we can see the whole drawing again.

92. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon from the toolbar as shown in Fig 62.

Fig 62

Hatch the house outline

Now we’ll hatch the house outline, but first we’ll set the line properties again.

93. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon as shown in Fig 63 and then select the Hatching Style Set from the list displayed.

Fig 63

94. Select the Insert plane by interior position icon from the tool bar as show in Fig 64.

Fig 64

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the interior of the polygon to fill”.

95. Click anywhere inside the house outline.

Your house should now look like Fig 65.

Fig 65

The hatching you see here was predefined as part of the original file you opened to start this tutorial. LANDWorksCAD contains many other predefined patterns and you also have the ability to define your own patterns.

It may seem that it’s taken a fair while to get the house, etc in place, but with experience and practice this will become much easier and faster….just like driving a car.

Draw curved garden edging

So now let’s work on the garden. The idea is that you are designing a new backyard for your client. There’s not much there at the moment, but you’re about to wave your magical designer’s wand!

We’ll start by putting in the proposed garden edging using a freeform curve. Then we’ll insert some symbols to represent the existing vegetation. Finally we’ll insert some more realistic looking symbols for the proposed vegetation.

As usual, we’ll set the line properties first.

96. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon as shown in Fig 63 above and then select the Gardens Style Set from the list displayed.

97. Select the Insert curve icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 66.

Fig 66

98. The Curve Insert dialog box will appear allowing you to set the “Curve degree”. For now we’ll just leave it at the default setting of 2. Select OK to continue.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the start of the curve”.

We’ll be putting in a curve that roughly follows the points shown in Fig 67 below. We say “roughly” because it is not critical exactly where the garden edge is. Feel free to experiment a bit if you wish.

99. Click roughly where each point is shown in Fig 67 going from left to right. A curve will be inserted, following the points you insert.

Fig 67

100. After you’ve clicked on the last position, right-click to terminate the command.

Your finished garden edging should look something like that shown in Fig 68 – allowing for your possible creative experimentation!

Fig 68

The ends of the curves are obviously too long, so we’ll trim them back to meet the boundary lines.

101. Using the Magic Eraser technique drag your crosshair over the two end sections of the curve that extend past the boundary lines, as shown in Fig 69 below.

Fig 69

Your curve should now look similar to that shown in Fig 70 below.

Fig 70

Hmmm, looks pretty good, but not quite right. The bulge indicated by the red ellipse in Fig 71 should be deeper; more like Fig 72.

Fig 71

Fig 72

We can achieve this, without having to redraw the whole garden edge, by moving the curve’s “control points”.

102. Locate the garden edge curve – anywhere along it is fine. The curve’s control points (or ‘handles’) will appear, as shown in Fig 73.

Fig 73

103. Locate the point indicated by the number 1 in Fig 73.

104. Click and drag your crosshair – you’ll find the point you just located follows your crosshair and drags a section of the curve with it, allowing you to see how the shape of the curve will be changed. Release the mouse button when you are happy with the shape.

105. The command is still active; so repeat for the points numbered 2 and 3.

106. Right-click to terminate the command when you’ve moved the third point.

107. The curve may look a bit dotted once the control points are turned off. To refresh the screen, select the Repaint windows icon from the Quick Toolbar at the bottom of the screen as shown in Fig 74.

Fig 74

The resultant garden edging should look similar to that shown. It doesn’t matter if it’s not exactly the same; you’re just playing and learning at this stage. The idea is that you know you don’t have to necessarily redraw things. They can simply be edited.

OK, now it’s time to put in some existing trees…

Insert existing trees and plants

We’ll put in some figures to represent the trees and plants that exist in the backyard at the moment. Some of the trees are to be removed, some are to be retained. We’ll then label them and produce a schedule of existing plants. Please note – this tutorial does not cover inserting concept plants.

First though, as ever, we’ll set the line properties.

108. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon and then select the Vegetation-existing Style Set from the list displayed.

109. Now select the Insert Existing Plant icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

The dialog box similar to that shown in Fig 75 will be displayed. There may be a slight delay before it appears as LANDWorksCAD connects for the first time to its Excel database of plants.

Fig 75

This dialog box lists all the plants that have been defined in the “Existing Plants” section of the LANDWorksCAD Excel database of plants.

The area at the top of the dialog box, called Selected Items, is where you select the plant you want from the list.

The buttons below the Selected Items list let you work with the database from within LANDWorksCAD. See manual for details on how this works.

110. Try selecting a plant from the list to see what they look like.

The Insert Figure section of the dialog box lets you insert the selected plant in several different ways. 1 Point, 2 Points, Scale 2 Points

The Replace button allows you to replace an existing figure on the drawing with one you select from the list. More on this later.

The Cancel button is, hopefully self-evident; clicking this button closes the dialog box without anything being done, no matter what you might have clicked on to that point.

We’ll be putting in four plants as shown in Fig 76 (the numbers are for identification purposes only).

Fig 76

111. The first three plants to be inserted are actually going to be removed as part of the new garden design, so select the first plant in the list, the one with the description that says “remove”, and then click the ‘1 Point’ button.

An image of the plant will be attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the position to place the plant”.

112. Position your plant approximately where the item labelled 1 is shown in Fig 76 and click your left mouse button to insert it. It doesn’t matter if it’s not in the exact position shown and don’t worry about the size of the plants, this will be adjusted later.

113. The image of the plant remains attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Bar still prompts you to “Locate the position to place the plant” so insert two more plants where the items labelled 2 and 3 are shown.

114. The fourth tree will be retained in the new garden design, so right click to stop inserting plants.

115. Select the Insert Existing Plant icon again from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

116. This time select the second plant in the list, the one with the description that says “retain”, click the ‘1 Point’ button and insert the plant where the item labelled 4 is shown in Fig 76.

117. Right-click to stop inserting plants.

Now we’ll correctly identify, label and resize size these existing trees.

Label and size the existing trees and plants

118. Select the Label Existing Plant icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

The dialog box shown in Fig 77 will be displayed.

Fig 77

119. Enter the information shown here. The Botanical Name, Label item using and Status information can be selected from their drop down boxes. The Item Name is automatically generated. All other information needs to be typed in. You can press the Tab key to move from field to field.

Brief explanations of the options in this dialog box are given below:

Botanical Name lets you identify the existing plant by its Botanical name. Label item using lets you choose which property of the plant is used to actually label it, eg,

you could label it with its common name for a copy of the drawing that’s going to the client. In this case we’re using the Botanical name. The items in this list are taken from the LANDWorksCAD database.

Item Name lists the value of the property selected in the Label item using box. It can be edited if required.

Label Prefix defines a prefix to help identify the plants, eg, if you have a number of Banksia ericifolia, you could set the prefix to ‘Be’ and they would be labelled Be1, Be2, etc. The prefix can be up to 256 characters long. Text Size lets you define the size of the text used to label the plants. If Scale text by the plot scale is ticked, the size entered is multiplied by the drawing’s plot scale so it can be seen on screen. If Scale text by the plot scale is not ticked, you must determine how big the text needs to be to be visible on the screen.

Trunk Diameter is the actual, measured diameter of the plant’s trunk. Height is the actual, measured height of the plant. Spread is the actual, measured diameter of the plant’s foliage. This value will be used to

resize the figure so it is the correct size on the screen. Status 1 & 2 let you select some common conditions of plants. Comments let you add additional information to the drawing.

120. Press OK to continue.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the figure to label”.

121. Locate figure 1. It will turn grey and the text label “T1” will be attached to your crosshair.

The Prompt Bar now prompts you to “Select the position of the label”.

122. Click roughly in the middle of the figure.

The figure will be re-sized based on the “spread” value entered in the dialog box, the label T1 will be inserted where you indicated and the dialog box will be re-displayed.

123. Repeat the process for the other figures, with the information shown in Table 2.

If you make a mistake at any stage, cancel from the dialog box and “Undo” what you have done. You will have to select the Undo icon a number of times to completely undo the resizing and labelling because there is a lot of work going on “behind the scenes”. Just watch the screen until the figure is back to its original size.

Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Botanical

Name Lagerstroemia indica

Lagerstroemia indica

Ceratopetalum gummiferum

Label Item Using

Botanical name

Botanical name

Botanical name

Item Name Lagerstroemia indica

Lagerstroemia indica

Ceratopetalum gummiferum

Label Prefix

T T T

Text Size 5 5 5 Trunk

Diameter 400 400 200

Height 15000 15000 5000 Spread 10000 10000 4000 Status 1 Remove Remove Retain Status 2 Comments Scale text

by plot scale

Table 2

124. Cancel the dialog box when it re-appears after the fourth figure. This will terminate the command.

Your screen should look similar to Fig 78. Notice how the figures have been resized to match the “spread” value and the labels have been inserted.

Fig 78

Having labelled the existing plants, we can now automatically create and insert an Existing Plant Schedule.

Insert schedule for the existing trees and plants

125. Select the Existing Plant Schedule icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

The dialog box shown in Fig 79 will be displayed.

Fig 79

126. Leave the heading as it is, change the Table Size to 500 as shown and make sure all the boxes are ticked. Hopefully these options are self-explanatory – you can choose whether or not you want this information included in the schedule.

127. Press OK to continue.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the position of the tree schedule”.

128. We’ll need to zoom out slightly because we’re going to place the schedule below the bottom boundary line so point your crosshair roughly in the middle of the house and roll the mouse wheel away from you until your drawing is about half the size.

129. Click about 5mm below the bottom LH corner of the boundary lines. The point you are locating is the top LH corner of the schedule.

A list of the existing plants with their relevant information will be inserted into your drawing. This is the “schedule”, but it’s probably too small to read so let’s zoom in and have a look at it.

130. Point your crosshair roughly in the middle of the schedule text and roll the mouse wheel towards you until you can read the text.

You should be able to read the text now, as shown in Fig 80 and you can see that it is the information you entered for the Label Existing Plant command earlier.

Fig 80

OK, now let’s put in some new proposed trees and plants into the drawing.

Insert proposed trees and plants

First we’ll zoom back so we can see the whole property.

131. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon from the Interrupt Toolbar. It’s one on the bottom row of Error! Reference source not found. above. Move your cursor over each icon until you find it.

Let’s set the line properties as usual.

132. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon (look back at Fig 63 if you’ve forgotten how) and then select the Vegetation-proposed Style Set from the dialog box that is displayed.

133. To insert proposed plant, select the Insert Proposed Plant icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

The dialog box shown in Fig 81 will be displayed.

Fig 81

The area at the top of the dialog box, called Selected Items, lets you select the plant you want to insert into your drawing. This list is obtained from the LANDWorksCAD database spread sheet called LANDWorksCADPlantDatabase.xls.

134. Click once anywhere in the row of the plant you want.

Preview images of the plant will be displayed in the six bottom right hand boxes. The images that are displayed will depend on what has been defined in your LANDWorksCAD database.

135. Select a few plants to see their preview images. Scroll down to see more plants and scroll sideways to see more information about the plants.

The buttons directly under the Selected Items list let you edit the database from within LANDWorksCAD. And the areas below that, called Palette and Search Field, let you search for plants based on certain criteria or combinations of criteria, e.g. a plant’s botanical name, a plant’s common name or even a minimum height. This is not covered in this Getting Started tutorial.

When you’re happy with the plant you have selected, you can insert it into your drawing in several different ways. These techniques are explained in detail in the manual that we encourage you to look at! The three most basic methods are explained here though.

The plant you selected is attached to your crosshair and is inserted where you click your mouse at the nominated or original size and rotation.

The plant you selected is attached to your crosshair and is inserted where you click your mouse at the nominated or original size. Move the mouse and a second click determines the rotation/orientation.

The plant you selected is attached to your crosshair and is inserted where you click your mouse. Move the mouse and a second click determines the rotation/orientation and size of the plant.

136. For now scroll through the list of plants and find one you like the look of. Click on the 1 Point option.

An image of the plant will appear attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Box prompts you to “Locate the position to place the plant”. The image is the one that was seen in the top LH preview box in the dialog box, but this can be changed later.

137. Position your plant somewhere in the back garden area and click to insert it. You may want to zoom in closer to the garden area first.

138. The image of the plant remains attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Bar still prompts you to “Locate the position to place the plant” so you can insert more than one of each plant if you want to. Insert a couple more.

139. Right-click when you’ve finished inserting that plant.

140. Select the Insert Proposed Plant icon again and choose another plant, but this time click the 2 Point option.

Like before, an image of the plant will appear attached to your crosshair, but this time the Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the centre of the plant”.

141. Click somewhere in the garden area to position your plant and then move your crosshair away to see what happens next.

142. You now have the ability to adjust the orientation of the plant. The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the outside of the plant”. Click again when you’re happy with its orientation.

143. As before, after you’ve inserted one plant, the plant image remains attached to your crosshair and you can insert more of that plant. Put some more in.

144. Right-click when you’ve finished inserting that plant.

145. Select the Insert Proposed Plant icon again and choose yet another plant, but this time click the Scale 2 Points button to insert it.

Like before, an image of the plant will appear attached to your crosshair, and the Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the centre of the plant”.

146. Click somewhere in the garden area to position your plant and then move your crosshair away to see what happens next.

You now have the ability to adjust both the orientation and the size of the plant.

147. Move your crosshair until you’re happy with the orientation and size of your plant and then click.

148. The command is still active, so put a few more of this plant in the back garden. Try using different orientations and sizes. Right-click to terminate the command when you’ve finished.

Your garden area might look something like Fig 82 when you’ve finished. Probably much better!

Fig 82

Currently the plants are displayed as “basic” figures, but they can be displayed as “detail” figures or as bitmap images. Exactly how they look depends on how they are defined in the LANDWorksCAD database.

149. Select the Plant Display Switching icon from the LANDWorksCAD menu.

The dialog box shown in Fig 83 will be displayed.

Fig 83

150. Click on the white dot next to “Show Detail Figures”, as shown and click OK.

The dialog box shown in Fig 84 will be displayed.

Fig 84

151. Click “Yes” and all the plants you have inserted as basic figures will be redisplayed as detail figures. Your garden area might look something like Fig 85.

Fig 85

Because we didn’t pre-select any plant figures, all plants were changed to Detail figures. If we select some plant figures before choosing the command, only those selected plants will be displayed as chosen.

We’ll change the display to bitmap images, but we’ll pre-select some plant figures so only they change.

Drag a selection window from position A to position B, as shown in Fig 86. By “drag a selection window” we mean place your crosshair at position A, hold down your left mouse button, drag your crosshair over to position B and then release your mouse button. The figures inside the selection rectangle will turn grey, indicating they have been selected.

Fig 86

152. Select the Plant Display Switching icon from the LANDWorksCAD menu, click on “Show Bitmap Images” and click OK. You won’t be asked if you want all plants modified this time.

153. Repaint the screen by selecting the Repaint Windows icon at the bottom of the screen as shown in Fig 87. This will ensure the screen display refreshes both the line work and the bitmap images.

Fig 87

Your garden area might now look something like Fig 88.

Fig 88

154. Select the Plant Display Switching icon from the LANDWorksCAD menu and select “Show Detail Figures” again. We’ll work in that mode from now on.

Label the proposed trees and plants

Now we’ll label the new plants, but of course we’ll set the line properties first as usual.

155. Select the Default/Change Style Set icon and then select the Text Style Set from the dialog box.

The labels will look similar to Fig 89.

Fig 89

156. You will be asked to select 3 points to define the label:

1. the Start of the leader (the lines) which is the tip of the arrowhead 2. the corner of the leader 3. the end of the leader

157. The thing to remember is that you define the points of the label moving away from the plant. If you make a mistake, simply right-click to terminate the command, select the Undo icon and then repeat the command.

158. Select the Label Proposed Plant icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

159. The dialog box shown in Fig 90 will be displayed

Fig 90

Explanations of all the options in this dialog box are given in the manual

160. Set the information as shown in Fig 90 and click OK. Because we haven’t selected any plants, Number of plants is set to 1.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the entity to label”.

161. Select a plant. Here we’re selecting the plant in the top RH corner. It will turn grey to indicate it has been selected.

162. Follow the prompts in the Prompt Bar to insert the label. It should look similar to Fig 91.

Fig 91

Note: to keep the leader line between points 2 and 3 horizontal, hold down the Shift key as you define point 3.

163. The command is still active, so label a couple more plants, but don’t label them all, we’ll try something slightly different next. When you’ve finished labelling plants, right-click to stop the command. Remember, if you make a mistake, simply right-click to terminate the command, then select the Undo icon and then repeat the command.

This time we’ll select some plants before running the command.

164. First select all the same plant species. To do this select the first plant, hold down the Shift key and select the other plants.

165. Now select the Label Proposed Plant icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar. The Number of Plants box shows you the number of plants you have pre-selected. This only works for plants that are the same species of course otherwise the labelling would be incorrect.

166. Click OK and draw the label from one of the plants.

The label is inserted and lines are drawn between each of the selected plants, indicating the label applies to them as well. These lines can be changed to any colour, style and weight that you prefer.

167. If there are any plants not yet labelled, label them now. Use either technique – a single plant or multiple plants. Remember to right-click to stop the command if you change techniques.

When all labels are in, your drawing might look something like Fig 92.

Fig 92

Insert legend for the proposed trees and plants

We can also insert a legend that describes the plants in more detail. It should be noted that you don’t have to label the plants and insert a legend; they are not dependent on each other. You can label the plants and/or insert a legend.

First of all we need to zoom out to give us room to place the legend.

168. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon (see if you can work out which one it is)

169. Then select the Zoom out icon and click in the middle of the house.

170. Right-click to terminate zooming.

171. Now select the Proposed Plant Legend icon from the LANDWorksCAD Toolbar.

172. The dialog box shown in Fig 93 will be displayed.

Fig 93

173. Brief explanations of the options in this dialog box follow:

Database Fields and Legend Fields lets you control what information about the plants is to be displayed in the legend. You can refer to the manual for details on setting these up to suit your needs.

Heading lets you enter a heading for the legend.

Group By lets you group the plants in the legend by a common factor, eg, here we are grouping plants by “Type”, so all shrubs will be listed together, all trees, all palms, etc.

Show Borders controls if the legend has lines surrounding it and between the columns and rows of data.

Show Relative Size controls whether the sample images of the plants that are shown in the legend are drawn at relative size or all at the same size.

Show Quantity controls if the quantity of each plant is included in the legend.

Show Quantity Last controls if the quantity of each plant is shown in the last column of the legend or the second column.

Table Size is an indication of the size of the legend on the screen. You may have to experiment to find the size that suits your drawing.

174. Set the options you desire and then click OK.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the position of the legend”.

175. Click approximately 5mm below the LH end of the Existing Plant Schedule.

176. The legend will be drawn. You may need to zoom in to read it – use the mouse wheel or the Zoom in icon until you can read it, as shown in Fig 94. Yours will probably look different to this one because you have inserted different plants with different quantities and different items in the Legend

Fig 94

Notice it shows the symbol used for the plant and all the information that was selected in Fig 93 above. Also, the plants have been grouped by their “Type”.

177. Note down the name and quantity of the first plant in the legend. We’ll do something with it in a moment.

178. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon so we can see the whole drawing again.

Update the legend

OK, the client decides they want another one of the plants that is first in the legend, but in the front garden. (I told you we’d do something with it soon) Rather than go through the standard insertion procedure, we can just copy one of the existing palms and then update the legend.

179. To copy the plant do the following steps:

a) point to the plant so that the selection diamond appears – don’t click or do anything else just yet

c) press down your left mouse button and keep holding it down – don’t let go until told to! d) press down one of the Ctrl keys on the keyboard and keep holding it down – again don’t let

go! e) move your mouse – an image of the plant will be attached to your crosshair. f) drag the plant to the front of the house, near the existing plant labelled T1. g) release the mouse button only when you are happy with the position h) now release the Ctrl key

This is one way of copying something in LANDWorksCAD. If you hadn’t held down the Ctrl key, you would have only moved the plant, not copied it.

Another way of copying is using the standard Windows “Copy and paste” method.

180. Select another plant from the garden.

181. Select Edit, Copy from the menu or select Ctrl + C on the keyboard if you know that technique.

The Prompt Bar prompts you to “Select the position to use as the origin of the copied entities”.

182. Click again roughly in the middle of the plant.

183. Select Edit, Paste from the menu or type Ctrl + V on the keyboard if you know that technique.

184. Click somewhere else in the garden, away from the plant you selected.

A copy of the plant will appear.

185. Either of these techniques is a valid way of copying entities in LANDWorksCAD; you just need to find which suits you best.

Now we have added some new plants, we need to update the legend.

186. To do this, simply repeat the process for inserting a Proposed Plant Legend as described in the previous section, however, when prompted to locate the position of the legend, snap to the top LH corner of the existing legend. The existing legend will be replaced by an up-to-date version.

187. Zoom in on the legend as you did before.

You will see that the quantities have been updated to account for the plants we copied.

188. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon so we can see the whole drawing again.

Add some other figures

LANDWorksCAD is not limited to just plants; it comes with a variety of other objects as well. As examples, let’s put in a rotary clothes-line and a car.

189. Select the Insert figure by origin and direction icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 95. This command works the same as the 2 Point technique for inserting plants you used previously; the first point you click positions the figure and the second point orientates it.

Fig 95

190. The dialog box shown in Fig 96 will be displayed. Locate the Furniture and Equipment folder (Usually in C:\Users\Public\LANDWorksCAD..\Figures\…)

191. Select the Clothes Line Rotary file and click the Open button.

Fig 96

An image of the clothes-line will be attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the position to place the figure”.

192. Position the clothes-line wherever you like in the yard. Click to insert it, move your crosshair around and click again to orientate it appropriately.

193. Right-click to terminate the command.

Now for the car…

194. Select the Insert figure by origin and direction icon again and select the Cars and Transport folder, then select your desired car from the list.

195. Insert and rotate the car into the driveway. Hold Shift to lock the rotation angles as you move your mouse around.

Almost there now – we’ll put a title sheet around the drawing to make it look better, add some text and then we can print the finished drawing.

Add title sheet to the drawing

We’ll insert one of the standard title sheets that are supplied with LANDWorksCAD.

First let’s zoom out a little so there’s room to work with the title sheet.

196. Select the Insert figure by origin point icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 97.

Fig 97

197. The dialog box shown in Fig 98 will be displayed and it will still be listing the files in the previously used folder. Browse back up the folder tree until you can see the Title-Sheets folder. (…C:\user\public\LANDWorksCAD..\Title-Sheets\..)

Fig 98

198. Select the Title-Sheets folder, scroll until you see the file called “Drawing Sheet A4V”. Click on it once to see a preview.

199. Set both the X Scale and Y Scale options to 200, as shown and then click Open.

200 is the “scale” of this tutorial drawing, i.e. the scale required to fit the drawing on to a vertical (portrait) A4 sheet of paper. In this example we are increasing the size of the sheet rather than decreasing the size of the drawing! This is the simplest way to fit your drawing to the paper but there are other ways not covered here.

200. An image of the title sheet, A4 size with Vertical orientation and scaled up to suit the drawing, will be attached to your crosshair. Position it so that it surrounds your beautiful drawing and click to insert it. It should look like….

It’s possible that all of your drawing may not fit inside the title sheet. This means you need to change the X and Y scale factors used when inserting the title sheet, but don’t concern yourself with this detail just now.

Add text to the drawing

201. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon so we can see the whole drawing again.

202. Select the Insert text by origin point icon from the Main Toolbar as shown in Fig 99.

Fig 99

203. The dialog box shown in Fig 100 will be displayed, allowing you to enter text.

Fig 100

204. Type in the word “Garden” as shown. Set the height to 5, then click OK.

The word Garden will be attached to your crosshair and the Prompt Bar prompts you to “Locate the position for the text”.

205. Position the text between the front of the patio and the curved path as shown in Fig 101 and click. The text will be inserted.

Fig 101

206. Right-click to stop inserting that particular piece of text.

207. Repeat steps 202 – 206 for the words “Lawn”, “House” and “Driveway” and position the text as shown in Fig 102. (The words are boxed for clarity)

Fig 102

You can also add text to your title sheet.

208. Zoom in to the bottom RH corner of the title sheet. This is where you add the text that is specific to the drawing. Notice that in this title sheet there are areas for the title or drawing number, who drew the drawing, the date it was drawn and the scale of the drawing. Your own title sheet may have more information on it.

209. Use the Insert text by origin point command to add the text shown in Fig 103, except use your initials and today’s date. Use a text height of 4mm.

Fig 103

210. Select the Zoom fit entities to window icon so we can see the whole drawing again.

Now to save and print the drawing.

Save the drawing

211. Select File, Save from the menu to update the drawing.

212. Your drawing has been automatically saved every 10 minutes because we turned on the “Auto Save” feature at the beginning of the tutorial, but it’s a good idea to get in the habit of manually saving your drawings as well

Note: In trial mode you can only save drawings with up to 100 entities in them.

Print the drawing

Now we’ll print the finished drawing.

213. First of all, we need to zoom out a bit to give us room to insert a paper border around the plan. This will make sense in a minute.

214. Select the Zoom out icon from the Interrupt Toolbar and click roughly in the middle of the house.

215. Right-click to stop zooming.

216. Select File, Print Preview, Selection from the menu.

217. The dialog box shown in Fig 104 will be displayed.

Fig 104

218. Enter the information as shown and then click OK. A4V refers to an A4 sheet of paper with vertical (portrait) orientation.

219. A dotted rectangle will appear attached to your crosshair. This rectangle represents an A4 sheet of paper scaled to suit the drawing.

220. Position the rectangle so that its corners meet the four corner points of the title sheet as shown in Fig 105 and click.

Fig 105

You will be shown your drawing in Print Preview mode. It should look like Fig 106.

Fig 106

221. If everything looks OK (and it should) click on the Print icon on the Toolbar as shown in Fig 107 and your drawing will be printed.

Fig 107

The icon lets you select and configure your printers properties.

The icon lets you change the scale at which the drawing will be printed, eg, to print an A3 drawing on to A4 paper for faxing. This icon also lets you select if the drawing will be printed in colour or black and white.

The icon close Print Preview mode and returns you to your drawing.

222. Click the icon when your drawing has printed.

223. To finish off, select the Zoom fit entities to window icon so we can see the whole drawing again and select File, Save from the menu.

224. That’s it; you’re finished – well done!!

Conclusion of the Getting Started TutorialThat concludes this Getting Started Tutorial for LANDWorksCAD standalone/ RealCAD version. We hope you enjoyed it.

LANDWorksCAD has great depth and ability. Not all the functions have been explored in this tutorial, but we hope it gives you an idea of what it can do.

It is recommended that you spend some time playing with the commands. Don't worry if the result is not what you expect first time and remember you can always UNDO!

There is a range of great Video tutorials available also. Just contact us to get a link to access the latest ones.

In addition to this tutorial, some users will find the RealCAD “Getting Started Tutorial” also very helpful as it explores functions of the core software not covered in this tutorial.

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©Copyright 2006 - 2013. LANDWorksCAD® and RealCAD™ are developed by CAD Australia Pty Limited. (T/A CAD International) All material contained in this tutorial is subject to international copyright laws and may not be copied or distributed without the prior permission.