VectorWorks Offers Landscape Architects "Landmark" Software
VectorWorks Landmark 12 offers GIS and mapping integration, is hailed as the “Swiss army knife of CAS software programs” by Landscape Journal.

In October of last year, Nametschek North America released the latest version of its VectorWorks software suite, VectorWorks 12, and with the release improved upon its VectorWorks Landmark program that combines traditional CAD tools with real-world landscape components. (The company is now offering a free upgrade to version 12.0.1.) The software allows users to quickly sketch ideas with its 2-D drawing tools and then rework, refine, and document their designs with plants, walls, and other landscape objects. These objects can then be edited and will automatically display correctly in 2-D and 3-D views. The software also includes VectorWorks Smart Cursor™ technology, which can replace manual drafting tools, making it easy to find snap points, offsets, and tangents, as well as draw precisely and quickly. Here are some of the other features included in VectorWorks Landmark 12:

VectorWorks Landmark allows users to control line weights as well as add color, patterns, hatches, and even gradient fills to their designs. (Image courtesy of Nametschek North America.)

Mapping and GIS
Users can import maps and aerial photographs, scan in site data, and import or export GIS maps and data. With support for Shapefiles (.SHP files), users can import georeferenced maps and map data directly into their drawings. They can use these maps as they are or use the drawing, modeling, and graphics capabilities within the software to enhance them. SHP export allows maps created in VectorWorks Landmark to be shared with colleagues using other GIS and mapping programs.

Site modeling and analysis
The software includes tools to create 3-D terrain models and 2-D contour maps of a site. Site sculpting tools allow users to create grading plans and perform cut and fill calculations. Users can subdivide large parcels of land and then add improvements such as roads, paths, building pads, and retaining walls.

Free-form 3-D modeling
VectorWorks Landmark is the only landscape design program that offers free-form NURBS modeling tools, which allow users to extrude or sweep 2-D shapes to create 3-D objects, or model directly in 3-D to create massing models and urban studies, as well as create unique landscape elements.

Plan creation
A suite of 2-D drawing tools and landscaping, irrigation, and site design objects allow users to lay out plans, elevations, and detail drawings. Users can import or scan in base plans from architects or engineers, or use the property line or site modeling tools in the software to define a site’s boundaries. In addition, a suite of architecture tools allows users to document existing buildings and add new architectural elements. Users can also use the place plant tool within VectorWorks Landmark to place plants at exact spacing intervals or in groupings. A hardscape tool allows users to create patterned walkways and areas, and a freehand tool allows users to draw organic shapes for beds and water features. The software also includes landscape, site object, and detail libraries.

2-D illustration capabilities
VectorWorks Landmark allows users to control line weights as well as add color, patterns, hatches, and even gradient fills to their designs. Sketch rendering technology also allows users to turn hard-lined drawings into soft, hand-sketched illustrations. The software can import digital images into designs or graphics created in Photoshop to use as backgrounds or to illustrate design ideas.

Plant database
The software ships with an editable database of more than 1,200 plants, and allows users to create plant definitions or import plant records from existing databases.

Cost and material tracking
Built-in database and worksheet features allow users to track costs and materials associated with their design and easily generate plant lists, irrigation reports, and schedules. Because drawings and data are linked, any changes to a drawing will automatically be updated in the report.

Training manual
Earlier this year, New Zealand architect Jonathan Pickup, an experienced third-party VectorWorks author, released a new training manual for Vectorworks Landmark 12, which is designed to facilitate a smooth introduction to the software.

VectorWorks Landscape Tutorial 12 is designed to build upon a beginner’s knowledge of VectorWorks. The exercise-based manual instructs learners on importing a site plan, adding plants, scheduling plants, calculating hardscape areas, creating 3-D site models and 3-D buildings, and creating 3-D designs for presentation purposes. Other topics include setting up layer and class standards, drawing complex site plans, dealing with walls and roofs, creating an office library, annotation, and customizing VectorWorks.

Used by ASLA Professional Award winners
VectorWorks Landmark has proven itself within the landscape architecture profession with academics and professionals alike. In an extensive review for the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture’s Landscape Journal, Madis Pihlak, ASLA, Associate Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Penn State University, calls Landmark “the Swiss army knife of professional CAD software programs.” He notes that the software is “simple and logical to learn and that it is “difficult to be constructively critical of a capable CAD software program such as Landmark.”

In the field, Landmark scored two big wins this year when Los Angeles firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios won an ASLA General Design Award of Honor for its Chess Park Project in the city of Glendale, California, and Florida firm Morris Architects won an ASLA Analysis and Planning Award of Honor for its Parque Amazônia, in Belém, Pará, Amazônia, Brazil. Both firms used the Landmark software extensively in the planning and presentation of the projects.