Vectorworks?

vectorworks can do accurate 3d drawings of terrain?

Try Rhinoceros, if you know auto cad its really easy to pick up. You can make splines using topographical data imported as a .dwg into the program and loft or sweep your way to making your terrain.

I'm not really familiar with it at all, but I think Vue would be the killer app for Landscape Arch. It is made for plants and terrain so there must be something in there that can create accurate terrain.

I myself am a Rhino fan, but you'll have a tough time when it's time to add plants. If Vue fails in the accurate modeling of terrain I know it is pretty easy to get a Rhino file into Vue. and terrain can be a one button affair once you've got all your curves at the proper elevations.

thanks for the tips. I've been playing around with vue a little more in the past day. It works quite well and makes nice renderings. The terrain editing tools are pretty weakly developed.

We might try generating sandbox terrain in sketchup and importing that in a series terrains, but sketchup isn't all that great either.

I'll try playing with rhino to see how that works. Is there a set of actual terrain editing tools in rhino?

There aren't any tools specific to terrain, but Rhino is a surface modeler so it is very flexible. I typically use the "patch" or the "surface from a network of curves" tools to create my topo, then go back in and trim out roads, sidewalks etc. Once you have that I'd export back to Vue for rendering and plants.

Im not familiar w/ the programs listed above...but I have used revit to create fairly accurate toposurfaces. If you have a points file either in autocad or excel, you can import it into revit and w/ in 5 mins have a complete toposurface!...from there you might be able to import that file into rhino or the other programs.
-Like ive said the programs listed above could be 10 times better than revit for what you are trying to do.

just to confuse the issue, vectorworks can in fact do not only toposurfaces in the same way that the others do (surfaces, mesh, nurbs based lofts, etc) but it can also import and export .shp files which can be to some benefit on your type of project.

these are not features that i use, but i know they're available from seeing them in training seminars and what-not. in fact, you might be able to find some .shp files of the area you are talking about by searching through many of the available shapefile resources and libraries.

i find VW to be an extremely quick and intuitive modeling application, though it leaves much to be desired in the rendering department. maybe export at that point to artlantis, etc

Rhinoceros ^ the flamingo plants are nice procedural plants

Thanks for the continued replies.

I may try the vectorworks route and then export for rendering purposes. The issue is that we really need to be able to design AND modify the terrain simultensouly, and fewer conversions we need the better. It would be pretty helpful to export the topo back into a shapefile so we can make new rasters to use in some hydrologic modeling we're doing.

As you can see, it's a little bit of a headache

been developing this software application for a couple of months now - would love feed back :)

www.designerpages.com/beta ; invitation code: shop

I wouldn't recommend Vectorworks for anyone but those tied strictly to the Mac OS. Rhino would be a little more powerful in its exporting options and also offers plenty of accurate control of terrain modifying and Max is capable of handling this very well too. Max also has the most rendering plug-in and plant options since it is the defacto app for high end 3d modeling. My recommendation, however, would be line work in Acad, 3D in Rhino, and plants and rendering in Vue.

(the flamingo plants can be nice, but flamingo will take hours to produce lesser quality renderings that other render engines produce in minutes.)

In terms of terrain modeling, what I'd like would be the series of tools for raise/lower terrain, flatten, smooth, select brush sizes for modifying etc. Additionally, I'd like to be able to "paint" textures on the terrain map. When it's all said and done, I'd like to be able to export the whole terrain model with the textures and everything.

It's funny, I played around with Oblivion's Construction Set (for creating new game feaures). The terrain tools are very simply but also pretty powerful. Of course, it isn't to any kind of scale and I can't import/export anything, but something like that would be ideal.

Hi O.
There's a program called Terragen 2 you might want to look into.
Here is the wikipedia link. I haven't used it, but if I was a landscape architect student I would want to learn this program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terragen

Architecture students/professionals we have 3D modeling/rendering programs galore that can create any visual style we want, from cartoon to photo realistic. But what do landscape architecture students use to create 3Dmodel/renderings of there ideas for plants, vegetation and topology?

no one mentioned maya?

I'd look at one of the 3D packages combined with a plugin. I don't know one for accurate landscape/topography, but I am sure there is something.
These are really old links:
http://www.3dlinks.com/links.cfm?categoryid=1&subcategoryid=72

I'd look into Vue (already mentioned, I think):
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_6_xstream/


I am not sure how accurate it is, though. Many of these programs generate the 3D forms from bitmaps, which is not exactly precise.


Terragen is something to look at. I've only used the first version, but it did some cool things. Again, not accurate, though. Mostly sliders and bitmap extrusions.


Vue looks like the most powerful tool and seems to be evolving into a 'real' alternative/plugin. I'd start with Vue as a plugin to one of the other top 3D packages, then you can do it all in one place.

sketchup and v-ray renderer.