Does or has anyone out there used the Landscape portion of this program extensively? I am hoping to do actual landscape design for business and I am trying to figure out which program to buy. In particular, I am trying to decide between Punch Landscape Deck and Patio Designer v12 or TurboFloorplan Home and Landscape Pro. As far as I can tell, both programs can export files in dxf or acad file formats which would allow me to print full size. The one thing that I have seen in Punch that is very important to me is the ability to easily import a digital photo or photos of a home and do landscaping right on the photos by such means as just mouse clicks to add flower beds etc. Can I do the same with TurboFP? I am hoping so since I would rather stick with one group of software ( I currently have FloorPlan3D v8 and TurboCad Pro v 11.) TurboFL bosts 7500 plans compared to 4000 in punch.......Punch has excellent online tutorials... etc, etc. Please let me know your thoughts if anyone out there has compared in real life. Thanks
Randy
Hi Randy,
I cannot comment on Punch as I have never used it but TFP is far advanced on FP3D with landscaping. It is certainly possible to add landscaping to a photo as in the example below - it was just a 5 minute job so no real detail but sufficient to demonstrate that it is possible.
All I did was import a photo of our house before we moved in, inserted a sloping terrain, a drive (it follows the slope automatically as do the plants,fences, fill areas etc) and some shrubs. There are many other things I could have inserted: ground covers, lighting, paving, edging, retaining walls, ponds, fountains, decking, fencing, reticulation, outdoor furniture and equipment etc etc.
You can also add to the plants by taking your own photos of plants and using some photo-editing software to cut out the plant itself from the background, fill the background with Magenta and the Magenta will become transparent in the program. The plants can be set to rotate (they do by default), so they always face the camera -you need to watch the sun angle though so you get a proper shadow.
I think the number of plants must include the seasonal variations. They will change with the season depending on the date you choose to render. They will flower in spring (or when ever that variety normally flowers) change to autumn colours and lose their leaves completely in winter. There is only one minor problem - if you are in the southern hemisphere, like me, the seasons are back to front!! In Australia they flower in autumn and lose their leaves in summer - different!
TFP will export as a DXF or 3DS and if you have a PDF Creater (one by that name is free to download), it will generate the screen plan, to scale, to a 'paper' size of A1 or even A0.
You can mould the Terrain to almost any shape. It is very different to FP3D but works once you get used to it. One click to create slopes, mountains, valleys or plateaus or use the plateau tool to 'build up' known contours.
I would suggest you use the free 14 days trial version (it is the FULL version) and it will give you an idea whether it will do what you want.
Allan
Allen,
Thankyou. Your response was exactly what I was hoping for - even more. I was leaning toward TurboFloorplan anyway since I do need to update from FP3D. I will call IMSI today - hopefully they offer upgrade pricing but $89.95 is pretty cheap as is. Thanks much!!
Randy
Hi Randy,
Following on from your original query, I decided to do some more experiments with landscaping a photo and I have put a few tips in the Tips and Trick section (http://forum.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,772.0.html (http://forum.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,772.0.html))and also some larger images of the results in the Gallery (http://forum.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,771.0.html (http://forum.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,771.0.html)), so you may want to look these up also.
I hope your virtual landscaping is going well - cleaner and not so exhausting as the real thing isn't it?!!!
Allan