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19/08/2004 |
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Gardening With Your Computer Sierra’s Complete LandDesigner 6.0 comes under the scrutiny of Don Bradbury
While gardeners are people who, by definition, enjoy getting their hands dirty, the encyclopaedic nature of their speciality means that a computer can be a handy reference tool. Well, software running on the computer can anyway, and that’s where programs such as Complete LandDesigner come in. From Sierra On-Line Inc (yes, it’s American, but don’t let that put you off) and marketed in the UK by FastTrak Software, LandDesigner comes in six modules on three CDs. Each module is individually installable, and you need to remember which CD the module is on as you have to pop it in the CD drive to run it.
System requirements The 178 page, perfect bound manual is helpful, although most options can be run without much reference to it. Minimum system requirements include a Pentium 133 CPU, Windows 95/98/NT/2000 (ME should be OK), 32MB of RAM, SVGA display, and a 4x CD drive. A 3D video accelerator, sound card, and Internet connection are also recommended. Just a few of the huge array of features that this product brings to bear include wizards to facilitate laying out your house and garden, together with it’s slope and orientation, Plant Finder with search criteria, a Review module to highlight any flaws in your proposed design, 3D viewing of plans complete with a walkabout facility to aid viewing, photo ray-tracing for high quality photo-realistic image projections, hundreds of 3D models to review, position, and amend, a shopping list you can add to at any time. It’s all complete with automatic costing (in Sterling), and finally, a snapshot facility in which you can record your design proposals for submission to contractors.
Tours A guided tour by video is a recommended first move, but then you get down to the serious side of things and bring together your ideas, finally saving them to disk.
An icon is installed (by request) on the Windows Taskbar offering a quick way to access a year planner, with jobs by season easily arranged. And even that is customisable in terms of the type of weather you experience locally. In conclusion Few will find this program lacking in any important detail. Its scope is extensive, its operation relatively simple, its contribution to your knowledge encyclopaedic, and its pool of ideas and guidance huge. It is recommended, despite the rather high price. Navigation can be a little daunting, perhaps, until you’ve had an hour of practise, but the effort is worth it and the end product can be very satisfying. 3D image rendering I found to be slow on a 1GHz machine, even at the minimum 160 x 120 resolution, and one or two video clips were a little jerky, but in all other respects this PC coped well enough. The DirectX version was auto-detected, as was the Internet Explorer version, with updates on offer from the install routines. All-in-all I found this to be a well-designed product. |
That’s
just marginally annoying, but to have access to this huge range of
pictures, drawings, videos and so on, you wouldn’t want all that
lot on your hard disk, would you? A full install of every module
consumed 60MB of disk space, but if you find yourself not using
certain modules you can uninstall them from the installation menu.
Design
layout extends to cover any plot shape up to 22 acres in size, so
this is not a program for the ‘passing interest’ gardener and
the price reflects that. From garden layout and planting, decking
construction and maintenance in 3D, to Ortho’s horticultural
problem solver, it is invariably helpful. And the encyclopaedia is
an extensive reference that only super specialists might need to
augment as occasion demands. Everything seems to be customisable, so
you work with LandDesigner in your chosen way.
Neat
toolbars, help screens, and easy-to-use menus mean you can be up and
running in quick time, though to get the best out of LandDesigner
does demand some application. When you have a layout set up, perhaps
based on some suggested templates the program offers, you can begin
the process of plant selection. Drag-and-Drop from colourful,
pictorial menus makes that easy, and facilities such as image
reversal, shading, sizing, relocating and so on will make this an
exciting prospect for any keen gardener, keen amateur or
professional.
Some
US orientation is apparent in certain modules, and that extends to
sounds clips where the pronunciation of Latin and common plant names
is by an American voice. However, this is not too distracting.