put a landscape plan together in Vectorworks,
and with the help of pre-made hatches, we are
ready to copy and paste. This saves a ton of
time, versus doing it the old-fashioned way and
recreating hatches from scratch for each design.
On the estimating side, you can easily get square
footages, exact measurements, and details of
the drawings in Vectorworks, which is also a
huge efficiency and time saver from a calculation
standpoint. We can pull off the dimensions of a
wall down to a fraction of an inch, which makes
estimations easy for us to calculate.
As far as collaboration with other software
programs, using Vectorworks is great. At Live
Green, we also use Asset, a business
management software for landscape
professionals that allows you to manage
communications, emails, sales, purchasing,
payroll, analytics, and more. Vectorworks makes
it very easy for us to get takeoffs and
measurements of our designs, which we then
input into the assemblies we have built within
Asset for cost-estimating purposes. Having the
ability to quickly transition between our design
software and business management software
saves time and creates accurate, detailed
information that our team relies on. Accurate
numbers mean more efficiency and less wasted
time through the whole cycle of a project, from
cost estimates to ordering materials in the field to
tracking labor hours and billing at the end of the
project.
FROM ONE LANDSCAPE DESIGN
PROFESSIONAL TO ANOTHER
My advice to those using technology to design
natural stone products is this: demo as many
different products as you can. Get a feel for what
works for you. And look not only at what you need
in terms of capabilities right now, but think about
the future as you expand.
In my opinion, Vectorworks can do so much more
than other design software programs I have seen
and experimented with. Don’t look at your current
workflow and think of what you just need today
or this year, but instead look at how much more
28 | Masonry Design
a software can do as your technology ability
increases. Also, think about the amount of detail
the program can allow you to produce, whether it
is taking 2D plans and turning them into 3D
models, or creating slides through videos. Then,
look at what else your software can do once
you’ve mastered those basic features.
One benefit of Vectorworks is that the company
frequently releases new capabilities for its
users. Our team is very excited about all that
Vectorworks 2019 has to offer, and we are l
ooking forward to trying out some of the new
tools and features, such as the advancements in
the Hardscape tool. This tool gives you the ability
to quantify automatically with your volumes and
takeoffs, which makes it much easier for us than
before.
In the end, you and your firm will want a software
that will allow you to take your project from
concept to completion, while still maintaining the
integrity and creativity of the design. I firmly
believe that Vectorworks holds this power for us
and for any landscape professionals who are
willing to try it out.