Plant Object wishes - including editable/reconfigurable multi -lant "Polygons"

[hollister design Studio]

I put this up as a wish a couple of years ago but can't seem to find it.

 

Wish 1.

I often have to edit the plant polygon to let it curve around other plants for clarity.

Currently there is no way to edit the auto generated polygon.

My the work around is to turn off the 'polygon display' in the OIP and draw a polyline on the 'plants-components-polygon' class and then edit that polyline.

 

Screen grab:

 

This works fine as long as I don't move any plant objects... in that case I have to visually determine if any of my hand drawn polygons are no longer centered.

 

 

Wish 2.

We also need the ability to edit the way the polyline is auto connected.

Often the order of the connections (which seems to be by order of creation IF the multi-plant object was created in one go.

If you've combined two previously created multi-plant object into one new multi-plant object - all bets are off as to how VW will connect the plants.

 

Wish 3.

I just thought of this.

Can we call multi-plant objects "multi-plants" in the OIP and list the proper count?

Currently both single plants and multi-plants are called a single "Plant" in the OIP.

But multi plants counted as individual plants in a worksheet schedule.

 

i.e.  a three plant multi-plant is counted as:

• one (1) single plant named 'Plant" in the OIP
• three (3) individual plants in a worksheet schedule.

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

Wish 1 - Is "right click on plant and hitting the edit button" or "double clicking on the plant and selecting edit path" insufficient for what you are trying to do?

Oh wait, see wish 2...

 

Wish 2 - I would add that the poly line needs to stay intact as it was drawn rather than being converted to a poly with a zillion handles.

 

Wish 3 - if you click on the data tab of the OIP, it will tell you the # of plants within the "multi-plants".  The quantity updates as you edit the poly line as well.  It's probably a tall order to have "multi-plants" reengineered after all the style changes they recently did.

[hollister design Studio]

2 hours ago, jeff prince said:

Wish 1 - Is "right click on plant and hitting the edit button" or "double clicking on the plant and selecting edit path" insufficient for what you are trying to do?

No, that only edits the polyline that defines the placement of the plants.

See the third group of the attached image.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, jeff prince said:

.....I would add that the poly line needs to stay intact as it was drawn rather than being converted to a poly with a zillion handles....

I agree, I don't want to edit the poly line - only the 'polygon' - from all multi mode of plant objects ('plants at poly vertices', 'plants along poly edges', and both 'plants in array').

 

 

As for my WISH 2.

Here is an image to help communicate as you misunderstood what I was getting at:

 

 

Part of the reason I love the Vectorworks plant groupings is that if I wanted to add a shrub right in the middle of a plant grouping, I can move two or three of the groupings plants without getting rid of the group and redrawing the whole thing.

When I use the ‘reshape tool’ all the information is still there - The number of plants - the type of plant etc.

This is really powerful and allows me to make small adjustments to my planting plan very easily.

BUT I still currently have to redraw my connection polygons for 10 to 20% of all the plants in a project which adds up to a lot of time.

 

[hollister design Studio]

2 hours ago, jeff prince said:

....if you click on the data tab of the OIP, it will tell you the # of plants within the "multi-plants"...

 

Thanks for the note about the actual number of plants in a multi plant being found in the Data tab - I did not know that!

 

...but what I'm trying to do is to select a large number of plants and be able to see quickly how many individual plants there are (for plan check purposes).

The data tab does not help me there, as it only shows one object at a time.

[Jeff Prince]

Most of the landscape architects I know abandoned this old school notation method because of the time impact when changes occur, and that was in the hand drafting days.   With CAD and BIM, there is even less reason to use the plant line method for notation purposes, we just use legends with quantities.

 

I guess it comes down to contractor preferences... mine like to see a BOM telling them the total number of plants they need for a job and/or a portion of a site.

When the symbols are graphically unique, they know where to plant them.

The reviewing agencies only care about the species and installed sizes on a project.

 

None of this helps you solve problem though.

I think you are stuck drawing lines to suit your graphic needs because there is probably a lot of rework of the tool required to do what you want.

I mean we still have site models with duplicate labels stacking up on top of each other, which is a pretty serious issue 😞