Plant Symbol Resize

[mpkeane]

Working with a mac OS 10.6.8 and VW 2010 SP4.

Is it not possible to resize a 2D plant symbol individually? The "Spread" window in the Object Info palette is grey and cannot be adjusted.

Does one need to create a separate symbol for every possible size of every possible plant?

Marc

[Tamsin Slatter]

Yes I'm afraid you do have to create a separate symbol for each size. The simplest way is to find the plant definition in the Resource Browser and then right-click and choose Duplicate. You can then edit the definition of the new plant and change the spread.

[IanH]

I have been on at NNA for ages about this. It is one of two major issues why I wrote my own plant toolkit, the other issue being labelling. It was a limitation of placing plants as symbols. The side effect of converting to group is probably worse, so I guess we were stuck with the limitations of symbols.

However, since VW2011, symbols can be scaled so hopefully this issue can be resolved at some point.

[Ozzie]

Why do you require a plant - one species to be different sizes in the same drawing?

[Bryan G.]

Quite often it is to represent different planting size at install. Some like it to be graphically different. And others use it to represent pruning. I'm sure there are other reasons also.

[Monadnoc]

Why do you require a plant - one species to be different sizes in the same drawing?

For existing plants/trees you will ALWAYS have different sized plants of the same species (this would assume you're not using the Existing Tree Tool). But the biggest reason I want different sizes of the same species is so the drawing looks more "natural". By having a slight variety of different sizes, coupled with differing rotations, randomly applied, you get a much nicer looking planting plan that looks much more hand drawn. Well, maybe not hand drawn, but a lot more visually appealing to the human eye.

But then again, I think using the same Image Prop for every plant of the same species looks terrible too. I guess I just like variety in my images. But that's just me ...

And if I remember correctly (and I might not), in VW 8 (not 2008) the Place Plant Tool did create plants of differing sizes of the same "symbol". But it took forever to use and was slow as a dog, so I'm pretty sure they weren't true symbols. That's why they were a resource hog. But I did think it was a step backward when I first tried the Place Plant tool in VW 11 (not 2011) and you could no longer do that. But as Ian said, with the new scalable symbols this ability will hopefully be coming back. It is much needed.

Monadnoc

Edited January 27, 2012 by Monadnoc

[Ozzie]

Because you want different sizes and shapes ? we already have random rotation ? would it be better if we could attach the plant definition, that is the plant data to alternative symbols