B&W 2D Plant Symbols

[jg@swcm 10]

Hi there, I'm running VW Landmark 2019 and I'm wondering how you guys go about 2D planting plans? Working in the landscape architecture profession, our 2D plan sets are B&W and plants are generally easily distinguishable symbols. Using the Plant tool in Landmark, I am able to lay down certain plant species, but all of them are relatively artistic with colored fills. When I turn off the color fills, only the outer border remains and the plants are barely distinguishable (see attached photos). How do you all go about having distinguishable 2D plant symbols? Do you have to amend the pre-loaded Vectorworks ones? Thanks!

[ericjhberg 217]

@jg@swcm We have created our own custom plant symbols and libraries over the years. We don't particularly care for the ones VW "provides out of the box".

 

That said, this is your chance to streamline your workflow. We have built a system of standardized classes that help us control the visibility of the symbol in both color and in black and white.

 

We have generally found it most useful to create classes that control the following:

• Tree Outline (lineweight control)
• Tree Canopy (color)
• Tree Shadow - Special trick can allow you to control shadow visibility (on/off) by class
• Shrub outline (lineweight control)
• Shrub fill (color)
• Interior Linework

[bob cleaver 15]

Eric has a great list

You can consider an 'initial' class so you can add a letter to to the center of a plant outline and help delineate plants

[rowbear97 48]

Here is one way to make two different presentations of the same plant symbols.

 

Use the "Data Visualization" settings for the viewport and adjust the fills for the plant symbols to only show the canopy and no fill. Save those settings and you will be able to either enable or disable the data visualization or select different save settings.

 

Good luck!