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Started using plant tool just in order to show a particular client spacing graphics and was looking at possibility of using it for plant scheduling.  There are a couple of things that don't work for me at the moment:

 

Spacing - even when I have a plant style set to plants per sq m (this is surely the most usual way of expressing it in schedules?) the record available when I create a report will only return the spacing expressed as a distance.

 

The number of fields in the records is huge and the vast majority are completely irrelevant for my purposes.  I really only want National Plant Spec data plus number and density.  This makes the whole thing pretty unwieldy when trying to enter data or to create a report as a plant schedule.  I can't seem to find any way of editing and deleting the fields, this would be incredibly useful.

 

In the meantime I think I'll just use it to count plants and use my own plant info databases on the surrounding polygons.

 

Laura

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@Laura Stone 

Are you using the Plant Tool or Landscape Area Tool?

 

I disagree with your notion that describing plants by spacing or distribution rate is the most useful way to report on a schedule.  It depends on the design, what type of plant you are proposing, and what you are trying to communicate.  I don't know any contractors who order plants by the square meter for instance 🙂  Spacing is more of a design than quantification tool given the capability of the software.  We can design an area based on spacing, tag it so it gets built to that spacing, and report the entire project with total numbers of plants.

 

You can report the spacing value in a plant report, see attached for an example.  Open the report and look at the formulas used to get an idea of how it was done.  A custom data tag is probably a better way to describe individual planting beds when you are trying to highlight differences.  Not sure if your version of VWX has that capability, see screen shot if they don't appear in the documents.

 

The number of records is huge because we all have different reporting needs.  Just curious, where are you finding it difficult to use and navigate them?  I hope the attached examples help you.1430213010_ScreenShot2020-07-25at3_38_07PM.thumb.png.0f97bd0949c105d2664935c16198071b.png

Plant Placement Reporting.vwx Plant Placement Reporting v2018.vwx

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Hi Jeff,

 

Thanks for the files

 

I know some people will use spacing, but Planning Conditions will almost always require a schedule with planting density (this is the case for the project I'm working on).  I notice your file does include distribution rate, I am currently on VW 2020 and that option is not coming up for me when I  create a report.

 

I know some people will want the option of all of those records, but it would be good to be able to edit it for each drawing.  Just finding and picking the fields for a report at the moment involves a crazy amount of scrolling and if I was adding the info into the object info palette it would be even worse.

 

Laura

 

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HI Laura, IDK if it will help but I've always done my plant area calcs using worksheets using the AREA function and working out my spacings, density etc from that - I normally have  two or three weightings on each sum and have gone up to to the high hundreds of thousands with no issues. My plant areas are usually large (many hectares) and the file becomes unwieldy and unworkable with all these icons. If I need spacing graphics for a contractor/client I just do a small area as an illustration. 

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Hi Jeff,

 

I have found the density under 'rate' in VW2020,  didn't spot it before because it was in with the pricing info.  I have been inputting into worksheets the data I want.  My gripe is that there is way too much data, the vast majority of which I will never need for a given project and this slows down my workflow when setting up a worksheet or adding into in the object info palette.  It would be very useful to be able to limit the data that VW displays in drop down menus etc for a given drawing.

 

Hi Unearthed, I've been doing a similar thing - have a worksheet called 'plant numberer' which I usually use to calc numbers for my custom plant records.  I think this is the only time I have shown individual plant outlines, new client, I hope in future they will trust me to get the densities right!  I think if I was going to swap I might use landscape areas instead.  

 

The other thing I've noticed is that VW's placing of individual plants is a bit wonky, often off to one side, due to the way the spacing has been programmed, so I am having to move them around to make them a bit more realistic.  Something like this 

would be great!

 

Laura

 

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You can edit the worksheet and delete any columns that you don't need so that it will match your needs better.

Once you get it working they way you want you can put a version of the worksheet in a library or favorite or template file so you can bring it into future projects without having to recreate it.

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HI Laura, I asked this question last year - which got a few different answers. I ended up using sketchup as someone sent me a script to do what I wanted. I have also used R (a statistics package) to do random placement of different sized circles representing plants.

 

In 2014 I put this Q up  - and Petri Sakkinen / Panta.Rhei replied and sent me a vso that I've used, but its more oriented to 3D graphics and hard to use

 

Look for Petri Sakkinen on here and send him a PM - he may have a tool to do what you want. IDK if he is still here tho'

I asked this a while ago and Petri had some useful ideas and contacted me via email so I don't know about sending the vso out.

@Pat Stanford What are the rules around sending out plugins that users have sent us personally?

 

from Petri 2014 > Hello, Nigel!

I was told that you are after a plug-in for mass planting design.

I’ve made one which may or may not be suitable. It is not really for ”design” but rather for illustrations (2D and 3D). Randomizes up to 7 symbols/species within an editable polyline, using density per hectare.

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Laura, 

The plant tool is really indispensable if you're creating plant schedules. The question is what you're going to use the schedule for.


Normally when you create a plant schedule, you want to have the quantity of plants in the design and scheduled sizes (for quotes from the nursery, budget etc).

If you want to show the distribution rate you can do the following (see image attached): 

There are several different records for plants - In the record 'Plant Record' you'll find the records 'Quantity' and 'Latin name'.

In the record 'Plant' you have the Distribution rate fields for 'Rate' and 'Rate Unit'. This will give you the distribution rates.

 

Create your own worksheet (Tools > Report > Create Report) with only the fields you'd like to use instead of using the pre-made reports. When you have set up the report as you'd like it, save it in your user library or a workgroup library so you don't have to redo it for every project (or you can include it in your template).

 

If you're using landscape areas for the planting (as commonly used for commercial projects), you can use the pre-created report called 'Landscape area - mass planting'. This will give you both the quantities and the distribution rates in the landscape area. You can just go in to the worksheet and remove the fields you don't want and then save it as above.

 

If you find that there are too many fields for data in the Plant Style (under the 'Plant data' tab), then there is the possibility to make a bespoke set of only the information you'd like to have. However, this is a little bit more involved and it also means that you have to be very clear on what to do when you update or move from one computer to another. Everyone working with the Vectorworks file must have the same setup, otherwise it will not work. If this is what you'd like to setup, let me know and I'll send you the information.

Screenshot 2020-07-28 at 09.38.55.png

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