Is there any way to add in additional fields in a Plant symbol?

[Flora 9088 0]

Hi anyone can help with this problem ?

is there any way to add in additional fields in a Plant symbol? just like Existing Tree Tool

[Tony Kostreski 143]

@Flora 9088 - At present, I don't believe there is an option similar to Existing Trees' "Additional Fields". Instead, I would look into Creating record formats which can be attached to symbols & objects. You can then Create Reports that look for these records.

[ericjhberg 371]

@Tony Kostreski...There should be a way, within the plant database, to Add Custom Fields. Since this is controlled through FileMaker, it may be possible, but I have no clue how to do it.

 

This would be extremely useful in mapping local customizable features (i.e. WUCOLS data) here in California or wherever.

[Tony Kostreski 143]

@ericjhberg I agree and I'll put in a formal enhancement request. Thank you

[Katarina Ollikainen 19]

There is a way to do this but it's a bit involved and everyone opening your file would have to have the same setup, otherwise it won't work (the fields in the plant catalogs and the Plant styles are separate 'entities' so even if you can add anything to the catalog, they'd need a corresponding field in the plant style as well). A better way to do this might be to use one of the existing fields for the specific kind of information that you want to use, even if the 'title' is wrong. (You can change the heading in the worksheet when reporting on the plants or just refer to the field in the data tag, if you're using them). Or, the best would be as Tony suggests, create a record and attach it.

[hollister design Studio 73]

On 9/8/2020 at 9:20 AM, ericjhberg said:

would be extremely useful in mapping local customizable features (i.e. WUCOLS data) here in California or wherever.

First thing I thought of.

I'm using "Water Range" field right now, but to have a dedicated place for WUCOLS would be ideal.

Especially as many of us Californians have to include the data for permit.

[ericjhberg 371]

Just now, hollister design Studio said:

I'm using "Water Range" field right now, but to have a dedicated place for WUCOLS would be ideal.

 

Agreed. Additionally, in WUCOLS a plant can have up to 6 different WUCOLS classifications depending on the designated climate zone, so ideally I would like to be able to reproduce all 6 designations in 6 different fields and then just have a worksheet query the one specific to the given project. We currently work across 3-4 of the different climate zones within WUCOLS, but also want to store ready-to-use plants. Without this, we are constantly changing the WUCOLS information for every project depending on the climate zone.

[jeff prince 769]

@ericjhberg LEED and WUCOLS are turning landscape architects into accountants 😞

 

[bob cleaver 32]

We have been using the 3 default comment entries in the plant style:

comment 1: CA Native (Y or space)  we like the positive Y and no negative entries 😉

comment 2: Evergreen (Y or space)

comment 3: WUCOLS (VL, L M, H)

different climate zones with different WUCOL ratings would be best handled with a record ??? then is the record attached to a plant database ??? 

 

[ericjhberg 371]

@bob cleaver I would like a way to add/reassign/classify custom fields in the Plant Database for each of the 6 different WUCOLS regions.

 

An example would be

• Quercus agrifolia
  • WUCOLS Region 1 - North-Central Coastal = LOW

  • WUCOLS Region 2 - Central Valley = LOW

  • WUCOLS Region 3- South Coastal = LOW

  • WUCOLS Region 4 - South Inland = LOW

  • WUCOLS Region 5 - High and Intermediate Desert = INAPPROPRIATE

  • WUCOLS Region 6 - Low Desert = MODERATE

With this data entered in the plant database, theoretically you could then set up a worksheet to just query the correct WUCOLS Region field and all the plants in the project would then display their WUCOLS rating for that region.

 

Our current workflow is similar to yours where we use COMMENT to adjust the WUCOLS given the current project's location. But if we then use that same plant in another project/region, we have to change the WUCOLS information to suit the project for each plant. The suggested workflow would simply be changing the field query to the correct region, all plants would update.

 

For WUCOLS research, this type of database customization would also be extremely effective for searching for compliant plants in the database/VW as well, generating a "potential" list depending on WUCOLS and other criteria.

[Pat Stanford 1,632]

Would you consider a separate record to hold the WUCOLS data? If so we should be able to get what you need with a nested IF, but a simple worksheet script would probably be better. The WUCOLS record could be connected to just the Symbol Definition and the worksheet script could read it from there. That way you don't have to keep the record  up to date on multiple symbol instances.

[ericjhberg 371]

@Pat Stanford I think this could work okay, but I'm not sure if it works as a long-term repository of the WUCOLS data. The WUCOLS data is static, per plant, for each region. It just makes more sense to me if this could be added to the Plant Database for long-term storage of that particular data. We could do the additional record strategy if we're storing the Plants, pre-created, in a Library file (which we do already), but it seems secondary to the Plant Database.

[Pat Stanford 1,632]

I don't know enough about the Plant Database to know if the data can be stored there or not. Someone with more Landmark/Plant experience that I will have to comment on that.

 

The Record.Field option is something that can be implemented now (days or weeks, not versions in the future).

 

I will leave it to the group to tell me if it is worth my time to try an implement or not.

[jeff prince 769]

@ericjhberg Filemaker Pro will allow you to do whatever you want to the Vectorworks plant database...

Add fields of data, create custom layouts for printing plant sheets, change the way images look and their quantity, etc..

All of this is then available when browsing plants from Vectorwork's provided Filemaker Runtime reading your database file (.USR)

Doesn't really solve the OP's question, but it is a way to manage the data.

 

In this example, I created a set of WUCOLS regions as fields.  Each region field can then take on the value from a dropdown.  You can then search for plants for a particular region that have the desired water use classification.

 

       

 

[ericjhberg 371]

@jeff prince This is exactly what we're looking for, even if I did hijack the post...apologies.

 

Thanks. 

[jeff prince 769]

@ericjhberg I customize Vectorworks plant databases, among other things, for firms and designers if you guys need any help 🙂