4.1 CAD Part Courtyard
Now it is time to turn your hand drawn design for part of a courtyard into CAD drawing.
Prerequisites
- Download and install a copy of GardenCAD into your computer. Test it and make sure that you are aware that the drawings it saves 'land' in a folder called GardenCAD and in a sub folder called Jobs under the GardenCAD folder.
Visit the learning support site and take the course(s) and module(s) appropriate to this project.
- Take the module entitled 'Choosing Software for landscape Use',
- Then the course 'Stage 2 - project 1. Make a CAD version of your part courtyard drawing'. This course shows step by step, how to generate this particular plan using GardenCAD software.
The project
The figure below is a reminder of the result of one student's hand drawn design.
After completing the prerequisite training modules, please start GardenCAD and produce a similar drawing. The figure below shows a CAD version on the left and the hand drawn version on the right.
There is more
The fact that you are using CAD software means that it is easy to make changes and add to the design. The figure below shows another version of the design above. Here we have added our logo, a north point, some additional species and inserted some photos of plants we may well use in the design.
Can you see that if you are using CAD, it is easy to add some hatching representing brick paving, add new species, insert neatly rendered text, etc.
Note that even though CAD software allows hatching over wide areas (we could have filled the paved area with hatching in the twinkling of an eye), as shown below, it is advisable to simply hatch a small sub section of the paved area as an indication so as not to overpower the drawing.
Submit project
Please send the drawing to info@gardencad.net for comment.