gardening design programs

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

gardening design programs

One of the most challenging aspects of designing ponds and waterfalls is trying to convey my ideas to my client. Coming up with award-winning pond designs or implementing them using adequate skills and experience is not a problem. My challenge is getting my client to see what I see. Drawing and painting are not my forte; it is next to impossible for me to draw a rock, not to mention water. The hardest part for me is drawing perspective. Prior to discovering the art of digital design my most common phrase used was , “Just trust me.” Wait till your pond and waterfall is finished, I promise you’ll like it. Unfortunately, “trust me” are the most common two words spoken by used car salesmen! Thank goodness that most of my clients were referrals from other satisfied customers and already knew what I was capable of creating. Imagine a referral customer base of over 1,900 satisfied clients.

A few years ago I discovered a computer program called Photo Shop and realized I could use it to create virtual photos of water features. I learned how to cut an item from one picture and paste it into another. Actually, that was nothing new for me since I did that in third grade. It’s called cut and paste. Only now I’m using a mouse instead of rounded scissors and edible white paste. (I hear the manufactures are adding vitamins to it now.

I started out scanning dozens of photographs into “Photo Shop,” which converted them into a digital image capable of being manipulated in hundreds or thousands of ways. The Photo Shop program has a large learning curve, especially for someone who is unfamiliar with graphic design techniques, so I started searching for a solution for my pond design department.

DIGITIZING PHOTOS

Microsoft has developed a user-friendly software (small learning curve) for working with photographs. They can be scanned into the program or digital photos from a digi-tal camera can be downloaded into the program. Then each picture can be enhanced through a variety of processes such as brightness, contrast, blur, tint, etc., all with a simple click of the mouse. Once the photo is finished, I can then cut out objects from the picture, such as rocks, groups of rocks, plants, or portions of the waterfall and pond. Which I did from several thousand photos of waterfalls and ponds I have constructed over the past 26 years. I gathered these jpg images into an indexed library.

Using this process with pictures from hundreds of my projects, I was able to build a substantial library of objects for pasting into the “before” photo of a client’s yard for a pond design. Now I can take a digital picture of someone’s yard and download it into Microsoft’s “Digital Image Suite ” program. Next, by dragging various items from my library, I can construct a waterfall and pond of any shape, size or configuration onto that picture.

So thanks to the arrival of the digital age, I can construct on paper a virtual image or idea that was in my head. As a result, my clients can see exactly what their pond and waterfall will look like when finished. Now a pond design takes only minutes. Whether you are building a waterfall and pond for yourself or for a customer a pond design or waterfall design can be a marvelous thing. Simply marvelous! Happy koi, peace & joy.

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Douglas C. Hoover; CEO of Aquamedia Corp, master Waterfall Builder,architect, engineer, freelance writer, author, designer & builder of over 1,900 waterfall and ponds in CA (26 years). Invented the AquaFill electronic water level control system for ponds, pools, fountains & spas.

free online landscaping program?????

is there a free online landscape design program out there?
i want o do my garden, but i want to plan it out on computer first. without having to buy softwear

Better Homes and Gardens has a free on here –

http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/planagardenhome_03022002.xml&catref=cat10004

You will have to register with BHG to access it, but except for getting to spam your e-mail box it is free. I checked the no spam option box, but I got an increase in spam traffic strting right after that nonetheless. The capabilities of the program are not very advanced, but it may meet your needs.

If you browse around their website they have lots of landscape plans available for free. Most of them are themed. At the very least, these will give you some ideas.

If you have a decent photo editing tool or graphics software you may be able to just use a digital image (digital camera or a scanner regular photo) to make your own landscape plan. Load up your house/yard photos as the base. Then look through internet resources for palnt info and make ‘digital stickers’ from the internet images to paste on your base photo. It is more involved that the BHG free planner, but you will have a better idea of what is will really look like. I am planning to give this method a try myself for our yard. But for me, playing around with the ‘digital playground’ will be as much fun or more so that playing in the real dirt – I love computer graphics fun.

Lay Out Plot Tutorial for Plangarden Vegetable Garden Design Software

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