Planting F/X for Beginners

Note: The following catalog of content covered in this webinar is time stamped to allow you to follow along or skip to sections of the video that are relevant to your questions. You can also search for content on this page using the FIND command in your browser (CTRL + F in Windows, Command + F in Mac OS.)

• Intro/TOC
• Where to Start with Planting F/X
• Learning Resources
• Develop a Successful Strategy
• FAQ
• Before You Begin
• Basic Plant Preferences
• Basics of a Project
• Adding and Placing Plants
• Ways to Label
• Types of Schedules

0:00 – 4:13: Intro/TOC

4:14 – 23:06: Where to Start with Planting F/X

Learning Resources (4:14)

• Webinars
• Trainer
• Power Tips
• Documentation & Knowledge Base articles
• Tooltips
• Newsletter

Develop a Successful Strategy (11:59)

• How many users? (Single-User or Multi-User installation)
• What kind of install?
• Single computer: C:/LandFX + Cloud Data
• Desktop + laptop: Cloud Data, maybe shared online folder
• Shared server
• Shared online folder
• Setting up your Preferences
• On the go during your first project
• By one person (or a few) by redoing a past project first
• By one team on a project before rolling out to all teams
• NOT: Free for all, just install on all computers and hope for a standard to emerge victorious
• How to train
• With the Trainer series
• Create a list of must-watch webinars and/or Power Tips for new users
• Main Land F/X user creates a standard guide PDF and trains other staff
• Paid personalized training by Land F/X

FAQ (18:24)

How long to implement in my office?

• Depends on your strategy and how much you customize.
• Set up before your start: 1 week to one month (trial)
• Set up on the go: 1 to 2 days to get the hang of it

Can I customize (insert planting plan request here)?

• Usually, yes! It doesn't hurt to ask.
• Seriously reconsider your office "standards." They are just preferred styes, and styles can change if it saves money.
• Search "customize" in our documentation.

How much time will I save with Planting F/X?

• You will save time on the first project, and the second will be even faster.

23:07 – 40:37: Before You Begin

Webinars to start with (23:34):

• If you're new to CAD, check out our CAD for Beginners webinar series.
• All About Plotting
• Drawing Setup: Using an Image
• Sheet Set Manager and Land F/X
• Migrate an Existing Plan into Land F/X

Basic Plant Preferences (26:49)

• Measurement system (Imperial or metric, architectural inches, decimal feet, etc.) (28:12)
• Managing your Preference Sets (by user, admin permissions) (28:51)

Starting a new Preference Set and configuring the settings (29:15)

Planting Preferences (30:14)

• Plant code style (we recommend 6 letters) (30:14)
• Plant callout style (31:31)
• Plant groups (33:30)

Plant Sizes Preferences (34:49)

• The importance of keeping your fields similar throughout the different plant types (36:41)

General Preferences (37:34)

• Text Styles (37:40)
• Layers (39:13)
  • Layers list vs. Block Layers list (39:34)
• Numeric display (40:12)

40:38 – 47:28 Basics of a Project

Opening the Project List and creating a Land F/X project (42:00)

It's extremely important to create a new Land F/X project for each new design or job you start.

Setting a detail folder for the project (44:02)

We recommend setting a detail folder for a project when you create it.

Setting the scale (46:19)

47:29 –1:02:33: Adding and Placing Plants

Opening the Plant Manager and adding plants (47:29)

Searching for a plant (48:30)

Using filters to search (48:43)

Adding a species of plant to the project (49:14)

Clearing the filters (49:47)

Don't see the plant you need? You can add it to our plant database. (50:50)

Adding data to plants in your project (51:48)

Editing plants (52:22)

Importing plants from one project to another (52:49)

Selecting a symbol for a plant (53:36)

Placing plants (56:38)

Using keyboard commands to place plants in different ways (57:10)

Placing plants in a path using our Copy along Line, Arc, and Polyline tools (57:46)

Importing a plant from another project and immediately placing it (58:31)

Copying a plant along a polyline (59:42)

Placing Shrub Areas (1:00:15)

Placing an exact copy of a placed plant using our Match Plant tool (1:01:18)

Grabbing the data and symbol assigned to one placed plant and applying it to another placed plant using our Match Properties tool (1:01:37)

Using our Edit Plant tool to identify a placed plant (1:02:01)

Highlighting all placed instances of a plant using our Highlight Plant tool (1:02:16)

1:02:34 – 1:04:42: Ways to Label

Group Label (1:02:36)

Labeling by Connecting Arc (1:03:08)

Error checking your plant labels using our Verify Labels tool (1:03:30)

Labeling a single plant (1:03:48)

Deleting labels (1:04:17)

1:04:43 – end: Types of Schedules

Placing a Plant Schedule (1:05:29)

Options for what to include in a Plant Schedule (1:05:44)

Placing the Plant Schedule (1:06:11)

Including Xrefs in the schedule (1:06:41)

Adding color to plants using our Color Render tool (1:07:23)

Why we don't (yet) offer the ability to fill closed polyline shapes automatically with tree or shrub symbols as of presentation time – and our temporary workarounds (1:10:19)

Using out Paint tool to "paint" plants into a space (1:13:44)

Question: Are grasses and perennials supposed to be categorized under groundcovers? (1:14:18)

Answer: They can be groundcovers, shrubs, or Shrub Areas, depending on how you want to display them.