In Eli Paddle’s class at Fanshawe College, students are working on individual projects that are mostly urban design projects, and they are just preparing site inventory and analysis, conceptual design, and then will be moving into detailed design later in the semester.  Dave presented a guest lecture to introduce Land F/X, because the class wanted to integrate a seamless workflow between CAD and SketchUp, and Land F/X was the correct fit to fill that gap.  Land F/X also helped the students learn how to expediently and accurately fill out a planting plan and schedule.  Professor Paddle later commented, “The session was great and the class is excited to start using the application.”  Thank you, Fanshawe.

We recently conducted a guest lecture for University of Washington’s LARC 433 – construction documentation class with Professor Ben Spencer.  The students at UW are excited to begin using Land F/X in their projects, and Dave has even agreed to translate the current office standard pen file the class is working on so it would work with the Land F/X colors.  Professor Spencer later commented, “The presentation was great!  We’ll let you know about future presentations.”  Many classes around the nation that are using CAD for their student projects are now beginning to incorporate Land F/X for the easy features in planting plans, plant schedules, creating plant mixes and hatch patterns, and more.  We are always available to do a guest lecture at your school, and pizza is always provided, so let us know.

Design a 3-D tree in SketchUp for use in rendering Landscape Architecture Plans and win a 3-D printer!

We are after the veritable holy grail of 3D graphics -- we want a tree that looks realistic and natural, yet has a small file size and processing impact.  What this means, is we cannot render every pine needle, we must simplify its structure, in new and brilliant ways.  By utilizing transparent textures, repetitive branch and leaf components, and so on, a realistic looking tree can have a file size of under 200kb, and be comprised of fewer than 2,000 total edges.

Dave presented to West Virginia University for Kathy Wittner's Planting Design class on April 4th.  Pizza was provided, as per our Lunch and Learn format, and the students got a personalized introduction to the software to begin their next planting project. If your university is interested in a Lunch and Learn, please contact Katie.

Our CEO Dave Farmer recently conducted two on-site lectures for our neighborhood Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in a CAD class as well as irrigation.  We have great response from Cal Poly students, and are always willing to do a lecture for any university that is interested.  Feedback is positive and the students learn a great deal on how to make CAD easy.

Spring is upon us and many universities are incorporating Land F/X into their curricula.  Recently, we have had many students from Bob Grist's class at University of Florida and Phil Waite's class from Utah State University downloading the program to use in class projects.  We make learning and teaching Land F/X easy, with little overhead for the professor.  Included for free as academic resources for all supporting universities is the Land F/X software, unlimited technical support, training and documentation, Lunch and Learns, web-based lecture series, and academic guides.  Contact Katie for more information on how to incorporate Land F/X at your school.