If you're wondering how to acquaint your office with our planting tools, you’re in luck. Guest presenter Michael Bain, CAD manager at Boffa Miskell Limited, will walk through his introduction of Land F/X into the New Zealand firm with 7 offices and 70+ landscape architects. He’ll go over his successful strategy for transitioning the firm’s office standards into the software, and provide real numbers to illustrate the time his colleagues are now saving every day.
Mentioned in this webinar: Transitioning to Land F/X
Webinar Contents:
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
- Background
- The Journey Starts
- Some Outputs
- Time for Standards
- So Is It Faster?
- Cool Tools
- Lessons Learnt
0:00 – 3:51: Intro/TOC
3:52 – 8:06: Background
Boffa Miskell and Michael Bain background (3:52)
8:07 – 23:17: The Journey Starts
Boffa Miskell Land F/X timeline (8:07)
- Transitioned to Autodesk in 2016
- Late 2016: tested Land F/X vs. another product
- First Land F/X license: April 2017
- By November 2018: 10 licenses
The roll-out (12:15)
- 6 months in: 2 licenses, first training movie
- 18 months in: 10 licenses, Planting Standards published, second movie
- 24 months in: National training tour to 7 offices with more than 50 attendees
- As of webinar time: More than 70 Land F/X projects and counting
The setup (16:30)
Michael initially installed Land F/X on a central server, and users mapped the LandFX folder as a network drive.
Replicated drive (17:30)
After IT got involved, the company moved the LandFX folder to a replicated drive. Four servers serve the major regions. One server holds the master mapped drive and is replicated to the others every weekend.
Preferences (19:00)
Preferences are:
- Stored on the cloud
- Controlled by the CAD manager (Michael)
Deviations from the standard? Just a phone call away.
Support (20:03)
- BML CAD site
- Call CAD manager
- Contact Land F/X (early in the NZ day!)
Updates? Just say yes!
23:18 – 28:32: Some Outputs
Examples of plans created with Land F/X (23:30)
Annotation (24:50)
Label verification (26:12)
Hatches vs. blocks/symbols (26:36)
28:33 – 35:09: Time for Standards
Before Land F/X (circles) (29:25)
After Land F/X (plant symbols) (30:38)
Color (31:10)
Alphanumeric symbols (32:11)
But then … after receiving feedback from a contractor (33:20)
35:10 – 42:04: So Is It Faster?
In short, yes!
Michael’s analysis (36:06):
Before (36:06):
- 1 of 111 plans
- 30 hours to annotate set
- 10 hours to schedule set
- 5 working days total
Example sheet: Estimated 5 hours to annotate
After (38:33):
- 5 minutes to label example sheet, estimated 30 minutes to label set
- 10 minutes to schedule set
Example sheet: Estimated 40 minutes to annotate
The results:
- 40 minutes to annotate one sheet
- Estimated 35 minutes for the rest
- 6.5 hours total
1 day, compared with 5!
42:05 – 49:13: Cool Tools
PHATCH (42:05)
49:14 – end: Lessons Learnt
- It’s a journey.
- You can start with small steps.
- Nothing to lose. Land F/X uses AutoCAD elements that can be read by any AutoCAD user.
- Customize as you go.
- It’s fast – way faster than what they were doing. (Example: annotating 88% faster.)
- Multiple ways to get/give training – use them all!
- Wherever possible, shape your planting standards around Land F/X. It’s so much easier – let the software do the work.
- If the software doesn’t have what you need, ask. They’re really nice!
Question: Can you make your CAD standards available? (54:35)
Answer: Yes, of course! (Planting standards shown at 55:35.)
Note: The Alphanumeric plant symbols are default Land F/X symbols. (58:01)
Question: If I have a planting plan that is already started in CAD, do I need to redo it in order to use Land F/X? (58:45)
Answer: No, you don’t. You just need to use the Match Properties tool to swap out your CAD blocks for smart symbols. You can also use tools such as our Highlight, plant labeling, and scheduling tools once you’ve added the smart blocks to your plan. See our Transitioning to Land F/X webinar.
