[steve lester]

i'm looking for design software for hardscape i have found software for greenscape but nothing that has retaining walls, pavers, timber walls, concrete, stamped, flagstone, bluestone, decks, irrigation, water falls, i'm looking for something that can do all hardscaping design, and estimate in one package is there anything out there even a custom software company that can tailor my needs. we us unilock, belgard, paverlock, pavelock, pine hill, glen gerry, keystone, anchor, we are looking into getting involved with stamped concrete and deck next year as well.

[Stonehenge]

You're in luck, as one of our advertisers has a package that can fit the bill - visit www.gardengraphics.com and find your way to the info about Dynascape and Iris software packages.

[Bill Schwab]

Unilock has a disc that will interface with most cad programs.

[steve lester]

i know of garden graphics but they don't have digital imaging and unilocks program is very basic it don't have alot of design features and you can only use it for unilock plus the walls stink

[Bill Schwab]

Stink as they may, what you'll find is that every manufacturer has their nitche. For example, Keystone sells more structural walls than anyone else and has a multitude of wall products. Unilock has a pretty vast selection of pavers for example.

Keystone has a program called Keygrid that we use to check engineering designs before we build walls to see if the numbers the engineer used on his design are accurate and we limit our liability by doing such.

What you might very well have to do is go with a design program such as gardengraphics, or auto cad, then find a brand specific disc that will interface. Unilock for example can be dragged into an Autocad program to get the patterns you need to show a detail in a hardscape, as can Keygrid. When you mention one brand of paver to the next, if you are looking to show details on a drawing, a person will be pretty hard pressed to see one pattern from a particular manufacturer from the next. most all have 5x9's, or 4x8's, or the funky shapes like Unidecor, so you find a pattern that works from a disc and use it. In all honesty, I got the fastest reactions from bringing sample pavers to a job, laying a piece of the pattern down on the ground and letting the person look at them. The second fastest sales were to those I got to agree to meet me at Unilock's outdoor showroom in Aurora, Illinois.

If you are looking for an digital imaging type program, there are alot of them available, the only beef I have with any of them is that the finished work is simply a rendering, nothing that you finish in the field will ever look like the picture.

When we ran with that type of program, it got us a few sales we would not have normally gotten, while at the same time those sales were to difficult individuals. They looked at the program rendering, looked at their yard and did not have the sense to realize one was a picture, the other was reality. We spent more time justifying why we should get paid and why a rendering is what it is than we could have spent selling more work to a more understanding person.

There are more pros on this forum who can answer far better than I about what you are looking to get involved with and what would best suite your needs, but from what I have researched thus far to date, one single program is not going to have all of what you are looking to do without adding little pieces of this or that.

[steve lester]

bill, what do you use for your design program

[Bill Schwab]

Good old pencil and paper for now. We are waiting for a new Dell computer, autocad program, and a 48" flat screen hi def TV for a monitor. The digital imaging program we use is from Designware, it was given to us for taking a training class through the CLCA.

I tried numerous brands in the past, which is why I say there are many much more qualified to answer questions you have regarding softwares for design. I'm hoping that after we spend the money on this stuff I don't regret it.

[PSUscaper]

One of the biggest problems is that most people seem to think that design programs are 'magical' things that do everything, anything, and all of it very quickly. Wrong.

If you are serious about doing design work, then do this......find a designer first. Why are you going to buy a program and then train someone to learn it.

Why don't you hire a designer who already has their desired platform set-up and let them make the decision??

I have seen it so many times already that it just becomes comical.....a contractor wants a design program, he buys it, he sits down for about a week with it, and then it forever becomes a bookend on a shelf and collects dust for a few years, when, it then becomes obosolete.

[agla]

There are drafting programs and there are photoimaging programs. There is really no design program. You have to tell it what you have. You have to tell it what you want to have. It won't do anything that you do not already know how to do. If you have all the site information from an existing survey, than you have the first part done. You still have to know how to design your layout, your cut and fill, retaining, grading, drainage, and everything else. The big benefit is easy and accurate measuring, both for takeoffs and for drafting.

There is none that process your information. That is still up to you.