New Commands and features in RhinoLands / Lands Design 6

RhinoLands

Standalone landscaping solution

• The “Lands Design (Rhino)” desktop icon has been renamed to “RhinoLands”. When launching it, Rhino will open with a completely new look and feel, making RhinoLands appear to users as a standalone application built over Rhino.
• RhinoLands can run on top of Rhino 8 and Rhino 7. If user has both versions installed a dialog will appear to select the Rhino version to run RhinoLands on.
• There is still the option to work with the default Rhino interface and use Lands Design as a regular plug-in, by opening Rhino directly rather than using the “RhinoLands” desktop icon.

Ribbon-based user interface focused on landscapers needs

RhinoLands replaces the standard Rhino toolbars and menu by an exclusive ribbon designed to be extremely user friendly.

Ribbon Tabs
They group the main RhinoLands functions. There are the following tabs:

• • Drawing: to draw points, lines, polylines, curves, as well as commands edit curves.
  • Modeling: to create surfaces and solids, as well as commands to edit them, and some advanced functions like extrusion or boolean operations.
  • Terrain: to import earth data, create terrains, edit them and perform earthmoving operations
  • Vegetation and Hardscape: this is the most important tab for landscapers. It allows to create plants in multiple ways: single, rows, forests, shrubs, groundcovers… as well as walls, fences, stairs, ramps… There are also commands to insert urban furniture, individually or in rows, from a vast block library.
  • Irrigation: to insert sprinklers and pipes, manually or in an automated way.
  • Documentation: all kinds of commands to document the project, from zonify and list to plant labels and photos, as well as commands to dimension objects and to add slope and level marks. Users will also find here commands to create layouts and details and to create sections.
  • Visualization: to change the viewport layout, the view (top/front/left/perspective…), set the viewpoint and walkabout, change the display mode (wireframe/shaded/rendered/hidden…) and to render and apply image filters to the result.
  • Select: to select all, invert selection, select objects by type (curves, surfaces, block instances, plants, terrains, lists…), etc.

Quick Access Toolbar
Fixed to the top of the Ribbon, it offers the most often used functions:

• • “File” drop-down menu with common file-related functions and a recently-opened file list.
  • New, Open, Save…
  • Cut, Copy, Paste…
  • Undo, Redo…
  • Zoom and Pan options, as well as CPlane
  • Select, Hide and Lock objects
  • Toggle 2D/3D
  • “Customize” drop-down menu to remove/add functions to the Quick Access Toolbar.

User Account button

• • Allows user to manage its Rhino and Lands Design licenses.
  • Shows important notifications.

Other features

• • Buttons at the top-right corner to quickly access Options and Help, as well as to open Grasshopper and to show Rhino panels.
  • The Ribbon acts as the application’s title bar, hiding the standard Rhino title bar and incorporating the Minimize, Maximize and Close Windows caption buttons. It also shows the application title and the name of the opened file, as well as its size.
  • Dark Mode support.

New Lands Object Types

Ramp object

Parametric ramp composed of one or more flights/landings along a single curve, a polyline or a polycurve. Can be shown in 3D, in 2D as slope arrows and values, or in 3D and 2D at the same time.

Ramp Properties

• • Type
    • Masonry: Ramp built on a solid structure.
    • Floating: Cantilever-built ramp.
  • Start height (for Masonry ramps) or Thickness (for Floating ramps).
  • Flight join
    How the joint behaves during changes of slope direction on ramps created from polylines or polycurves
    • Landing: Create a flat platform with no slope at the intersection points of the ramp.
      • Maximum extension: maximum length for landings.
    • Mitered: Create miter joints at the intersection points of the ramp.
  • Smoothness
    Precision in which the object is subdivided along the axis curve in order to fit with its path. This parameter is only relevant when the Ramp object has been created from curved curves.
  • Justification
    Position of the axis relative to the structure. There are three possible justifications: Left, Center and Right.

Flight Properties

• • Start width: Width at the starting point.
  • End width: Width at the ending point.
  • Slope expressed in three possible ways:
    • Height: Ramp height in model units.
    • Percent: Incline measurement in percentage.
    • Rise over Run: a ratio, for example a 1:12 slope means that for every 1 unit of vertical rise, there are 12 units of horizontal run.
  • Info: read-only, shows the actual slope (in % and degrees), height and length.

Arrow properties

• • Shape: Filled thin, Open wide or Extended
  • Color
  • Slope label: Percent, Angle or Rise/Run
  • Text style, height and color

Level Mark object

Parametric elevation mark symbol and a text that indicates an elevation value.

Symbol Properties

• • Shape: Circle, Double triangle, Triangle or Cross.
  • Label Place: Left or Right.
  • Scale

Label Properties

• • Automatic: no need to enter the text.
  • Custom text when Automatic is unchecked.
  • Prefix and Suffix texts to add to the label.
  • Text style and color

Hatch properties for symbol filled parts: Pattern, color, angle and scale

Fence List object

List the Posts and Balausters required by the fences inserted in the document.

Available fields

• • Post/balauster icon
  • Index
  • Name
  • Width
  • Depth
  • Height
  • Layer
  • Amount

Wall List object

List the walls inserted in the document.

Available fields

• • Index
  • Name
  • Height
  • Width
  • Layer
  • Linear meters

Path List object

List the paths inserted in the document.

Available fields

• • Index
  • Name
  • Section profile icon
  • Width
  • Area
  • Layer
  • Linear meters

Commands

New commands

• laRamp: Inserts a new Ramp object.
• laLevelMark: Inserts a new Level Mark object.
• laListFences: Inserts a new Fence List object.
• laListWalls: Inserts a new Wall List object.
• laListPaths: Inserts a new Path List object.
• laTerrainAddInnerBoundary: Adds an inner boundary to the selected Terrain.
• laTerrainConsolidateElevationData: Consolidates the elevation data of the selected Terrain so that it is stored persistently and doesn’t need to be recomputed after each terrain modification. Once consolidated, no more contour curves or level points can be added to the terrain.
  Revert the consolidation when the selected terrain elevation data has previously been consolidated by this command.
• laEditPlantDatabase: Edits plant database .db or .db2 files other than the working database, like partial database files, for example to share them with other users, that can later import them into their working database.
• laPipeNetwork: Inserts Lands Pipe objects that will automatically form a network to reach all the selected sprinklers and sprinkler matrixs.
• laSelPlant: Selects all single plants in the document.
• laSelPlantRow: Selects all plant rows in the document.
• laSelForest: Selects all forests in the document.
• laSelShrub: Selects all shrubs in the document.
• laSelGroundcover: Selects all groundcovers in the document.
• laSelTopiary: Selects all topiaries in the document.
• laSelWall: Selects all walls in the document.
• laSelFence: Selects all fences in the document.
• laSelStair: Selects all stairs in the document.
• laSelRamp: Selects all ramps in the document.
• laSelPath: Selects all paths in the document.
• laSelRow: Selects all rows in the document.
• laSelUrbanFurniture: Selects all the urban furniture in the document.
• laSelTerrain: Selects all terrains in the document.
• laSelSprinkler: Selects all sprinklers in the document.
• laSelSprinklerArray: Selects all sprinkler arrays in the document.
• laSelPipe: Selects all pipes in the document.
• laSelZone: Selects all zones in the document.
• laSelList: Selects all lists in the document.
• laSelPlantPhoto: Selects all plant photos in the document.
• laSelPlantLabel: Selects all plant labels in the document.
• laSelLabel: Selects all labels in the document.

Removed commands

• laConvertTo

Enhancements and new options

Terrain

• Added “fromMesh” prompt option to laTerrain command to create Lands terrains from mesh objects rather than from curves and/or points.
• Lands terrains can now have one or more inner boundaries.
• Much better generation performance during edition by caching each operation result so that when a modification is done the terrain is updated starting from the latest possible cached stage.
• Added a progress bar dialog to show the generation progress in case it takes a while.
• Improved reliability of earth moving operations, achieving now 90-degree holes and cut&fills without using mesh boolean operations.
• Simplified properties dialog: removed the “Gridded surface shaped to triangulation” and “Use the grid to model holes and cut and fills” options.
• Removed the “Number of contours” option to define the output contour lines interval.
• Now laTerrain command asks for the input data prior to showing the insert dialog, and chooses proper default values for terrain cell size and output contour interval based on the selected input data extents.
• Added “Consolidate” button to “Input data” properties tab to consolidate large elevation data sets so that they are stored persistently and don’t need to be recomputed after each terrain modification.
  Once consolidated:
  • no more contour curves or level points can be added to the terrain.
  • the button changes to “Revert consolidation”, to allow user to edit again the elevation data
• laEarthScan and laImportDEM commands will now create Lands Terrain objects directly with consolidated Elevation Data, making it possible to import much larger areas as a Lands Terrain, and much faster. In this case the consolidation can’t be reverted.
• From now on, new Lands terrain objects will always store the internal geometry data in meters, regardless of the document units, to avoid precision issues due to large coordinate values caused by the use of small units (for example: millimeters).

2D/3D and Plant Display

• Per viewport or detail 2D/3D display of Lands objects: now you can see your design in 2D on a viewport and in 3D on another one at the same time.
• Per viewport or detail Plant 2D/3D display mode: now you can see realistic plants on a viewport and conceptual plants on another one at the same time.
• Added an option to the Document/Viewport properties tab to synchronize the display options in all viewports. This has no effect on layout details.
• Now the Document/Viewport 2D-3D states are mutually exclusive (radio buttons instead of checkboxes), and affects both plant and non-plant objects.
• Non-plant objects can no longer be converted to 2D/3D individually or be shown in both 2D and 3D. However for some objects like Terrains and Ramps you can still show the 2D together with the 3D, by enabling it from the General properties tab.
• Old “Document” properties tab has been renamed to “Viewport”, since its properties are now applied to the current Viewport only rather than to the whole document. Document “Render” tab has been renamed to just “Document” and now contains the document season property as well as all the other properties for realistic plants display and render applied at a document level.

Planting Plan

• Artistic Plant Crowns
  • Completely new 2D crown blocks featuring:
    • Gradient hatches.
    • Transparency.
    • An artistic look and feel.
  • New option in Document/viewport properties tab to show/hide the crown hatches for the whole document.
  • New option in Species properties tab to show/hide the crown hatches for a particular Species.
  • Changed the default Planting layer color to #44563E.
• Merge Crown Boundaries
  • Added new option in Plant properties tab to automatically merge the crown boundary of plants of the same species that touch each other, for better readability of planting plan.
  • Automatic update of the merged crowns when plants are added, moved, resized, modified or deleted.
• laPlant command
  • Faster insertion of multiple individual plants (picking several insert points).
  • When inserting multiple plants with the “Natural variation” option enabled, the plant preview displayed while the user selects the insert point now reflects the exact appearance and size the plant will have once inserted.

Earth Data Import

• Added to laEarthScan command the option to import roads as 2D polylines representing the roadsides.
• Added new fields in the document “Layers” properties tab to set the layers where the imported buildings and roads will be inserted.
• Added new fields in the “Layers” options tab to set the name and color of the layers to create for imported buildings and roads, or to avoid creating them.

Edit Panel

• Removed the top toolbar.
  • 2D/3D functions are now available in the RhinoLands Ribbon Quick Access Toolbar, as well as in the Document/Viewport properties.
  • Select combo box has been replaced by the RhinoLands Ribbon “Select” tab, and by the RhinoLands Ribbon Quick Access toolbar select drop-down menu button.
  • The button to toggle the “elevate to terrain new objects” has been replaced by a new option in the context menu area of the Edit Panel, that will appear during the insertion of new objects.
• Improved performance updating the selection tree when the user “Selects All” in a document with hundreds of thousands of objects.

Plant Database

• Speeded up Plant Database open by reusing the previous query result at close, loading faster the plant thumbnails, and other improvements.
• Added 52 new species in the Plant Database with full botanical data and their own 3D realistic file:
  
  

  Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Atropurpureum’ Agave bracteosa Agave colorata Agave murpheyi Agave ovatifolia Agave palmeri Allium cepa Allium porrum Allium sativum Alstroemeria aurantiaca Anemone spp. Apium graveolens Arachis hypogaea Aristea capitata Asparagus officinalis Bergenia crassifolia Caltha palustris

  Caryodendron orinocense Chasmanthe floribunda Coffea arabica Combretum erythrophyllum Delonix regia Dodonaea angustifolia Dombeya wallichii Elaeagnus pungens Eugenia myrtifolia Euphorbia milii Ficus benjamina ‘Starlight’ Ficus elastica Ficus lyrata Fynbos spp Halleria lucida Indigofera jucunda Iris laevigata Isolepis cernua

  Jatropha curcas Lactuca sativa Lilium spp. Lysichiton americanus Melia azedarach Odontonema strictum Olea europaea subsp. africana Petrea volubilis Petunia hybrida Photinia serrulata Prunus cerasifera Ptaeroxylon obliquum Rhus typhina Scadoxus puniceus Spinacia oleracea Watsonia borbonica Zantedeschia aethiopica

• 110 new realistic plant files for existing species in the Plant Database.
• 13 existing realistic plant files replaced by better versions.

Launcher

• Single launcher for both Lands Design 6 for Rhino and Lands Design 6 for AutoCAD. Now it detects and lists all applications (all compatible Rhino and AutoCAD versions installed) that RhinoLands/Lands Design 6 can run on.
• Nicer appearance of the select application dialog.

Other

• Added “Close” and “Undo” prompt options to laWall, laFence, laPath, laStair, laRamp, laRow, laPlantRow, laForest and laSprinkleMatrix insert commands when user draws the path curve during the insertion instead of selecting an existing curve.
• Embed image files into html contents when exporting lists to HTML, so that there is no need to create a folder with the image files beside the html file.
• Nicer buttons in document Layers properties tab.
• Lands Design 6 can be installed without uninstalling Lands Design 5. They are completely separated installations. Since they can’t be loaded on Rhino at the same time, when Rhino loads Lands and there are two versions available Lands will show a dialog to select the version. This dialog has a countdown and closes automatically after 10 seconds if user does no action, in order to avoid a hang on load.
• The dialog doesn’t appear in RhinoLands, since the user has already chosen the Rhino version from the RhinoLands desktop icon.
• For now, this only affects Rhino 7, because the old Lands Design 5 can’t load on Rhino 8.
• Compatible with VisualARQ 3.
• Rhino 8 support
  Lands Design 6 is compatible with Rhino 8 and Rhino 7. Rhino 6 is no longer supported.