Plan Labeling

Hi Guys,

I joined and posted on here a few weeks ago about changing to computer aided plans. I got a lot of information which I am very grateful for. The choices are a bit overwhelming at this stage so I have decided to keep it simple and ease myself in.

I have attached a plan sample of my current hand drawn and hand labelled work. I take this to the printers and they copy it to paper and also a pdf copy (as per attached). I want to be able to just hand draw the plan (pencil then ink on A1 tracing paper) get it scanned then use the computer to add text and maybe pull in scans of hand sketches saved on the computer or maybe a photo.

Is this possible, I am crossing my fingers that it is as it would save me a lot of time! Maybe I need to get it scanned as a different type of attachment?

I do plan to use goole sketchup as you guys have recommended but for now just as a drawing aid for perspective. I plan to get the 3-D layout framework, print it out and quickly hand draw a simple overlay on trace to give the hand drawn effect. I then want to scan this on my A4 scanner and pull it onto the pdf plan, hopefully I can do this otherwise I would just draw it onto the initial A1 outlay pre scan and text addition. I hope this is possible and that I am making sense here?

I do plan to go fully computer aided maybe next year but at the minute I don't have the luxury both in terms of time and finance to take weeks off to buy and learn new design systems.

Hope you can help. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Ryan

Hi Keith,

Firstly thank you for this reply, its much appreciated. I have not been on for a while can't seem to get a minute. Busy with work but a busy fool maybe! I have been keeping an eye out for different systems available. I came across 'Trial Systems' which interest me. Have you ever heard of it before?

Thanks Again
F. Keith said:

Ryan,

If your hand drawing is this good why would you want to use CAD, or Sketch up. Ok I can understand the professional look of CAD, but your hand drawings are far better than anything thats done in Sketch up. People are so keen to turn to computer aided designs and yes they can help, are easier to change when clients change their mind, dimensions and layouts are good, but to be an expert and produce 3d images takes years of practice, when your 3 D and Axonometric drawings are wonderful. If you did want to go down the CAD route then Auto cad or Vector Works are great and to learn 2d drawing is fairly simple, its just getting your head around using a different way of working, and of course you can then save / export as pdf's. Try Auotcad lite for 2d drawing, rather than full cad. I also find that Keyscape is great, if you do a lot of planting plans and schedules.

However if you just need pdf's or jpgs at the moment, why not invest in a decent scanner / printer, that way you can scan your drawings in, save them to file as jpgs or pdfs on your computer and print them yourself. I bought a great A3 printer / scanner from Brother, it was about £120 plus ink ! but considering most CAD type software is well over £1000, its a good option until you decide what to do, and may save you money going to print shop and fuel costs too.

Replies

Justin Hemming October 9, 2013 at 6:07pm

Really nice drawings! I'm taking first steps into garden design and would love to create drawings like that!

As for your tech question, ask your scanner to save it as a .jpg so you have it as an image file. You can then open it in something like Adobe Illustrator (costs money) or Inkscape (Open source alternative - free) and you can import any other sketches, add text labels etc.

Good luck
Ryan Mc Gee October 9, 2013 at 7:52pm

Thanks Justin,

Just took a quick look at Inkscape so I might mess about with that later and see if it suits, hopefully it will. Good luck with the design end of things. In the early stages steal plenty of ideas and copy what you like the look of.

Thanks again
Justin Hemming October 9, 2013 at 9:51pm

Thanks Ryan,

I had a look at Inkscape and you can open pdf files in that, so no need to get them in jpg
Ryan Mc Gee October 10, 2013 at 1:28pm

Hi Justin, Thanks for this. I have download inkscape opened a pdf plan and just about managed to get some test on it. I can't shape the text box yet but will take a bit of playing around. Might check youtube for demos. Will keep you updated.

Cheers
PRO

Gary RK October 10, 2013 at 6:41pm

You can also markup/annotate with call text-out boxes a PDF file using either the basic tools in the free Adobe Reader or via 3rd party software : http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/X/pro/using/WS58a04a822e3e50102...

We use it to markup areas on client supplied PDF plans for commercial sites.

Simple, basic and free BUT has limited functions....maybe worth a try to test out...?
F. Keith October 12, 2013 at 1:56pm

Ryan,

If your hand drawing is this good why would you want to use CAD, or Sketch up. Ok I can understand the professional look of CAD, but your hand drawings are far better than anything thats done in Sketch up. People are so keen to turn to computer aided designs and yes they can help, are easier to change when clients change their mind, dimensions and layouts are good, but to be an expert and produce 3d images takes years of practice, when your 3 D and Axonometric drawings are wonderful. If you did want to go down the CAD route then Auto cad or Vector Works are great and to learn 2d drawing is fairly simple, its just getting your head around using a different way of working, and of course you can then save / export as pdf's. Try Auotcad lite for 2d drawing, rather than full cad. I also find that Keyscape is great, if you do a lot of planting plans and schedules.

However if you just need pdf's or jpgs at the moment, why not invest in a decent scanner / printer, that way you can scan your drawings in, save them to file as jpgs or pdfs on your computer and print them yourself. I bought a great A3 printer / scanner from Brother, it was about £120 plus ink ! but considering most CAD type software is well over £1000, its a good option until you decide what to do, and may save you money going to print shop and fuel costs too.
Ryan Mc Gee November 24, 2013 at 9:57pm

Hi Keith,

Firstly thank you for this reply, its much appreciated. I have not been on for a while can't seem to get a minute. Busy with work but a busy fool maybe! I have been keeping an eye out for different systems available. I came across 'Trial Systems' which interest me. Have you ever heard of it before?

Thanks Again
F. Keith said:

Ryan,

If your hand drawing is this good why would you want to use CAD, or Sketch up. Ok I can understand the professional look of CAD, but your hand drawings are far better than anything thats done in Sketch up. People are so keen to turn to computer aided designs and yes they can help, are easier to change when clients change their mind, dimensions and layouts are good, but to be an expert and produce 3d images takes years of practice, when your 3 D and Axonometric drawings are wonderful. If you did want to go down the CAD route then Auto cad or Vector Works are great and to learn 2d drawing is fairly simple, its just getting your head around using a different way of working, and of course you can then save / export as pdf's. Try Auotcad lite for 2d drawing, rather than full cad. I also find that Keyscape is great, if you do a lot of planting plans and schedules.

However if you just need pdf's or jpgs at the moment, why not invest in a decent scanner / printer, that way you can scan your drawings in, save them to file as jpgs or pdfs on your computer and print them yourself. I bought a great A3 printer / scanner from Brother, it was about £120 plus ink ! but considering most CAD type software is well over £1000, its a good option until you decide what to do, and may save you money going to print shop and fuel costs too.
David Beasley Garden Design November 25, 2013 at 9:41pm

Hi Ryan

SketchUp is the way for you to go Ryan!

Firstly, take a look at a quick tutorial I did a while back http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/quick-method-of-p...

If you download a copy of SketchUp Pro you get an 8 hour trial of another bit of software called "Layout". with this you can do all the labelling, text annotation and image adding as you described in your post.

Also, using SketchUp and photoshop etc. together you can reproduce a "hand drawn" effect without picking up your pens, here are a few examples that I've done pretty quickly!