Creating Plant Styles

Every plant instance inserted into a drawing is based on a plant style, which includes the 2D and 3D plant appearance and the parameters and botanical data for a specific type of plant. Botanical data for the plant styles come from either plant catalogs or the plant database. When the Vectorworks Landmark product is installed, a generic plant style library is included, and more plant content including 2D and 3D plant symbols is available for download. A selected plant is automatically imported into the current file and displays in the Resource Manager. Although Vectorworks libraries provide hundreds of plant styles ready for use in a drawing, you can also create your own custom plant styles, either by entering parameters and graphics or by loading and editing data from an existing plant style.

See Concept: Plants Overview for a discussion of the relationship between plant styles and the preferences for an individual plant instance.

To create a new plant style:

1. Open the Plant Style dialog box using one of the following methods:

●        To create a new plant style based on an existing plant instance in the drawing, select the plant instance, and then select the command.

Alternatively, right-click on the plant instance and select the context command, or click Duplicate from the Plant Preferences dialog box (in the Advanced Plant Preferences dialog box, Duplicate is on the Plant Style pane).

●        To create a new plant style based on 2D and 3D geometry in the drawing, select the geometry and then select the command.

Plant objects follow this special plant style procedure, rather than the general workflow for adding 2D components to other kinds of hybrid objects.

●        To create a new plant style based on an existing plant style, from the Resource Manager, right-click on a plant style, and select Duplicate and then Edit Style from the context menu.

●        Plant styles can also be created automatically by Creating Plant Styles from the Plant Catalog.

2. The Plant Style dialog box opens, displaying the parameters and graphics of the currently selected plant/style. Provide a name for the new style, and then specify the plant parameters on each pane to define the plant. As the parameters are defined, the preview dynamically displays the plant appearance.

Plant styles that have a corresponding plant catalog entry or plant database record automatically update the associated plant catalog/database to match any edits to the plant style, if Update the Plant catalog with Vectorworks Plant style changes or Update the Plant Database with Vectorworks Plant style changes is selected (see Concept: Plant Style and Plant Data Integration). If there is no corresponding entry, an alert opens so that you can add the plant to the catalog or database if desired.

Plant resources can be exported from the Resource Manager or by selecting Export Plant from the plant context menu; see Exporting Resources.

If you want to set plant Z values to the site model surface, the plant styles and site model must be in the same file (they cannot be referenced).

Each pane of the plant style dialog box is described in the following sections.

●        Plant Style: General Parameters

●        Plant Style: Schedule Pane

●        Plant Style: Visualization Pane

●        Plant Style: Insertion Options Pane

●        Plant Style: Plant Data Pane

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Editing Plant Styles

Creating Plant Styles from the Plant Catalog

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