Land F/X or Vectorworks Planting; 2 questions

[Deborah Christman]

I have a MAC, a recent purchase, and have tried out Vectorworks Landmark. Relatively easy to use. However, I am also interested in Land F/X but I would need to F/X Cad plus the Land F/X?  I would have to run it on Parallels or it won’t work on the MAC. Will my Adobe Creative Suite and the SketchUp Pro work with either? 

[Tyson Carroll]

I am not sure about your first question. 2 years ago we moved our office from PC’s to Mac running Autocad with Irrigation F/X. We also have Adobe CS6 and sketch up. Works very well. If you have not already take a look at some of Land F/X’s webinars specifically they have 1-2 on running land fx on a mac. 

I have not had much experience with Landmark since college so I cannot speak to the program being better or worse. That being said, Land fx is a great program and is an enormous time saver during different phases of your work allowing for more time to design up front. It is worth every penny and then some! Staff there is extremely helpful and great to work with as well. 

[Deborah Christman]

Thanks. I am glad to hear you say it is worth every penny ’cause it is a LOT of pennies. So I assume you use Parallels to run run the F/X Cad on the Mac?

My first question probably was not very clear. To run LandF/X, it seems as though I need to purchase Land F/X PLUS F/X Cad since I don’t have AutoCAD on my Mac. The AutoCAD LT does not work. So about $3300. Plus the parallels. If it is easy to use, then the extra $1000 over the cost Vectorworks may be worth it for exchanging dwgs with other designers.

[Tyson Carroll]

Like anything you have to weigh cost with increased productivity. In addition it is an investment and if you go with the subscription the cost decreases dramatically over the initial investment. Yes we run paralles to run Autocad for the platform and loaded up Irrigation F/X onto that. It is very easy to use but there like anything there is a learning curve and you are always picking up tips here and there. If you have the time look at some of the Land FX webinars before you make a decision. They are very helpful but like anything the more you use it the more proficient you will get. 

[Robert Anderson]

Deborah,
My practice is centered around a Mac as we’ll and I’m a former AutoCad devote and convert to Vectorworks Landmark and I can personally attest to the superiority of the later. I would be happy to expound on the advantages and even provide support if you plan to transition to Vectorworks Landmark.

For references you can contact Jon Fitch at Landscape Architecture Bureau in Washington DC.

[Jeremiah Farmer]

Hi Deborah,

I’m the CEO and Developer for Land F/X.

Being on a Mac certainly does put you in a spot in terms of just testing our software, as you would at a minimum need to purchase Parallels and a license of Windows.

However, we have an all Mac office here, and Parallels allows us to run AutoCAD, as well as some other PC-based software such as Quickbooks, which is superior to the Mac version.

Your Adobe software and Sketchup will still continue to run on the Mac side.  And in fact, that’s a key point — we feel that Sketchup is an ideal 3D interface for landscape architecture, and Land F/X will link Sketchup with AutoCAD (or our branded version F/X CAD).  Also if you are going to be doing Irrigation Design, there really is no comparison to Vectorworks or any other software, we have reached the point where 15 years of development have left us with the hard-fought victory of having the best irrigation design software in the world.  Planting and Hardscape are still key features, with Land F/X used by many, many firms for such purposes, we just still have some very capable competition keeping us on our toes.

I don’t want to speak for Vectorworks too much, but will just say that it definitely is a nice piece of software, and for those who do not have to be using AutoCAD or Sketchup it really is nice having that integrated 2D and 3D capability in one piece of software.

But I’d recommend you take a look at both web sites, and compare the free training resources.  Also, call the number on our web site, and ask to speak with a technician.  We pride ourselves on the level of service we provide.  We’d even be quite happy to give you a quick web-based demonstration of the software, to make sure it will work for you.

One last point, is that your new Mac should (ideally) last you a good five years.  Over those five years, software such as Land F/X, GIS, Quickbooks and others will certainly be ported to having a native Mac platform.  But in the meantime, having Parallels gives you the best of both worlds, all from the much easier Mac platform.

Cheers,

–J

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