Site: terrain, hard landscape and planting

The Site tools (Create › Site) model the ground around the building: the terrain, paved and gravelled areas, and trees and shrubs. Cars and people come from the catalogue.

Terrain

1. Pick the Terrain tool.
2. Set its Depth in the tool options.
3. Draw the ground's outline like a slab: 1 Polygon, 2 Rectangle, 3 Fill room or 4 From sketch.

New terrain is flat at its level and covered in Grass from the material library. To shape it, add spot heights in Properties. Click Add spot height, then type its X and Y position and its height above the level. The surface runs through every spot height and slopes between them. The outline's corners stay at the terrain's Top unless you put a spot height on them, so one spot height in the middle makes a mound and spot heights on the corners tilt the whole site. Set Contours every to draw contour lines in plans, for example every 250 mm. Spot heights show in plans as small crosses.

Hard landscape

Hard landscape areas are slab-like layers on the ground, each with its own material and surface pattern.

1. Pick the Hard landscape tool.
2. In the tool options, pick what to draw:
   • Paving: 600 × 400 concrete flags.
   • Driveway: block paving laid in stretcher bond.
   • Gravel: stippled.
   • Decking: boards.
   • Asphalt: no pattern.
3. Draw the area's outline like a slab.

The picks are only starting points. In Properties, change the area's Top, Depth and Pattern:

• Units: their length, width, staggered courses and angle.
• Lines: their spacing and angle.
• Stipple: its spacing.

Plans draw the pattern over the area, and 3D shows the area in its material. An area drawn inside flat terrain sits flush: the ground leaves room for it.

Planting

1. Pick the Planting tool.
2. In the tool options, pick a Tree, Conifer, Palm or Shrub, and its Canopy (the spread of its crown) and Height.
3. Click to plant. Keep clicking to plant more.

In plan, each plant is a symbol as wide as its canopy: a scalloped crown with its trunk for a tree, a ringed star for a conifer, fronds for a palm, a smaller scalloped outline for a shrub. In 3D, sections and elevations it is a simple form: a trunk under a round crown, a cone, a tall trunk with a head of fronds, or a low mound. Give it a material to change the colour of its crown.

Cars and people

Create › Site › Cars and people… opens the Catalogue at Entourage: a car, a person and a child, for scale. Place them like any other object.

Reshaping

Terrain and hard landscape areas have the same grips as a slab: drag a corner or an edge, and open them in Edit mode (Enter) to add or remove corners or change an area's holes. Move plants with the Move tool.

Exchange and visibility

Terrain exports to IFC as IfcGeographicElement (TERRAIN), plants as IfcGeographicElement, and hard landscape as IfcCivilElement. The IFCX format reads them back as the same editable elements. Views can hide them through the Terrain and hard landscape and Planting categories (see Visibility).