Frozen Fish 1: Amiga/FrozenFish-Apr94.iso/bbs/alib/d5xx/d521/landscape.lha/LandScape/LandScape.docs

Text File | 1991-08-05 | 38KB | 623 lines

                         Documentation For LandScape
                         ===========================

    This is the user documentation for LandScape.
    LandScape  is  a  sort  of poor-mans CAD (Computer Aided Design) program
that  allows you to design (landscape) a garden. It consists of two parts: a
design  module,  where  you lay out the design of your garden (using a small
selection  of plants, and other garden objects), and a drawing module, which
takes the design, and draws a stylised 3D version from any viewpoint of what
the garden would look like in real life.

The LandScape distribution consists of the following files:

    -    LandScape.docs           What you are reading now.
    -    LandScape.release_notes  Release notes for this and previous
                                  versions.
    -    LandScape                The executable code
    -    arp.library              (In case you don't already have it)

    There are also icons for the first 3 files.

    This documentation assumes you have a small amount of knowledge on using
your  Amiga.  In  particular, how to click on things (left mouse button) and
how  to  select  items  from menus (right mouse button). In order to set the
program up the very first time, you may have to use the CLI.

                                  CONTENTS
                                  ========

    1)   Obligatory legalese      (what you can do!)
    2)   Why?                     (why write a gardening program?)
    3)   How?                     (example session to get you started)
    4)   Where?                   (a tour of menus and facilities available)
    5)   Hints and Tips
    6)   What's next?             (plans for future versions)
    7)   Technical stuff

                           1 - Obligatory Legalese
                           =======================

    There  are  many different names for software (PD, freely distributable,
shareware,  etc)  and  I can never remember what they all mean. Therefore, I
will just describe what you can do to this program.
    Although  I  retain  copyright to all source code written by me, you can
copy this distribution as much as you like, and give it to whoever you want.
(note  that  arp.library is part of the AmigaDOS Replacement Project, and is
subject  to  their distribution restrictions) The executable, documentation,
and release notes should be kept together, but you can modify/get rid of the
icons  if  you  don't like them. You should not charge for, or have paid any
money for this program, other than reasonable media costs (such as requested
by   Fred   Fish   and   other  reputable  libraries).  The  executable  and
documentation may be compressed (using a powerpacker-type program) if you so
desire. I hope that isn't too restrictive!

    This  program  is supplied 'as is'. No warranty or guarantee of any sort
is  implied.  I  am not responsible for any damage whatsoever that may arise
from using this program.

                                  2 - Why?
                                  ========

    The  idea  for a landscape program came from several sources. Firstly, I
like 3D graphics/fractals, etc, but had never written any programs of my own
in  this area. For myself, then I wanted to try out a few ideas. Secondly, I
wanted  something  to  model  the  real  world.  Real world modeling makes a
program  accessible  to more people, as it is easier to follow what is going
on.  Thirdly,  I  was  lent  a  catalogue  from  a "well-known garden paving
manufacturer".  In  it,  a  landscape  designer  had  drawn plans of various
gardens,  and  then  drawn  the  garden as it would look in 3D. I thought "I
wonder if a computer could do that?".
    The LandScape program is the result of these musings. It is not meant to
be a full-blown CAD program, as these tend to be difficult to use for people
without  a technical background. What I have tried to do, is to take some of
the  ideas  of  CAD  (although  I have never used a CAD package myself), and
pitched them at a more intuitive level (hopefully).
    Now  then,  as  any  programmer will tell you, programs are never really
finished.  This  version  of LandScape has been deliberately limited in many
respects  in  the interests of getting something released. If I didn't do it
this  way,  then  I'd always be adding bits here and there, and no-one would
get to see what I had done. I have some ideas about the things that have yet
to  be  added  (see  section 6), but would always be interested in any ideas
that  you may have, or things that you think a program of this type ought to
be able to do.

                                  3 - How?
                                  ========

    As  the best way to learn is by doing, this section presents in tutorial
form  a  typical  session.  It shows you how to use some of the features the
program   offers.   As   with   anything,   there   is   no  substitute  for
experimentation,  so  if anything looks a bit confusing, do not be afraid to
try  it out a few times. Unfortunately there is some duplication between the
information  presented in this section, and the more detailed information in
section 4.
    An important thing  to remember is that this is a reasonably complicated
program, and  you are advised to use it  experimentally,  to get a  feel for
what  it is going to do, before diving in with anything complicated.  If you
just switch on,  skim through the  docs saying "Yup,  that looks  easy", and
then proceed to try and enter an entry for the Chelsea flower  show, you may
well come unstuck!

3.1 Setting Up

    Sorry  to  start with a boring bit, but there is a small amount of stuff
you  have  to  set  up  before  using LandScape. It only has to be done once
(unless  you  change  your  workbench  disks).  In  order  to work, the file
arp.library  has  to  be  installed  into  your LIBS: directory. If you have
installed the ARP command set, or another program that used arp.library then
this  will  already  have  been done. If, this is not the case, however, you
will  have to copy the file across yourself. This can be done either through
the  CLI and the COPY command, or by using one of the mouse-driven directory
utilities (such as SID) which are quite popular.
    If  really  have  no idea about how to do this, I would suggest that you
seek  help  from  a friend/neighbour/dealer/user group. I could have given a
step-by-step  description  here on how to do it, but since I do not know the
exact  setup  of  the  disk  this  program has been supplied on, there would
always be the risk of it not working.

3.2 Scaling

    OK,  lets assume that the setup has been completed. You can now click on
the  LandScape  icon (or type the program name from the CLI, if you prefer).
The  program  will  come up with a blank screen. The black area is where you
draw the garden plan.
    IMPORTANT NOTE: It is likely that when you see the scaling requester pop
up, you  will  just thump the 'OK'  gadget, and  start planting.  Unless the
default scaling is correct,  RESIST THIS TEMPTATION. If you take the default
scales, you are telling the program that  your garden is 6.4 metres long. If
you  then plonk a  medium-sized tree  (5 metres tall)  in the middle  of it,
there will not be much space left for anything else.
    The  first  thing  to  do is to lay out the garden boundary. To do this,
select  'boundary'  from the edit menu. You cannot do anything useful, until
you have defined some sort of boundary. Now then, a requester pops up asking
you to set the screen dimensions. This is necessary, as when you are drawing
the  garden,  the computer needs to know how big it is in real life. The two
numbers  show  how  big  the  black  drawing  area is on the ground. It will
default  to 640 cms across the screen. If this is too big, or too small, you
can  click  on the up/down arrows to change it. Alternatively, you can click
on  one  of  the  numbers, use the delete keys to get rid of the old number,
then  type  in  a  new number and press return. You will notice that the two
numbers  are  linked,  so that if you change one, the other changes as well.
This  is  because the scaling affects the whole drawing area. You cannot set
different X and Y scales.
    When  you  are  satisfied, click on 'OK'. This cursor will change into a
crosshair.  If  you  move  it  around a bit, you will see a distance readout
appear  in  the  top right hand of the title bar. The crosshair cursor means
that  you  are drawing an area object. If you click the left mouse button, a
white  dot  appears. Moving the mouse now will cause the distance readout to
show  how  far away you are from the dot. If you click the left mouse button
again,  a  white  line  will  be  drawn  from  the first dot, to the current
position.  You  can  go  on in this way, clicking the left mouse button, and
drawing  lines  from  the  last  clicked point to the current one, drawing a
boundary  to  be  any  shape  you like. In order to stop drawing, just click
reasonably  close  (within  5  pixels)  of  the first point on the boundary.
LandScape  will  close  the  boundary,  and  change  the pointer back to its
familiar shape.  An area object has a limit of about 250 points on each area
object, so don't go too mad.
    Note  that  the boundary doesn't actually do anything as such. It is not
drawn  in  the final picture, and the program will allow you to draw outside
of it. However, you are strongly advised not to do this.

3.3 Area Objects

    Now that the boundary has been defined, we can draw the rest of the area
objects.  Currently, these consist of lawns, earth, and footpaths. These are
all  drawn  in exactly the same way as the boundary, you just select the one
you want. You must, however remember the following points: LandScape sets up
the garden in much the same way as a real garden. i.e., you start with a big
patch  of  mud,  then plant lawns, and lay footpaths. This means that if you
plan  a garden with a patch of earth, a lawn, and a footpath all in the same
place, the program will draw the earth first, followed by the lawn (covering
the earth), followed by the footpath (covering both of them).
    The  only  time this causes problems, is if you want something different
from  this  scheme  of  things, such as a patch of earth (flower bed) in the
middle  of a lawn. See the hints and tips section (section 5) for how to get
around this.
    Incidentally,  all area objects are colour coded so that you know what's
what.  The  boundary is white, earth is drawn as brown, lawns are green, and
footpaths are grey. Fairly predictable really.

3.4 Plants

    Now,  we  have set up our lawns, footpaths and flower beds, it's time to
get  planting!  It doesn't really matter when you lay the plants out (before
or  after the area objects) as they push through and are always drawn on the
top  of  all  area  objects. It makes more sense, however to draw the plants
last. The program will also let you plant things on the footpath.
    First  of  all,  you  have  to  decide what to plant. To do this, select
'plant'  from  the  edit  menu. A requester will appear with a  selection of
plant  groups  on  it. The groups ( the 3 boxes across the middle) represent
trees,  non-flowering plants, and flowering plants. The current selection is
highlighted  in  red. If you click on one of the plant group boxes, a second
set of boxes will appear towards the bottom of the requester, containing the
plants  available  in  that  group. You just click on the plant you want (so
that it becomes highlighted). I won't list all the plants available, as this
is  just a tutorial. (see section 4 if you are desperately interested). Note
that  you can only pick one plant at a time (obviously), but if you click on
the flowering plants group, you can pick a flower AND a colour.
    Now if you click on 'OK', the cursor turns into a symbol of whatever you
have  chosen,  and  you can go around the garden plan 'planting' it with the
left  mouse button. As you do this, a little plant symbol will appear on the
plan.  Note  that the symbols are fairly simple, and do not show the size of
the plants.

3.5 Picking a viewpoint

    OK,  now  we've got a garden full of plants, all ready to draw. The most
important  thing  to  do  is  to  save what you've done so far. Ideally, you
should  save  what you've done every 15 minutes or so, that way if something
goes  wrong, you haven't lost too much work. Once you have told LandScape to
draw  the  garden, you will not be able to save the garden plan. If you look
at  save under the project menu, you will see that you can save in two ways:
IFF or data. IFF means that the garden plan is saved in a way that allows it
to  be  loaded  in  DeluxePaint,  or  any other IFF compatible paint/viewing
program.  A  garden  plan saved as IFF can NOT be read back in again. If you
want  to  be  able  to read the garden plan back in again, then it has to be
saved  as  data. Whichever one you pick, you will get a file requester which
you  fill  in to tell the program where to save the information, and what to
call it.
    Anyway, once the garden plan has been saved, the drawing can start. This
is done by selecting draw from the draw menu. Be warned that once the garden
has  started  drawing,  you  cannot get back to the plan without exiting the
program, starting it up again, and loading the plan back in.
    When  you select 'draw', the screen will clear, and the boundary will be
drawn on its own (no plants/lawns, etc). The pointer will turn into a cross.
LandScape is waiting for you to tell it what part of the garden  you want to
look at. This  means that  no matter what  direction you move  your eyes to,
your eyes will always  look at this  point (and it will appear in the middle
of the screen). For most cases, the 'look at' point will be in the middle of
the garden, so for the time  being, move the cursor to the  middle and press
the left mouse button.
    The screen will clear again, and the boundary will be re-drawn, with the
chosen  'look at' point in the middle of the screen. The first coordinate of
the boundary has a red square drawn around it (so that you can keep track of
where  you  are, if you garden is a regular shape). It is now time to pick a
viewpoint. For those who are familiar with 3D rotation, this is a breeze. If
you  are  not  so  familiar  with this concept I will try to explain what is
happening.
    At  the  top  left  of the screen, you will see some boxes. You click on
these  boxes  to  move your viewpoint around. Your movement can be up, down,
left, right, zoom in, or zoom out. You start off vertically above the garden
looking straight down.
    The  key  point is that all movement is radial (polar coordinates). This
means  that  you are at a fixed distance from the 'look at' point. For those
unfamiliar  with polar coordinates, it is quite difficult to explain without
a  few  pictures,  and  so  there  really  is no substitute for clicking the
buttons  and  seeing what happens. If I were forced to try and explain it, I
would  say it is rather like climbing around on the outside of a giant glass
pudding basin placed over the garden.
    No  matter  where  you  move  to, LandScape will make sure the 'look at'
point  is  at  the  centre  of  the  screen.  You  cannot move the viewpoint
underground, or take it past vertical.
    Once  you are happy with the viewpoint, click on the 'quit' box, and the
garden  will  be  drawn from that viewpoint. This takes quite a few minutes,
but the 'drawing in progress...' title will disappear when this is done.
    Be warned that the drawing CAN TAKE A LONG TIME. There is a lot of maths
involved with working out the plants, and although there is a lot that could
be done to speed things up, that is for another version.  You are better off
starting  off with  fairly simple gardens to  start off with,  with not very
many plants in until you work out what to expect.
    When  the  drawing has completed, a new menu will exist in the menu bar.
The only thing you can really do is to save the garden as an IFF file, ready
to  be  loaded  into  your  favourite paint program for printing out, or for
making  any  small changes you feel are necessary. Otherwise, you can select
'quit', and the program will end.

                                 4 - Where?
                                 ==========

    LandScape  consists of two largely independent parts. The editor module,
and  the drawing module. When starting the program, you are using the editor
module.  Instructing LandScape to draw a plan automatically transfers you to
the drawing module. Each module is described below, and has different menus.

Editor Module.

    The  editor  module  is  used for entering a plan of the garden when the
program  is  first  started.  LandScape  can  be  started  from  either  the
workbench,  or  the  CLI.  There is, however a subtle difference if anything
goes  wrong. A CLI launched program will print a error message on the CLI if
a  problem  is  detected.  The workbench launched version will just beep and
flash  the  screen.  In  either  case  the program may or may not terminate,
depending on the severity of the problem.
    The  editor  module  contains  the  following  menu items: (Note that in
common  with  all  Amiga programs, many of the menu selections have keyboard
shortcuts. These are useful for speeding up use of the program once you have
the  hang of how it works. The shortcuts can be seen by pulling a menu down.
On  the  right  of some of the selections is a funny letter A, followed by a
letter.  This  means  that you can select this menu item by holding down the
right Amiga key while pressing that letter.
    The project menu contains the following items:

-   About  (right  amiga  A): Just a quick note on how to contact me, should
you wish to do so.

-   New  (right  amiga  N):  This empties out everything in memory, ready to
type in a new garden plan. This does not have to be done when the program is
started.  Remember that if you select this, any plan typed in so far WILL BE
LOST, so make sure you either intend to get rid of it, or save it first.

-   Open.  (right  amiga  O):  This allows a garden plan that was previously
saved to disk (as data) to be read in. You cannot open a new garden while in
the  middle  of editing an old one. You must first get rid of the old one by
selecting 'new'.

-   Save  (IFF/data):  This  allows  a  garden plan to be saved to disk. for
later  retrieval.  Data  can  be  saved in the standard Amiga IFF format for
loading into a paint/view program. A garden plan saved in this way cannot be
loaded  back into LandScape at a later date. The second way for a plan to be
saved  is  as  a  data file.  This stores the plan information in LandScapes
very own custom personalised file format, which can be read back in later by
the program using 'open'.

-   What is  (right amiga W): This option puts  up a requester with a little
bit  of  information  about the currently selected object. (see 'select' for
how  to  select  an  object) Currently, different sized plants are all drawn
with  the  same symbol, and this is the only way of finding out how big they
are. Click on OK when you have finished reading.

-   Select Item (right amiga S): Selecting something  in the  garden singles
out that object from the others. On its own, it doesn't do much, however the
'delete' and 'what is' menu  functions  only work on  things that  have been
selected. Anything in the garden  can be selected,  and when you choose this
menu  option, the cursor turns  into a question mark with an arrow. You then
move the arrow to the  item you want to  select, and  click on it.  The item
will turn  red, to show that  it is selected. To unselect it, just click the
left mouse button again. If you are selecting a plant,  click on the base of
its trunk/stalk.  If you want to click  on an area object, you have to click
on one of its corners,  NOT  an  edge. The select function 'homes in' on the
nearest  selectable  object,  so  if  you  click  the mouse in the middle of
nowhere,  the nearest item will be selected, even if it is on the other side
of the screen.

-   Delete  Item:  This gets rid of (I suppose you could say 'digs up'!) the
currently  selected  item.  Use  this  carefully,  as  once you have deleted
something, you can't get it back.

-   Quit  (right  amiga  Q)  This  quits  the program and returns you to the
workbench screen.

    The edit menu contains the following items:

-   Boundary  (right  amiga B) When the program is started, this is the only
item  in  this  menu that can be selected. Once the boundary has been drawn,
the  other menu items become available, and no more boundaries can be drawn.
The  boundary is an area object, and is drawn in white. All area objects are
drawn  in  the same way, the cursor turns into a cross hair, and by clicking
on  the left mouse button, the area can be traced out. The area is closed by
clicking  reasonably  close  (within  5  pixels) of the starting point. When
placing  the  first  point,  the  coordinates  in the right of the title bar
should  the  distance  on  the  ground  from the top left hand corner of the
drawing  area.  For  subsequent  points,  the  coordinates show the relative
distance on the ground to the previous point. There is a limit of around 250
points allowed on an area object, which should be enough.
    The boundary differs slightly from the other area objects in that before
it  can be drawn, you have to set the screen scale on the scaling requester.
This  is  fairly  self  explanatory,  you  just  tell  the  program how many
centimetres on the ground each pixel on the screen represents.

-   Lawn  (right  amiga L) This allows a lawn to be laid out. This is pretty
much  the  same as laying out the boundary. A lawn is an area object, and is
drawn in green. Remember that when the final drawing is done, the lawns will
be drawn overlaying any earth, but underneath any footpaths.

-   Footpath  (right  amiga  F)  This  allows  a  footpath to be laid out. A
footpath  is  an  area object, and is drawn in the same way as all the other
area  object.  Footpaths  are  drawn  in  grey.  During  the  final drawing,
footpaths  are  drawn  on  top  of  all  other  area objects (but underneath
plants).

-   Earth (right amiga E) This allows a patch of earth to be drawn. Earth is
an  area  object,  and  is  drawn in the same way as any other area objects.
Earth  is  drawn  in  brown.  During  the final drawing, earth will be drawn
underneath  all other area objects, so if you want a flowerbed in the middle
of  a lawn, you have to leave a hole in the lawn. See the hints/tips section
for more information.

-   Plants  (right  amiga  P) This allows you to populate your garden with a
selection of different plants. Be aware that the plants at the drawing stage
are  fairly  stylised,  and  aren't  meant to look 100% like the real thing.
Still  they  are  approximately the right shape, and approximately the right
colour.  Currently  there  is  only a small selection of plants available. I
hope they are enough to do the job.
    Upon  selecting  the plant menu item, you are presented with a requester
asking what type of plant you want. The requester lists three plant groups -
trees,  non-flowering  plants,  and flowering plants. The currently selected
group  is  highlighted  in red, and as you select each group, a selection of
plants in that group appears in the second set of boxes at the bottom of the
requester.  Once  you select the plant you want, (note that when selecting a
flower,  you  also have to choose a colour) you click on OK, and the pointer
turns  into  a mobile version of whatever plant group you have selected. You
can move this pointer around the garden, and 'plant' it by clicking the left
mouse  button.  The  selected  plant remains active, and you can continue to
plant it around the garden, without having to re-select it. Available plants
are:
    Trees can be:
                   dwarf deciduous tree   (approx 1 metre tall)
                   small deciduous tree   (approx 2 metres tall)
                   medium deciduous tree  (approx 5 metres tall)
                   dwarf fir tree         (approx 1 metre tall)
                   small fir tree         (approx 2 metres tall)
                   medium fir tree        (approx 5 metres tall)

    Non-flowering plants can be:
                   small plant            (approx 10 cms tall)
                   medium plant           (approx 60 cms tall)
                   large plant            (approx 150 cms tall)
                   small hedge element    (approx 75 cms tall)
                   medium hedge element   (approx 150 cms tall)

    Flowering plants can be:
                   small flower           (approx 10 cms tall)
                   medium flower          (approx 60 cms tall)
                   rose bush              (approx 60 cms tall)

    (Any   flowering   plant   can   be   red,   orange,  yellow,  blue,  or
multi-coloured)
Multi-coloured  means  each  flower  is  picked  randomly to be red, orange,
yellow, or blue. You cannot have several colours on the same bloom.

    The draw menu contains the following item:

-   Draw  garden  (right  amiga  D)  This  is the biggy. LandScape takes the
garden  plan  you  have  designed, and passes it to the drawing module. Make
sure  you  have saved the garden plan, as once you start drawing, you cannot
get back to the editor module.

    The  first thing the drawing module sorts out is the position the garden
is  to  be  viewed  from.  To  this effect, the boundary is drawn with a red
square  around  the  first  coordinate  (this  is  in case you have a square
garden, and lose track of how much you rotated it!). You are then invited to
click  on  the  'look at' or viewed point. This is the point about which the
garden will be rotated, and will be drawn at approximately the middle of the
screen.  Normally, the viewed point will be at the middle of the garden, but
by  varying  the positions of the viewed point and the view point (described
in  a  moment),  a good range of different views can be obtained. The viewed
point  is  selected by clicking the crosshair cursor on the appropriate part
of  the  plan.  The  boundary  will be re-drawn with the viewed point at the
centre  of  the  screen. From this point onwards, the program will not allow
the boundary to go off the sides of the screen, and any time the boundary is
moved  in  such  a  way  as  to  cause  this  to  happen,  the  program will
automatically  zoom  the  viewpoint  outwards, until the boundary has shrunk
enough  to  fit.  A group of boxes at the top left of the screen control the
movement  of  the  viewpoint.  They allow movement up, down, left, right, as
well  as  zoom  in  and zoom out. The movement is based on polar coordinates
with  origin  at  the  viewed  point,  so  up/down  are  variations in polar
elevation and left/right are variations in polar azimuth. These all maintain
a  constant  radial  distance from the 'look at' point. The zoom in and zoom
out  boxes  alter the radial distance from the 'look at' point, but maintain
the same polar angles.
    At  all  times, the 'look at' point remains at the centre of the screen.
The  angles  change  in  ten degree increments, and the radial distance also
changes  in  increments  of  ten.  As  the viewpoint is changed by using the
boxes, the boundary is constantly re-drawn with perspective to show what the
boundary would look like if viewed from that position
    Although  there is no limit azimuth, the elevation is limited to be zero
degrees  and  ninety  degrees  (i.e.  you  cannot go underground or over the
zenith).  In addition to this, the zoom in will not let you get too close to
the  garden, or zoom in so that the boundary extends of the screen. Once the
viewpoint  has been satisfactorily selected, click on the quit 'box' and the
drawing will commence.
    There  is  really  not much to say about the drawing process. All plants
are rendered mathematically, so I hope they look reasonably lifelike, but do
not  expect  a  Rembrandt!.  The  'drawing  in  progress...' message will be
removed  from  the title bar when drawing is finished, so it's just a matter
of  sitting around and waiting. Of course, you can always switch back to the
workbench and do something else (isn't multi-tasking wonderful!)
    When  drawing  is completed, a new menu bar will have appeared. There is
only  a  project  menu,  and even this only has two options. The first is to
quit  the  program,  and  the  second is to save the drawn picture as an IFF
file.
    Incidentally, throughout drawing, a set of coordinates are  displayed in
the right  hand of the  title bar.  These show the  position of the  current
viewpoint  in  polar  coordinates.  't1'  (t stands  for  theta) is  angular
azimuth, 't2'  is  angular  elevation,  and  'r'  is  radius  (distance from
origin).

                             5 - Hints and Tips
                             ==================

1)  Drawing complicated areas.
    If  you want to define an area object (such as a lawn), it is not always
best  to define it as one large complicated shape. Sometimes you may find it
easier to split it up into several smaller, simpler shapes.

2)  Overlapping areas.
    Do  not  worry about area objects overlapping each other. If the objects
are  of  different  types,  one  will overdraw the other, according to their
relative  priorities.  If  the  area objects are both of the same type, they
will merge together and look like one in the final picture.

3)  Area priorities.
    It  is not directly possible to defeat the area object drawing priority.
At  first  sight, this makes it difficult to get something like a flower bed
in the middle of a lawn. The best way (although by no means the only way) is
to draw one large patch of earth first as filling the whole garden, and then
draw  the  lawn  as two adjoining sections, each with half of the flower bed
cut out of it, leaving a 'hole' where the earth shows through.

4)  Circular Areas.
    As  you  have  probably  guessed,  it  is  not directly possible to draw
circular  or  rounded  objects.  However,  since  each  area object can have
approximately  250  points, you can get reasonably close to a rounded object
by using more points spaced quite closely together.

5)  Square Areas.
    Drawing square or rectangular areas is much easier if you keep an eye on
the coordinates in the  title bar. Presumably, if you are working out a real
garden,  you will  have a reasonably  good idea of  what the  dimensions are
going to be.  Funnily enough, it is more difficult to  draw these objects if
you are just experimenting, as you will not have thought out beforehand what
the dimensions are.

6)  Plant distances.
    The title bar coordinates also come in  useful for determining how close
plants should  be to each other.  Bear in mind that with this version of the
program, the  images on the plan do not  give you much idea  of how big  the
real objects are.  This  means that if,  for example  you plant a  series of
hedge  elements so  that the  symbols are  just  touching,  you  may  get  a
perfect-looking hedge. However, depending on the scaling,  you may find that
when it is drawn, it has gaps in it,  or that  the hedge plants are much too
close together (meaning that it takes a lot longer to draw). Once again, you
have to experiment to see what looks good.

                              6 - What's Next?
                              ================

    The  version  of LandScape released here is almost unchanged from what I
decided  to  write  several  months  ago.  At the time, I laid done a set of
minimum  requirements  for  the  program  to  be  able  to  do.  These  were
deliberately limited in the interests of having a stationary goalpost to aim
at.  Since  then,  other  ideas  have also occurred to me. Possibilities for
improvement and extension include:
1)  Making  the  program  self-install.  This  would  make things easier for
people not familiar with using the CLI to copy any libraries, etc.
2)  The  garden  is currently constrained to be perfectly flat. Support will
be  added  for  split levels and slopes. To be fair, all of the graphics and
perspective  routines already support full 3D, it's just that I have not yet
thought of a way of good way of representing them on the plan yet.
3)  The   list   of   available   objects   will  be  increased  to  include
stones/paving/brickwork/walls/fences/ponds,  etc  plus  a greater variety of
plant life. Object texturing is also being looked into.
4)  Currently  all  dimensions are metric (centimetres). I realise that this
will  annoy  at  least one large continent, so imperial measurements will be
included.
5)  Context-sensitive on-line help will be provided.
6)  Plan detail currently has to fit on one screen. Some sort of zoom/scroll
facility is under consideration.
7)  Area  objects  are  currently only selectable by the corners, and plants
only by the origin. This may be changed so that edge selection is allowed.
8)  Plan  symbols are currently fixed size. This will be changed so that the
plant size and type is more obvious, and will also change to be proportional
to the scale of the garden.
9)  Workbench  support  will  be  improved. Thus saved gardens and IFF files
will  be  provided  with  icons.  In addition, the program will be much more
configurable  from  the CLI and icon tooltypes. A good example of this would
be with metric/imperial measurement selection.
10) Objects may be forced to be inside the garden boundary.
11) The  viewpoint  positioning  boxes  will  auto  repeat, making viewpoint
selection a bit easier on the mouse.
12) All  of  the  floating point maths currently used during drawing will be
changed to fixed point. This should speed up the drawing a lot.
13) The  algorithms  for  drawing  the  plants  will be further modified and
refined, to make the plants more lifelike and realistic.

    Now  then, all of the above are just ideas. It is not definite that they
will happen, and if they do, it may not necessarily all be at the same time.
I  wrote  this program for a laugh, and to learn more about a great machine.
If  you  find  that  what  I have done is interesting or useful, then that's
icing on the cake. I will continue to work on this program as long as I feel
someone  (whether  myself  or anyone else) is benefiting from it. The supply
will try to respond to the demand.

                             7 - Technical Stuff
                             ===================

    This section is intended for anyone who happens to be interested in some
of LandScapes technical aspects.
    LandScape  was  written  entirely  in C, and was developed using various
versions  of the SAS (Lattice) C compiler. The final code was produced using
version  5.10a.  LandScape uses a lot of recursion during the drawing phase,
but  does  not  seem to go very deeply, as I have never seen it overflow the
default  4000 byte stack. Nevertheless, as I cannot guarantee that this will
never  happen,  I  have  left in SASs stack checking code. If the stack does
overflow, you will get a requester warning you, and giving you the option to
abort the program. Be aware that if you do this, you will not get any memory
back  that was in use at the time, until rebooting. This is a side effect of
the  SAS  code,  and  I  am not aware of any way I can regain control of the
machine to free up the resources.
    The  drawing  routines  make extensive use of floating point maths. This
was  done  intentionally, as I wanted to make it work, before I made it work
quickly.  I  may change this to fixed point maths, as the drawing speed is a
little  slower  than  I  thought it was going to be. The Fast Floating Point
libraries  are  used  at  runtime, which keeps the program size down nicely.
Sorry  FPU  people,  but no support for you. I had originally written in FPU
support via the IEEE runtime libraries, but on my machine (with a 68881 as a
peripheral  processor,  NOT  a  coprocessor)  even  these were significantly
slower  than  the  FFP  libraries,  and  I  had  no  real  use for the extra
precision, so out the window they went.
    Since  LandScape  was  written  in  C,  and  doesn't  to my knowledge do
anything  nasty  to  the  machine,  I  believe  that  it  should work on all
processors. However, I am unable to test this. I would be grateful if anyone
with  access  to  such  machines  (particularly  the  A3000) would report on
whether or not this is the case. Similarly, I have tried to make the program
auto-configure to an NTSC screen, but this cannot be terribly well tested on
a  PAL  machine.  On  the  odd  occasions that my machine boots with an NTSC
screen  (the  well known bug), superficial testing seems to indicate that it
works.
    The  plants  in  LandScape are generated algorithmically at runtime. For
each  plant  type, I have taken a basic form, and I then allow each plant to
develop inside a set of constraints. The starting form, and constraints have
been   picked   by  trial  and  error,  until  the  plant  started  to  look
approximately  like  the  real  thing.  The  algorithms have a lot of random
elements, and so every time you draw a garden, the plants will look slightly
different.  Although things should average out, occasionally you get a badly
lopsided  or  misshapen  plant.  This,  I  believe  mirrors  real  life! The
algorithms are recursive, and to a certain extent sensitive to size, so that
a  large  object  will  have  more  detail  than a small one. However, large
objects  are  also  drawn more coarsely to speed up the drawing time (I hope
that doesn't sound too self-contradictory).

Steve Goddard.