Garden Planner software development blog
A updated version of the beta Garden Planner 3d viewer is now available. You can find it here.
This update includes a lot of bug fixes and adds in most of the garden furniture. It also starts to add in the option to choose custom shapes and styles for trees. In a 2d plan a simple circle may be used to represent a tree, but what does that look like in 3d? The 3d view will let you choose from a range of shapes to represent the tree, as shown in the image.above.
Following up from the July 4th post I have now updated the beta 3d viewer, so that Bowling Green Park is one of the default sample plans provided. Get the latest version of the 3d viewer for Garden Planner plans here. Click on the number 2 to open the park. It’s a large plan and may take a moment to display. I think it’s come out quite well, considering it’s being created from a 2d plan, but I welcome any feedback.
The latest update to Garden Planner is inspired by the northern hemisphere summer and the US 4th July weekend. This update adds in some new objects including Grills, Pizza ovens, fire pits and fountains. As always its a free update, just download and install the latest trial version and it will update (if you have the full version of garden planner the trial version will automatically switch to the full version). If you purchased through the Mac or Windows store just update through the store app.
Also, inspired by the 4th of July I’ve created a new plan of Bowling Green Park in lower
Manhattan, in New York.
So, what has this to do with the fourth of July? Well it’s the oldest park in NY, and in 1770 the British government erected a statue of King George III in the park. But on July 9th 1776 after the Declaration of Independence was read to Washington’s troops at the current site of City Hall, troops rushed down Broadway to Bowling Green and the statue was toppled. According to folklore, the statue was chopped up made into patriot ammunition. The center of the park now has a large pond and fountain. If you wish you can download the plan here.
Garden Planner has now been updated to version 3.5.14 The main changes are bug fixes and this update is recommended if you have any problems with changing scale in your plans.
More interestingly, the beta 3d viewer has also been updated. This updates fixes a bunch of bugs, so if previously you had an issue getting your plan to load into the 3d viewer then try it again with this update. This update doesnt include any changes or additions to plants (that will be in the next update). It does include more buildings, better walls and fences, some rocks, arches, pergolas etc. It also includes a properties button (bottom right of the screen) that will show the properties for the currently selected object. At the moment not everything can be selected and not everything has properties that can change. But you can change the style of most buildings, and change the height and elevation of lots of objects. This can be interesting because most of the basic shapes in garden planner (found in Basic shapes in Special collections category) have 3d versions. So with a few basic shapes : squares that become cubes in 3d, rectangles that become cuboids, and circles that become cylinders; along with the ability to change elevations and heights you can create whole new objects in GP3d. 
This Torri (Japanese gate) was created by placing a few rectangles and two circles in garden planner, which became 3d shapes in gp3d. Then by just adjusting the height and elevation I was able to create this.
Garden Planner version 3.5 (3.5.8) is now available. This update adds a number of useful features.
Group Objects: you can now group and ungroup a selection of objects. It’s a small improvement but can be very useful especially when managing large plans.
Height: you can now store a height value for trees, plants, walls, buildings etc. This can be useful for planning purposes. The options for the Plant and Object list have also been improved and it is from here that you can choose to show height values in your plant list if you wish.
Other smaller additions:
By default the note books automatically links a garden note for a plant with all other identical plants (so you are not typing the same note over and over again) However some people want each plant to have its own notes, so there is now an option for this in the advanced settings menu.
You can also choose from a couple of display style options in the Preview window.
Bug Fixes: lots of bug fixes, especially pertaining to the vegetable bed planner.
ALSO: GP3d has been updated. The beta tool that lets you view garden planner plans in 3D has been updated. The strange purple shadows on walls are gone and they look more normal now. Also if you enter a height value in Garden Planner for a wall or fence it will be reflected in the 3d view. Some buildings also will show the appropriate height in 3d. Not yet trees, but its coming soon.
The ipad app Garden Designer is now available for Android tablets. Find it on google play here
