Professional landscape design software solution

[Weedy101]

I am a professional Garden Designer that has for many years been using Vectorworks (http://www.vectorworks.net/index.php) packages. I have become - shall we say disillusioned with Microsoft and windows - and am looking to make the move to a new OS. So far I have been able to set up everything I need except the one tool I cannot do my job without; A genuine Landscape and Garden Design package.

I have read many threads here, most have been declared old and closed, on this subject and to be honest the packages that have been offered are for amateurs. A fully integrated package is needed to maximize the workflow, professional export options are needed to be able to communicate my work to paying customers (Without whom I would not have food on the plate). Walk-through's cannot be an external job to the design process, the entire project has to be managed from concept through construction to handover from within one package to prevent any loss of the design 'in translation'.

I have a reasonable budget for this type of package but cannot find anything anywhere that will run directly on Ubuntu (The os I am currently trying to set up on) without having to use another package to integrate it such as 'Wine'. The biggest problem is that there are many threads saying how much trouble people have had using wine to run windows packages on 64 bit systems, software crashing, data loss, etc etc. I can't have that. Once I start a project I have to know it will be in a stable and secure environment from start to finish.

So my question is NOT what graphics editing packages I can combine to create the look of a professional finish, but where can I find a proprietary package for professional workflow of a design project for Landscape and Garden design that will run 'Native' in Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

[tgalati4]

I always used a loose garden hose.

The package you want does not exist unless you write it. A dentist was not impressed with the expensive, proprietary software that he was using to run his dental practice. So he wrote his own.

http://openmolar.com/

You have spent some time on this. You have not found anything. Open source software is out in the open, so if there was a package to handle a landscape business, you would have found it by now. If there was a proprietary package that runs under linux, you would have found that as well.

So, you can try to cobble together existing packages to create a workflow, or start from scratch. Create a blog and put your workflows in it and recruit developers to create packages that will form your landscape business package. Your workflows should include Use Cases or User Stories--each step that describes what a user puts into the system and gets out of it.

There are a lot of existing packages that you can mold (or trim) to your liking. For instance Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Management System (CMS). Look through these:

http://bitnami.org/stacks

In the meantime, send an email to the Vectorworks folks and ask them to produced a Linux version. Share your response.

[Weedy101]

I always used a loose garden hose.

The package you want does not exist unless you write it. A dentist was not impressed with the expensive, proprietary software that he was using to run his dental practice. So he wrote his own.

http://openmolar.com/

You have spent some time on this. You have not found anything. Open source software is out in the open, so if there was a package to handle a landscape business, you would have found it by now. If there was a proprietary package that runs under linux, you would have found that as well.

So, you can try to cobble together existing packages to create a workflow, or start from scratch. Create a blog and put your workflows in it and recruit developers to create packages that will form your landscape business package. Your workflows should include Use Cases or User Stories--each step that describes what a user puts into the system and gets out of it.

There are a lot of existing packages that you can mold (or trim) to your liking. For instance Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Management System (CMS). Look through these:

http://bitnami.org/stacks

In the meantime, send an email to the Vectorworks folks and ask them to produced a Linux version. Share your response.

I have tried speaking to Vectorworks devs but all they say is they are not interested in producing 'server based software' and go on to a load of technical bull about 'it will run but we cannot.. blah blah'. They clearly have no idea or concept of the modern Unix OS, the way it is now developed for many different uses and not just for servers, and have no interest in what their long time clients (Paid my subs for years) have to say or want to do.

The concept of Opensource is truly fantastic, and the way the community gets together and builds packages to suit it's needs really works - not like other online communities I could mention - but the concept off developing a package to suit my needs for myself is beyond my abilities. Workflows, scenarios, and case studies I can supply, but the programming I could not even attempt.

I simply would not know where to begin; However, if there is somebody reading this that feels they are up to the challenge of building a Unix package on a par with Landmark by Vectorworks (http://www.vectorworks.net/landmark/media.php) I would be happy to help any way I can. Check out the video in the link to see an outline of what it does.