PowerCADD Forum

I am a landscape architect practicing in Sonoma County, California. I started here in 1985 working under the late Jonathan Herr. While working with Jonathan, it became apparent there was a practical use for computers in the business of design.

As I recall, we first started with MacDraw, then ClarisCAD which evolved into PowerDraw and ultimately PowerCADD. I have always found the Mac platform to be gloriously intuitive, and I am generally an early adopter of changing technologies.

I am a one-person firm and my expertise is broad-based, covering all aspects and sizes of projects. I started out in landscape architecture drafting and producing everything through hand drawing, and I liked how it looked. To this day I believe cadd drawings are best presented with the clarity and thought of drawings prepared by hand. I am still actively in business and will likely stay this way until I can't.

We are in exciting times. I use one of the latest iMac Pros with Mojave and yes, there are issues, but it works.

I have the greatest confidence Todd Stanley and Alfred Scott will find a way to keep up and keep this running into the distant future. I so appreciate the simplicity and intuitive nature of PowerCADD, and I feel the future remains bright in terms of this software.

Don MacNair
MacNair Landscape Architecture
Kenwood, California

Don,

I remember Jonathan Herr with much fondness, and also a bit of grumbling but not serious irritation. It was Jonathan who suggested the Linear Patterning tool, which took three weeks of ultra-intense work. The programming has proved to be reliable now for many years and that sort of work can only be done with full madness and intensity.

It was also during this three weeks that I pushed myself too hard and something snapped in my brain, sent me off to a psychiatrist. But I’m taking my meds, my wife hasn’t left me and men in white suits haven’t come to get me... so I guess I’m okay!

I remember visiting with Jonathan at his hilltop home/office out there.

Alfred

Yes Indeed. Jonathan was an excellent mentor and an excellent landscape architect. Although he did tell once very early on there was no place in a landscape architectural office for a computer. He later changed his mind and I was with him when he purchased his first Mac, a MacPlus as I recall.

Don