WildTools Developments

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:53 pm

Lots of new stuff going on in WildTools, which changes every day on my machine. Little things, but a lot of them add up.

Matt asked for a multi-click mode on the Clip tool, much like we already have on the Combine tool.

So if you have a polygon shape with a lot of other polygons surrounding and overlapping it, you first click on the main shape, then click, click, click... on each overlapping shape which trims to the main shape. It’s a huge time saver when you have a lot of overlapping shapes.

(I’ve never actually cared about these tools, and I don’t think I’ve used them even once in an actual drawing, but Matt uses these things all the time. On the leaves for the trees, he will create a basic leaf shape, then duplicate and scatter them around using Jiggle, then make them all into a single polygon with the Combine tool. So there are often only a few polygons for all those leaves.)

Matt came up with new people shapes for the People tool.

And there are new Shrub Elevation and Tree Elevation tools in the Trees & Shrubs palette. These include a wide assortment of shapes, from basic generic trees to small bushes and trees with leaves, Ginko, Cedar, Pine, Palm, Fir, Bradford Pears, etc. While these are intended to empower you to draw and increase your productivity, in fact they will destroy your productivity. This is the most insane software you’ll ever see. You click and drag to draw a vertical line to establish the height, then move the mouse to the side to establish the width. These are all built on random numbers so the images dance around with each move of the mouse. It’s not intended as a game, but you will quickly fill up a drawing with things.

We’ve toyed with the idea of a group of tree leaves to the Leaf tool, so you could create a pile of leaves for a group of shrubs. I may continue to fight with it today. It would be just as wild and insane as the Bradford Pears...

And my next project will be to finish the new tool palette designs I’ve been working on for the past two years. They are variable in size between the two overall sizes we’ve always had. The icons will be very crisp on Retina displays. They all resize together, but you can also have ‘eccentric’ palettes that have their own size that you can set individually.

It also raises the possibility that Matt suggests that you could permanently pop the palette open so you could see all the tools in a glance. I think we all fight over getting every pixel of screen space, but if you have a second monitor you are not as parsimonious. I have two 27-inch displays and treat the second one on the left as spare desk space.

Alfred

JoyceWeise · Post by **JoyceWeise** » Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:13 pm

Hi Alfred,

Are the Tree and Shrub elevation tools already available in the latest update?

Thanks,

Joyce Weise ASLA

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Sat Sep 21, 2019 8:01 pm

Joyce,

I’ve just created some files with samples of what the Shrub and Tree Elevation tools create, with basically one of each. I’ve sent them to Matt Arnold to work on.

The Shrub tools have flowers as an option of small, large or none. Most of them have a ground cover/shadow built into the objects. You have a choice of shrub and flower colors.

The Tree Elevation tool has a lot of generic trees, where you have a choice of plain or squiggled images. You have a choice of tree and branch colors, and whether the tree has a shadow.

With all the choices there are potentially millions of possible images. But in creating the samples, I just did one of each.

I’ve asked Matt Arnold to arrange these and create some screen shots so you can get a sense of what all this is.

At this point we have created all of the Shrub and Tree types we have in mind, but there is still plenty of fine-tuning to do. Every day I get a critique from Matt on what needs more work, but we are closing in on finishing these tools, which can’t go out to you until we get to 64-bit.

Alfred

Matt_A · Post by **Matt_A** » Sun Sep 22, 2019 12:12 am

Posting some samples of work in progress Tree and Shrub tools:

: A.jpeg (260.08 KiB) Viewed 67500 times

: B.jpeg (162.19 KiB) Viewed 67496 times

: C.jpeg (120.39 KiB) Viewed 67496 times

: E.jpeg (225.73 KiB) Viewed 67496 times

(and nothing will prevent you from customizing the plants to your liking after they have been placed as well)

: D.jpeg (103.28 KiB) Viewed 67496 times

JoyceWeise · Post by **JoyceWeise** » Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:54 pm

These are wonderful! I'm very excited to see the final product and be able to incorporate them into my landscape elevations.

Thank you for all you do.

Joyce

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:57 pm

Matt did not care for the size and distribution of the flowers on the Shrub Elevation tool. He found them to be clustered together in a rectangular arrangement.

So we now have the flowers smaller and scattered over a broader area, and he’s now happy with how these look.

Alfred

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:40 pm

In addition to WildTools 10.6, let me mention that I’ve got another project in the works, possibly named WildTools Lite, WildTools Basic, SimpleTools or something similar.

It would be a replacement for the PowerCADD tool palette which I’ve always thought was too limited and has many deficiencies, and indeed some bizarre and goofy things e.g. Continuous Line tool!

It will be free and just my gift to people who didn’t have the sense or money to buy WildTools.

There should be about the same number of tools, easy to learn, easy to use and devoid of power user features and shortcuts. There would also be similar things for Doors & Windows, Nuts & Bolts, PixelTools, Trees & Shrubs, etc.

Alfred

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Mon Mar 09, 2020 1:07 pm

Making good progress on this. See details in WildTools Updates in the PowerCADD Help menu.

A warning: Prepare yourself for Bozo Technology!

Alfred

Paul H · Post by **Paul H** » Mon Mar 09, 2020 8:21 pm

What you and Matt are doing will be very very helpful. Deep gratitude from this user.

Alfred Scott · Post by **Alfred Scott** » Mon Mar 09, 2020 9:25 pm

I've been updating the WildTools documentation.

I would appreciate it if any of you can go to

http://www.seqair.com/WildTools/Documentation/Docs.html

and download the WildTools 10.6 Documentation

I know there are a few minor problems with internal links not working on some of the new things, but overall it's in good shape and documents what I have on my machine and which will be on your machine soon.

I'm going to import it on my iPad into the Books app. That's where I prefer to review documentation.

Alfred

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