Brian Huculak Landscape Architect

The Four Seasons Resort, in the picturesque Whistler Village is nestled in the scenic Coastal Mountains of British Columbia only hours from Vancouver. The resort is envisioned to be the finest luxury mountain resort in North America. Durante Kreuk Ltd, as part of a team of local and international design consultants is working closely with Intrawest Properties, The Four Seasons and the rest of the consulting team to ensure such a bold mission statement can be achieved.

There's just no excuse for bad computer graphics.

Indulge me as I relate a story culled from various experiences on projects over the years. The story begins with a design meeting - any design meeting.

"CAD drawings are flat! They lack the depth, elegance, quality and texture of hand drawings. Oh, they're fine for working drawings but not for design drawings. We need something that will sell the idea to design panel, not describe details to a contractor. Touchy feelie is what we're after."

The client's position on computer graphics, what is expected of design drawings, and how they should be prepared was hardly vague.

My CAD graphics - FLAT - indeed! Not that I take it personally or anything, but I do. Heck, you might as well raise a red flag in front a charging bull!

Back at the office, I tap the start button on my Power Macintosh. Ah the familiar, calming, startup chime... be calm... be calm... ohmmmmm... fire up PowerCADD and WildTools.

"Flat Graphics indeed" I grumble to myself, "I'll blow this guys socks off. Now it's personal. He's obviously seen one too many drawings from those 'other' CAD programs running in that 'other' operating system... mumble, mumble..."

Time passes... start with an empty sheet of digital paper, import the base files from that 'other' CAD application (I hate duplicating effort by redrawing) and begin designing. That's right, DESIGNING, not drafting, right off the bat in PowerCADD. Why not, ultimately I need to produce a series of color rendered drawings, might as well do it all in one place, PowerCADD. Oh sure, there's a few felt-tip 'napkin' sketches as I work through the computer design process but the right tool for the right job I always say. Fact is, I can test ideas faster and easier in PowerCADD so it works out well.

More time passes... need to prepare the color graphics for 5, 36 x 48 inch boards, plans, sections, elevations, the whole nine yards. Let's see, I have the design drawings in PowerCADD, might as well complete the color work. We'll need some color trees in plan and elevation and some texture for the paving materials. Let's just combine some bitmap graphics in there for effect. Ah, now we're getting some place. Now, squiggle this, jiggle that, a bit of stippling, that's the ticket - looks almost hand drawn.

Hey, this is kinda fun... oops, forgive me, I forgot I was drawing with a computer. This isn't supposed to be fun, is it?

Plot all the drawings (in color of course), dry mounting and off to design panel.

"So, what have you come up with, how many folks did you have coloring boards? Lots of sore hands I'll bet" is the inquiry from the first arrival (fair enough given his original position). Then he takes a look.

"I've always maintained that CAD drawings are flat! They lack the depth, elegance, quality and texture of hand drawings. HOWEVER, you seem to have resolved that problem". Second arrival thumbs through the boards... looks about, thumbs through the boards... "Wow". A man of few words. "It appears these pictures tell a pretty clear story" I think to myself.

Truth is I told you that story to tell you this one: The right tools for the right job make a world of difference. So, you want drawings to have the look and feel of hand drawings? Spend your time designing instead of drafting? Have a bit of fun and maybe learn some neat tricks along the way. A Power Macintosh, PowerCADD, WildTools, Color Portfolio and some imagination is all that you really need. After all, there really isn't any excuse for bad graphics, at least not if you're using the right tools.

Brian Huculak

Brian Huculak

Brian Huculak is an landscape architect in Denver, Colorado. Email: Brian Huculak To see more of Brian's work visit the Durante Kreuk website and Brian's personal page.

Drawings by Brian Huculak

Landscape Architecture     Four Seasons     Sports Center     Jackman Pit
Spray Park     Street Scape     Bayshore     Phoenix     Fields for Kids
Alpenglow     Twin Eagles     CD Covers & Beer Labels     Cards & Tags

Presentation Graphics: Mediterra     Rosegill

A Special Note about Brian Huculak While PowerCADD has long had the ability to create your own custom fill patterns consisting of multiple colors (like those used as a background for the Mac OS's Finder), Brian Huculak has been a pioneer in applying this ability to his work in PowerCADD to create the look and feel of colored felt-marker pen drawings. And now, you too can produce these custom fill patterns with ease since all of the work has already been done for you. Brian's Color Portfolio Vol. 1 is a PowerCADD symbol library filled with assorted custom fills, and it's marketed by Engineered Software. These libaries are the keys to producing the realistic drawings you see here, and if you want to do the same in your drawings, you'll find these libraries to be an essential part of the process. To find out more about these libraries, visit Color Portfolio Vol. 1 here in the Engineered Software web site.