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Operation

The Panel offers a simple way to control Landshape's preferences, toolbars, and some command values.

Run Panel to toggle Landshape's panel on and off.

The Panel has six tabs.

Tab General

In tab General, you control global values. These are shared by several commands.

Resolution

The Resolution parameter controls the length of the terrain cell when terrain is created afresh by Landshape. It also controls the subdivision length of edges that are Embedded. Also, it is used by many other commands.

Understanding resolution is central to Landshape. The same settings is shared by many commands. Landshape is designed to be multi-resolution.

When you change the resolution in one command, the next command that also uses resolution will pick it up from there. In other words, Resolution is a global setting.

Change resolution as often as needed.

Controlling Transitions with Blend

The Blend parameter controls effect transitions. Blend is also known as "Falloff" or "Easing".

Blends enable you to control how the effect of an operation should fade out, from 100 percent effect to 0 percent effect.

With no blend, the transition will be very abrupt. This is why blends are common in organic 3D modelling.

Blends typically use two parameters: a Distance and a Shape.

Blend Distance

The Blend distance is the width of the area for the operation. You can conceive of the area as a strip of terrain running along the operation border. The distance is an offset from the border.

Most Landshape commands use an offset that goes inwards. This means that the input area specifies the outer border of the effect.

A few Landshape commands use an offset that may also go outwards from the input area. The command currently called Blend works like this.

Blend Shape

Currently, Landshape offers the following 4 different Blend types:

1 — Smooth
2 — Linear
3 — Blunt
4 — Sharp

You can set the Blend type in the Panel.

Additionally, some operations enable you to set the type directly in the VCB. You set the type by entering a number. The number corresponds with the index above.

For instance, to use the Smooth transition, type 1. To get the order of your VCB input right, check the order of the Blend VCB label.

To understand the differences between transitions, try Blending between a high and a low elevation, using different Blend Types, and observe the results.

Set Blend in Commands

Since you can control Blend within most individual commands themselves, such as Fit, you do not need to set Blend here in the Panel.

However, the Panel can still be useful, since its drop-down menus let you connect e.g. a named Blend type to the numerical value that you type to the VCB to control the effect.

Subplot Size

Typically, you don't need to touch Subplot size.

If you are using imperial units, the current default value is 192 feet. This should be well adatped to an average resolution of 3 to 6 feet.

If you are using metric units, the current default value is 64 meters. This should be well adatped to an average resolution of 1 to 2 meters.

To learn more, hover the Panel's (i) icon.

Note on Subplots

However, if are using terrain meshes with a very large number of either very small or very large cells, and you find that Landshape is running slow, it is possible to manually adjust blocksize. Ideally, blocksize goes hand in hand with resolution. If you wish to play with resolution and blocksize, a good target is to use blocks that end up containing roughly 5000 to 10000 faces each. The purpose of blocks is to keep all terrain faces in groups that contain a sane number of faces.

Tab Materials

In tab Materials, you control which materials Landshape assigns to new faces that it creates.

The Panel lets you control which materials Landshape should apply when creating new Terrain, Skirts, Water, and more.

The palette of available materials is the content of your computer's Landshape extension installation folder.

To learn more, hover the Panel's (i) icon.

Edit Landshape's Material Palette

Do you wish to add, edit, or remove materials?

Navigate to your computer's folder where Sketchup is installed. Here, find the folder where the extension Landshape is installed.

Inside your Landshape extension folder, find a folder called 'Assets'. Enter it. Inside, find a folder called 'Assets'. Enter it.

Here, you should find the materials. You are free to add materials of your own, or edit the existing ones.

The change should take effect at Sketchup restart. Then, activate the materials in the Panel.

🎨 – Express yourself!

Tab Clean

In tab Clean, you control values for the command Clean.

You can run Clean directly from the Panel, or via:
Landshape > Prep > Clean

To learn more, hover the Panel's (i) icons.

Tab Quake

In tab Quake, you control values for the command Quake.

Quake is a fairly abstract command, with several values that interact with each other.

To explore how Quake works, you can run Quake on various flat terrain plots. First, create a few different flat plots in the void. Then, select one at a time, open the Panel, and run Quake from the Panel. By varying the Quake values, you can explore different effects.

You can always access Quake via the toolbar button or the menu:
Landshape > Pick > Quake

The Quake that you run via button and menu will use the values in the Panel.

To learn more about specific values, hover the Panel's (i) icons.

Tab Other

In tab Other, you control values for various other commands.

You can use the Panel to better understand how these values affect the terrain result.

The order of values in the Panel corresponds to the number you can type into the VCB.

To learn more, hover the Panel's (i) icons.

Tab Toolbars

In tab Toolbars, you control which command buttons each of the toolbars should have.

The Any toolbar can show buttons for any command in Landshape.

All other toolbars will show buttons according to the menu block in, which the commands sit. For instance, the Pick toolbar will only show Pick commands, the Brush toolbar will only show Brush command, and so on.

To learn more, hover the Panel's (i) icons.

Take some time to customize your toolbars to your liking. Make Landshape yours.

— Enjoy the smörgåsbord!

Iconless commands

Note that there are more than 100 commands in Landshape. Some commands do not have an individual icon. In the toolbar, it will then use a fallback icon.

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🌱 ...this Learn section is still incomplete. Expect more content in a future Landshape update. Keep Landshape updated and check back soon.