Clone Menu Overview

Discover Two-way Terrain Interaction

Why Clone?

A large part of Landshape terrain editing lets you use geometry as input to drive terrain results. For instance, Embed lets you change topology. Zone lets you apply materials. Many commands, like Fit and Sweep let you shape elevation.

But what about the other way around? How may you use existing Landshape terrain to create new geometry groups?

The answer is Clone.

Work Iteratively

Cloning enables you go the other way around: to use existing terrain to create geometry.

Clone extracts information from your terrain, and encodes it as geometry groups.

When you clone, you geometrify terrain properties into reusable standalone objects.

Clone helps you edit terrain iteratively.

Store Terrain States

Clone is useful to store terrain states. You can then reapply the cloned state, either on another point in time, or in another position in your terrain, or in another model file.

Instead of awkwardly copying terrain states into different files, simply clone the properties you need. You can keep your clones in the same file, and reuse them later.

For properties where elevation is important, the clone output will be placed at the same elevation as the source terrain.

For other properties, like Zone, clone places the output higher up, making selecting more convenient.

Clone always keeps source plan position.

Hide and Reuse

Typically, you should put the cloned outputs on a tag, so you can easily hide or show it.

What Can You Clone?

Different Clone commands extract different terrain properties.

Currently, you can clone Terrain:

• Heights (elevation)
• Zones (material areas)
• Zone bounds (edges between material areas)
• Fences (embedded edges that are fenced)
• Rim (the outer perimeter)
• ...and more.

A few clone commands also let you clone non-terrain, like e.g. a group of faces. This may be useful to e.g. extract local areas from larger control groups, and work with them separately.

Use Masks to Clone locally

Several clone commands support input masks. Masks lets you clone only a local part of your terrain.

Using Masks

To Clone using an input mask, first create a mask group. You can do this by first drawing e.g. a rectangle, ellipse, or a flat blob, using any tool. The result should have a simple, well-defined edge perimeter. Make sure it is grouped. Select the mask group. Now, run the Clone command.

Note that currently, not all Clone commands support masks.

Accessing Clone Commands

Access "Clone" via the right-click context menu:
Landshape > Clone

Access "Clone" via the top menu: All Prop commands are listed in Sketchup's top menu:
Extensions > Holygon Landshape > Clone

These contain the same Clone commands. Currently, there is no Clone toolbar.

If you find yourself cloning often, create a a custom shortcut for the Clone command you use most often. You can do this in Sketchup via:
Window > Preferences > Shortcuts

Cloning the Future

Cloning is a powerful workflow concept. Currently, some clone commands are experimental. Holygon aims to make clone more general.

Ready to Explore Clone?

The pages below explain Landshape's Clone commands.