Prep Menu Overview

Get Prepped for Success

Prep In a Nutshell

Prep commands let you edit nonterrain geometry.

This is useful to prepare control geometry, before being used as Pick input, which in its turn directly drives results in your terrain.

The name "Prep" comes from prepare. Prep commands let you prepare geometry for later use in Landshape Pick commands.

Why Prep?

Landshape's most powerful editing commands are Pickers. Pickers let you select geometry as input to control accurate terrain results.

For instance, Fit lets you shape terrain to points and faces in your selected target.

But what about your control geometry itself? If control geometry is important, how may you edit that?

Prep by Sketchup

The first part of the answer is Sketchup itself. Landshape does not care where your control geometry comes from. You can create and edit your input geometry using Sketchup's built-in tools, or using other Extensions.

For instance, you can use Sketchup's built-in Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle. Or, you can use Sketchup's built-in Move tool to move the rectangle to the correct elevation.

Prep by Prep

The second part of the answer is Landshape Prep. Landshape's Prep commands are a series of powerful commands. They are specialized in helping you achieve common Landshape control geometry editing tasks.

When Use Prep?

As it turns out, geometry input often is both right and wrong. It often half-right.

For instance, a piece of imported geometry may contain all the information required. But it may perhaps also contain 3D junk, too much information, which should be got rid of. This work can be hard or tedious to do. Especially for complex input or bulk operations.

• For instance, a site plan comes in all correct in plan. However, its edges and vertices all have wonky heights in Z. It should be flat, but it isn't. What if there was a way to Smash it?
• For instance, a site plan does come in flat, and with all the right edges. However, it lacks about 700 faces. They should all be filled in, but they are just holes. What if there was a way to Face them?
• For instance, an object sits in its correct plan position, and should not leave it. However, it needs to sit at another exact elevation. What if there was a way to accurately Set it right?

This is where you call Prep.

Prep versus Pick:

Currently, most Preppers work like Pickers, but with a different purpose. Prep and Pick share the same selection logic.

Prep Selection Method

Like Pickers, All Preppers require some form of geometry as input. There are two complementary ways to run a Prep command.

Prep by Preselection

First preselect your input. Then run your Prep command. Preselecting is the fastest way to work.

Prep by In-Command Selection

First ensure that nothing is selected. Then run a Prep command. This starts the in-command selection mode. Here, you can select the container to be commanded. Each selection respresents a kind of staging phase. This has the added advantage of being able read the target, and show relevant information. This information can be shown in the Guide overlay, or an in-model overlay.

Note that Currently, Ease does not have in-tool selecting. Ease only works with preselected input.

Most Prep command expect groups as input. To learn what each Prep command expects for input, read the Learn page for each individual Prep command.

Prep Anything

Pickers are specialized for editing Landshape terrain.

Preppers, however, work on non-Landshape geometry. Therfore, they can be put to more general use. Smash and Set are happy to smash or elevate anything you throw at them.

Perhaps you will find some Prep commands useful for more general 3D modeling tasks.

Prep in Batch

Preppers work in batch. You should be able to Prep hundreds of groups or more, in one single go.

Computers were born to batch. Go make them.

Interacting with Terrain

Preppers edit non-terrain, not terrain. Non-editing does not mean non-interaction.

Some Prep commands interact with the terrain. For instance, the Drape commands will try to use terrain as a target for bending geometry.

🤫 Psst – Not many users have discovered that one Prep command can do undercover service editing terrain itself. The secret is to preselect exacly one terrain plot, nothing else, before running. Maybe try Smash?

What Prep Preps

Most Prep commands edit the current selection itself.

Some Prep commands, such as Drape, instead edit copy of the selection, and edit that.

Prep commands do not support masks.

Accessing Prep Commands

Access Prep via its dedicated toolbar:
Holygon Landshape Prep

Access Prep via the right-click context menu:
Landshape > Prep

Access Prep via the top menu:
Extensions > Holygon Landshape > Prep

These all contain the same commands

If you find yourself frequently using preppers, do what Holygon does. Create custom shortcuts for the Prep commands you use most often. Which one is your favorite?

Treat yourself with a shortcut in via Sketchup menu:
Window > Preferences > Shortcuts

Prep for the Future

Currently, some Prep commands are somewhat experimental. In the future, Holygon aims to liberalise their input and generalize their output.

Prepped for Prepping?

Continue reading below to learn more about each of Landshape's Prep commands.