Practises. Best Practisesexpand_more

Best Landshape Practices

Landshape is for You

First, an encouragement: Anyone can landshape. You can landshape.

Landshape takes its cue from Sketchup's genius user experience, and applies it to to the case terrain.

Like Sketchup, Landshape builds on a small number of simple principles. Simple is powerful.

The magic does not come from adding new commands. The magic comes from how you combine them.

Kindness Creates Magic

Be kind to yourself. Set aside some time to pick up and befriend Landshape's basic concepts.

Soon, you will be able to express yourself a little more freely.

Keep practising. One day, you may find yourself shaping like a real landscape master.

First, learn the basics. Then, combine them.

Turn the land into magic in your hands. Kindness creates magic.

Keep It Simple

  • Start simple. Landshape is a powerful toolsuite. Once you grasp the fundamentals, you will be able to build from there.
  • Give yourself a bit of time to explore, to learn, and to play.

Read Sketchup's Status Bar

  • For Firstline Support in Landshape, read the status bar. When you activate a tool, the status bar gives you an overview of options. The status bar is always there. Read the status bar.

Watch Sketchup's Entity Info

  • Keep Entity Info open and visible at all times.
  • If you keep Sketchup's Entity Info Dialog open while modelling, you can more easily check what is currently selected, and which tag your selections have.

Watch Your Terrain while Working

  • Keep your terrain and its topology visible while you edit it.
  • Always look at the terrain mesh result after each Landshape operation. Watch closely what happens. Put buildings, trees, and other occluding object on separate tags. Hide them while you are editing the terrain mesh.
  • While editing the terrain mesh, make a habit of turning on hidden edges. This makes you able to discern mesh topology. In Landshape, you can use View Edge.
  • Occasionally, it can happen that a Landshape command may break the integrity of your terrain mesh. For instance, you may get double terrain surfaces, or holes, in your Landshape terrain. Mesh commands are more destructive, and are thus more prone to errors, than standard Shape commands. Mesh commands are those that add or remove geometry from your terrain, as opposed to moving the geometry up and down, or styling it. Mesh commands include e.g. Mesh, Embed, Embed Fence, and Road. When using these, watch the terrain closely.
  • Should you get an unhealthy mesh, undo. Signs of an unhealthy mesh include holes, double-faces, overlaps, naked edges, nontriangular faces. If a command messes up your terrain integrity, it is good to discover it early. Should this happen, simply undo the command. However, if you discover bad terrain integrity much later, it will be harder to heal. Keep your eyes on the land.

Reuse Your Control Groups

  • Keep your precious geometry. Recycle it. Make a habit of keeping your used control geometry.

Tag Every Container

  • Put all your landshape input groups on a tag. When you are done for the time being, hide the tag.
  • To quickly declutter your model for improved visibility and selectability, tag all start-context containers. A small number of tags suffices. But all containers should be tagged. No container left behind.

Start Low-Resolution

  • Start low resolution. Raise resolution locally, only where needed.

Use Faces Sparingly

  • An experienced Landshaper will use terrain faces sparingly. Waste not, want not.
  • By locally changing terrain resolution, and locally embedding edge features, you may achieve a great-looking terrain surface even on a surprisingly low face budget.
  • Keeping your facecount low contributes to both Landshape and Sketchup being fast and responsive.

Use Multiresolution Terrain

  • Landshape is designed to be multi-resolution. To change terrain resolution locally, use Mesh or Mesh Brush.
  • Use low resolution for context terrain. Use higher resolution only where required. Often, this is where you need to express detail, for example around key buildings, roads, or other important features. For a model requiring a large context terrain surrounding a smaller central site, you could use fairly low resolution for context, and use higher or much higher resolution for the site itself.
  • In general, it is better to start your terrain low-resolution. Then, increase resolution locally, and only in areas where needed. You should typically reserve higher resolution for areas that require granular surface features.
  • Veteran landshapers try to avoid having very small terrain resolution directly next to very large. Instead of meshing in e.g. 2 feet resolution immediatly next to 20 feet resolution, consider using in intermediate padding inbetween, using say 10 feet. This makes terrain transitions smoother.

Match Local Resolution to Features

  • Make sure that your terrain cellsize locally is small enough to properly divide and resolve embedded edges.

Embed Selectively

  • Embed any edges you need, but not more than that. Embedding edits the terrain topology.
  • You can embed a lot of edges at the same time. Embedding will remove any preexisting standard embeds in the same area.
  • Generally, rather embed an edge once, than again and again. Embed is powerful, but can be sensitive if you iteratively embed thousands of edges.

Fence Selectively

  • Fence more selectively than you Embed. Only Fence what you need. Fence is a more persistent kind of Embed. However, since Embed Fence is more persistent, it is also more sensitive to bad input. Especially when you work iteratively.

Use Shortcuts Liberally

  • Use a shortcut to toggle "Hide rest of model". Team Holygon does this all the time. With control groups often lying right on the terrain surface, or below it, knowing exactly what is currently selected helps a lot.

Contact Support

  • When there's something strange in your neighbourland, who you gonna call? Holygon! Currently, paying users get access to free screenshare onboarding and support. Check your Landshape Support menu.

Be Careful with Stacked Edges in Input

  • Note that some Pick commands, like Embed and Grade, are sensitive to input geometry containing edges stacked one on top of the other in plan. The same is true for Pickers that require a closed edgepath. With stacked-edge input, you can get bad, unexpected, or no results. Can you see all your input edges from top parallel? Then you are good. Note that many Pick commands, such as Fit, work fine with stecked edges.

Use Simple Input in Pick

  • When you start out with Pick commands, use simple input. Create some rectangles, circles and triangles. Group them, elevate them above the terrain, and play around. Avoid starting out complex use cases including CAD import geometry.

Only Embed Medium-to-Long edges

  • When you Embed edges into your terrain, make sure that your input is free from edges that are tiny.

Only Embed What and Where You Need

  • Only embed what you need. Only embed where you need.

Keep Terrain Plot Hole-Free

  • Keep each terrain plot continuous. You can trim along its rim. But always ensure every plot is free from any internal holes, as this will break. If you need to make way for e.g. a swimmingpool, instead Fence the outer and inner edges of the pool, and make a deep local recession using e.g. Fit or Brushes.
  • To add local terrain definition Embed edges. This enables you to create sharp transitions, like almost vertical walls. Remember that Landshape terrain may never go vertical.

Check Your Command Values

  • If commands yield unexpected results with good input, check your command values, as seen in the VCB and in the overlay Landshape Guide.
  • Especially check your resolution. Many commands are dependent on a suitable resolution. These commands will not work well, or may not work at all, if the resolution is off. Typically, it is too high or too low. A good rule-of thumb is that you should work with a resolution close to the general resolution in the local area you are editing.

Work Within the Rim

  • Mainly work well within the inside of your terrain plot. Work in the meat, as it were. Currently, there can be minor isses adding Embeds and doing other terrain editing very close to or going across the plot rim. Currently, there can be major issues adding Embeds that co-incide with the plot rim, just along the terrain border. Embed and Embed Fence are especially sensitive to this. In the future, Holygon plans to harden Landshape, so you working crossrim and on-rim is as effortless as working inside the rim.

Oversize Your Plot

  • Start with a somewhat oversize plot. Finalize plot perimeter towards the end. Currently, it is easier to trim plots than to grow them.

Learn It

  • Keep learning. Landshape is a fairly rich extension, with much to discover. You already found the Learn manual, great. Keep learning to understand how individual commands work, and the how to combine them into workflows.

Do It

  • You must be an avid learner, as you made it all the way to here. Now put some of it into practise!


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

Questions? Ask the Forum
Prep Commands
Worst Practises
Learn Landshape — Practises. Best Practises

Best Landshape Practices

Landshape is for You

First, an encouragement: Anyone can landshape. You can landshape.

Landshape takes its cue from Sketchup's genius user experience, and applies it to to the case terrain.

Like Sketchup, Landshape builds on a small number of simple principles. Simple is powerful.

The magic does not come from adding new commands. The magic comes from how you combine them.

Kindness Creates Magic

Be kind to yourself. Set aside some time to pick up and befriend Landshape's basic concepts.

Soon, you will be able to express yourself a little more freely.

Keep practising. One day, you may find yourself shaping like a real landscape master.

First, learn the basics. Then, combine them.

Turn the land into magic in your hands. Kindness creates magic.

Keep It Simple

  • Start simple. Landshape is a powerful toolsuite. Once you grasp the fundamentals, you will be able to build from there.
  • Give yourself a bit of time to explore, to learn, and to play.

Read Sketchup's Status Bar

  • For Firstline Support in Landshape, read the status bar. When you activate a tool, the status bar gives you an overview of options. The status bar is always there. Read the status bar.

Watch Sketchup's Entity Info

  • Keep Entity Info open and visible at all times.
  • If you keep Sketchup's Entity Info Dialog open while modelling, you can more easily check what is currently selected, and which tag your selections have.

Watch Your Terrain while Working

  • Keep your terrain and its topology visible while you edit it.
  • Always look at the terrain mesh result after each Landshape operation. Watch closely what happens. Put buildings, trees, and other occluding object on separate tags. Hide them while you are editing the terrain mesh.
  • While editing the terrain mesh, make a habit of turning on hidden edges. This makes you able to discern mesh topology. In Landshape, you can use View Edge.
  • Occasionally, it can happen that a Landshape command may break the integrity of your terrain mesh. For instance, you may get double terrain surfaces, or holes, in your Landshape terrain. Mesh commands are more destructive, and are thus more prone to errors, than standard Shape commands. Mesh commands are those that add or remove geometry from your terrain, as opposed to moving the geometry up and down, or styling it. Mesh commands include e.g. Mesh, Embed, Embed Fence, and Road. When using these, watch the terrain closely.
  • Should you get an unhealthy mesh, undo. Signs of an unhealthy mesh include holes, double-faces, overlaps, naked edges, nontriangular faces. If a command messes up your terrain integrity, it is good to discover it early. Should this happen, simply undo the command. However, if you discover bad terrain integrity much later, it will be harder to heal. Keep your eyes on the land.

Reuse Your Control Groups

  • Keep your precious geometry. Recycle it. Make a habit of keeping your used control geometry.

Tag Every Container

  • Put all your landshape input groups on a tag. When you are done for the time being, hide the tag.
  • To quickly declutter your model for improved visibility and selectability, tag all start-context containers. A small number of tags suffices. But all containers should be tagged. No container left behind.

Start Low-Resolution

  • Start low resolution. Raise resolution locally, only where needed.

Use Faces Sparingly

  • An experienced Landshaper will use terrain faces sparingly. Waste not, want not.
  • By locally changing terrain resolution, and locally embedding edge features, you may achieve a great-looking terrain surface even on a surprisingly low face budget.
  • Keeping your facecount low contributes to both Landshape and Sketchup being fast and responsive.

Use Multiresolution Terrain

  • Landshape is designed to be multi-resolution. To change terrain resolution locally, use Mesh or Mesh Brush.
  • Use low resolution for context terrain. Use higher resolution only where required. Often, this is where you need to express detail, for example around key buildings, roads, or other important features. For a model requiring a large context terrain surrounding a smaller central site, you could use fairly low resolution for context, and use higher or much higher resolution for the site itself.
  • In general, it is better to start your terrain low-resolution. Then, increase resolution locally, and only in areas where needed. You should typically reserve higher resolution for areas that require granular surface features.
  • Veteran landshapers try to avoid having very small terrain resolution directly next to very large. Instead of meshing in e.g. 2 feet resolution immediatly next to 20 feet resolution, consider using in intermediate padding inbetween, using say 10 feet. This makes terrain transitions smoother.

Match Local Resolution to Features

  • Make sure that your terrain cellsize locally is small enough to properly divide and resolve embedded edges.

Embed Selectively

  • Embed any edges you need, but not more than that. Embedding edits the terrain topology.
  • You can embed a lot of edges at the same time. Embedding will remove any preexisting standard embeds in the same area.
  • Generally, rather embed an edge once, than again and again. Embed is powerful, but can be sensitive if you iteratively embed thousands of edges.

Fence Selectively

  • Fence more selectively than you Embed. Only Fence what you need. Fence is a more persistent kind of Embed. However, since Embed Fence is more persistent, it is also more sensitive to bad input. Especially when you work iteratively.

Use Shortcuts Liberally

  • Use a shortcut to toggle "Hide rest of model". Team Holygon does this all the time. With control groups often lying right on the terrain surface, or below it, knowing exactly what is currently selected helps a lot.

Contact Support

  • When there's something strange in your neighbourland, who you gonna call? Holygon! Currently, paying users get access to free screenshare onboarding and support. Check your Landshape Support menu.

Be Careful with Stacked Edges in Input

  • Note that some Pick commands, like Embed and Grade, are sensitive to input geometry containing edges stacked one on top of the other in plan. The same is true for Pickers that require a closed edgepath. With stacked-edge input, you can get bad, unexpected, or no results. Can you see all your input edges from top parallel? Then you are good. Note that many Pick commands, such as Fit, work fine with stecked edges.

Use Simple Input in Pick

  • When you start out with Pick commands, use simple input. Create some rectangles, circles and triangles. Group them, elevate them above the terrain, and play around. Avoid starting out complex use cases including CAD import geometry.

Only Embed Medium-to-Long edges

  • When you Embed edges into your terrain, make sure that your input is free from edges that are tiny.

Only Embed What and Where You Need

  • Only embed what you need. Only embed where you need.

Keep Terrain Plot Hole-Free

  • Keep each terrain plot continuous. You can trim along its rim. But always ensure every plot is free from any internal holes, as this will break. If you need to make way for e.g. a swimmingpool, instead Fence the outer and inner edges of the pool, and make a deep local recession using e.g. Fit or Brushes.
  • To add local terrain definition Embed edges. This enables you to create sharp transitions, like almost vertical walls. Remember that Landshape terrain may never go vertical.

Check Your Command Values

  • If commands yield unexpected results with good input, check your command values, as seen in the VCB and in the overlay Landshape Guide.
  • Especially check your resolution. Many commands are dependent on a suitable resolution. These commands will not work well, or may not work at all, if the resolution is off. Typically, it is too high or too low. A good rule-of thumb is that you should work with a resolution close to the general resolution in the local area you are editing.

Work Within the Rim

  • Mainly work well within the inside of your terrain plot. Work in the meat, as it were. Currently, there can be minor isses adding Embeds and doing other terrain editing very close to or going across the plot rim. Currently, there can be major issues adding Embeds that co-incide with the plot rim, just along the terrain border. Embed and Embed Fence are especially sensitive to this. In the future, Holygon plans to harden Landshape, so you working crossrim and on-rim is as effortless as working inside the rim.

Oversize Your Plot

  • Start with a somewhat oversize plot. Finalize plot perimeter towards the end. Currently, it is easier to trim plots than to grow them.

Learn It

  • Keep learning. Landshape is a fairly rich extension, with much to discover. You already found the Learn manual, great. Keep learning to understand how individual commands work, and the how to combine them into workflows.

Do It

  • You must be an avid learner, as you made it all the way to here. Now put some of it into practise!


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

Questions? Ask the Forum
Prep Commands
Worst Practises