Command Types

Landshape has six major command types: Pick, Prep, Brush, Draw, View, and Survey.

All commands of a type share several key characteristics. Command icons show command type. Also, each command's Learn page should state its type.

Take some time to get know the six command types. Once you understand them, you can better grasp how to interact with and what to expect from a Landshape command, just by looking at its place in the menu, or looking at its icon.

Clothes may not make a man, but a Landshape icon makes a command, kind of. It's almost like a cheat sheet. 😀

Let's overview Landshape's command types.

Subicon Shows Command-Type

Most icons show a small subicon in their lower-right corner. The subicon indicates what sort of command it is.

Some commands have more than one subicon.

Rhombus = Pick Command.
Pickers let you edit terrain via selecting separate geometry.

Rhombus Arrowed = Prep Command.
Preppers let you edit nonterrain geometry via selecting it directly.

Ellipse = Brush Command.
Brushes let you edit terrain by interactively stroking it.

Wriggle = Draw Command.
Drawers let you control terrain and nonterrain via classic point-and-click tools.

Eye = View Command.
Views let you control global terrain styling and object visibility.

Rightangle = Survey Command.
Surveyors help you analyze terrain properties. They don't edit terrain.

Plus = Grow Command.
Growers let you create new terrain. Grow combines with other types.

Minus = Cut Command.
Cutters let you remove terrain. Cut combines with other types.

All commands in toolbars have icons and subicons.

Command Types Explained

Pickers

Pickers let you use Sketchup geometry to edit the terrain. Pickers let you use control groups to impose your vision onto the terrain. You communicate with the terrain, and control its shape, style, and topology, via separate control geometry groups.

Since a control geometry group is often used for multiple purposes as the project advances, it is a good habit to always tag your controls on a tag, and temporarily hide them when not in use.

Control groups enable working with great accuracy and repeatability. Pickers are Landshape's most powerful commands. Pick up some more.

Preppers

Preppers are similar to Pickers, but differ in that their purpose is to edit control geometry itself, rather than to edit terrain directly.

In other words, Preppers work like Pickers, but have another purpose. While standard Pickers edit with terrain, Preppers instead edit non-terrain.

Preppers are useful when you need to prepare and edit control geometry. Then, you may use Pickers to make your prepped geometry edit terrain.

Preppers may still interact with the terrain. For instance, Drape will interact with the terrain, and bend your input along the terrain. However, this does not in any way edit the terrain.

Note that where it makes sense, some few select preppers, like Smash, do allow you to also edit the terrain. This is a kind of bonus. To Smash the terrain, select a terrain plot only, and nothing else, then run Smash. Get me prepped.

Brushes

Brushes let you edit terrain by hovering your cursor on a local area of the terrain area, clicking and stroking.

Brush strokes let you work in a quick, direct, and expressive way. However, stroking may not have the same accuracy and resuability as geometry-based Pick commands do.

All brushes are found in the Brush submenu. Brush up my skills.

Drawers

Draw tools, or Drawers, like Draw and Fill, let you edit or interact with terrain by hovering your cursor in model space, and clicking. Draw tools work similar to classic point-and-click tools in Sketchup. You point-and-click, or click-and-drag, on geometry to interact with it.

They are designed to work especially well with terrain. Some Draw tools are general purpose. Draw tools are found under its own submenu, "Draw".

Views

View commands let you style the terrain mesh. They also let you turn on and off terrain-dependent objects. Such objects include Contour, Water, and Skirt. Several Views are parametric. When activated, they will open the VCB for editing values.

All Views are found in the View submenu. View more.

Surveyors

Survey commands let you analyze terrain properties. Surveyor do not edit the terrain.

Please note that initally, the number of surveyors will be very limited. Holygon aims to add more Survey commands in the future.

All Surveyors are found in the Survey submenu. Survey more.

Growers

Growers let you create new terrain. This could be a new island terrain plot, or an increase of an existing terrain. Growers increase the sum footprint of existing terrain.

Cutters

Cutters let you remove terrain, reducing the footprint of existing terrains. Cutters reduce the existing terrain footprint.

Others

Note that a few commands may not fit neatly into the typology above. This can include experimental, specialized or other commands. Some of these are found in the Prop menu.

Iconless Command

Note that currently, several commands do not yet have individual icons or subicons. This mostly applies to commands outside toolbars. This includes Prop commands, Support commands, and similar. To discover which command type an iconless command belongs to, use Learn, and navigate to its specific Learn page.

Unclassified Commands

Some commands may not yet be classified, or are only partially classified. Holygon plans to classify all commands.

Note on Command Types

Note that currently, there is not any way to list all commands belonging to a certain command-type.

In the future, Holygon plans a feature in Learn, that lists all commands belonging to a certain type.

Want to explore what some command types do in more detail? Discover Pickers.