Understanding Prep Commands

What Is Prep?

Prep commands, also called Preppers, help you edit non-terrain geometry.

Typically, this is a preprocessing step before you, in a following step, use the processed geometry to edit the terrain itself.

Since this step often prepares geometry for its coming role as input for a Landshape Pick command, this command type is called "Prep".

Preppers work like Pickers, but with a different purpose. Pickers let you edit terrain, using control groups. Preppers let you edit control groups directly.

If you understand how to work with Pickers, you also understand that the key to accurate and quick Landshaping is good input geometry.

Preppers help you make your input geometry good.

— Prep for success!

Activate Combo Power. A Workflow Example

Many Pick commands work best when their control group input has certain qualities. For instance, Embed works best when edges are not tiny. But sometimes, it can be hard to manually find the edges. The Prep command Clean helps you automatically remove tiny edges. Once removed, you can Embed them.

Some Pick commands simply require certain qualities. For instance, Drape Face is naturally based on the faces in your input geometry. But what if you your input has all the right edges, but they are not filled with faces? Sometimes, it can be tedious to manually draw faces onto say a 2D site plan, especially when it is large and complex. Enter Landshape's Prep command Face. Face helps you automatically fill faces in empty edge loops.

But what if you have the right edges to be filled with faces, but the edges are not planar? Enter Landshape's Prep command Smash. Smash automatically makes your selection horizontally flat.

In this way, you can chain several commands together to create a powerful workflow.

Let's say you have imported an wobbly siteplan in Sketchup, with edges in various height positions, with no faces, but seen in plan largely correct. Select it, then Smash it, then Face it, then Clean it, then Embed it.

Pick Command Examples

Examples of common Prep commands include Set, Smash, Clean, Face, Drape Edge, and Drape Face.

In many professionals workflows, some of these Prep commands are used quite freqently.

Input Editing Examples

For instance:

• To remove e.g. tiny edges from an input group, select it, and run Clean.
• To flatten an input group of edges, select it, and run Smash.
• To make faces in an input group, select it, and run Face.

All major Prep commands are found in menu_prep.

A few additional Prep commands, which are more experimental or auxiliary, may be found in menu_prop. These may still be a bit rough around the edges.