from, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

May 2003, vol. 93, no.5.

Technology

Visualizing Community Form:  New Digital Tools Help Communities Shape Their Own Futures by

James Sipes ASLA,

is reviewed and commented by Madis Pihlak:

Monday, 5May 2003

This article is about some very powerful and creative software programs. These Geographic Information  System (GIS) based software programs allow  the landscape architect to be involved in community visioning forums. Mastering the use of software such as Community Vis  would allow the landscape architect to control the flow of information about future community form.  The author rightly discusses how all stake holders in the community can be brought to the table to decide future community form. The landscape architect can be the community leader that we hear so much about at ASLA functions.

This is the good news. The bad news is the cost and time it takes to learn GIS based software to produce images that typically critical landscape architect can be proud of producing and showing to clients and users. Community Vis is $4,995 software program and requires ESRI Arcview 3.2 and Spatial Analyst 2.0.  If you are an ASLA member there is a 40% discount for the ESRI software. The list price of Arcview is $1995. The modules are usually in the $500 dollar range. Also there are rumors that ESRI is moving the entire software suite to the ARCGIS 8 software base which is much different from Arcview. The standard joke is that even Arcview makes Autocad look user friendly. This is not to be critical of the article's approach. I fully agree that landscape architects should buy the software, learn how to use it and use the software in community design project. It is just that after all these years I think there is an issue with landscape architects engaging with the technology. High level technology leaders have commented on the lack of landscape architecture involvement in the digital world.
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5:59:30 PM    comment []