DynaSCAPE Design is professional landscape design software that helps you produce attractive, feature-rich drawings quickly and easily.  Here are some of the program’s main features and benefits:

	Create designs in a hand-drawn style that look simply amazing Produce painstaking detail in a fraction of the time Communicate great design ideas with great-looking designs Elicit great design ideas from every estimator on your team, regardless of drawing abilities Produce consistently professional-looking output that will help you win contracts Impress your clients with its easy to read, crisp, clean line weights
	Set up new drawings quickly and easily Just select your template, sheet size and scale Layers come pre-set so no additional set-up is required Line colors, weights and styles are pre-set for optimum visibility Even text and leader styles are predetermined to suit your drawing scale These are all editable if you need to make changes at any point in the drawing process Import images like property surveys to get you designing faster
	Insert pre-drawn shapes from extensive symbol libraries  Over 1200 pre-drawn library figures, for all areas of landscape design: planting, natural stone, paving stone, flagstone, mulch; swimming pools, ponds and water features; outdoor lighting, irrigation and woodworking Professional botanical symbols include trees, shrubs, evergreens, hedges, perennials & ornamental grasses All symbols are drawn to scale and identified by size and type All symbols are organized by type and sub-type, making it easy to find the ones you want Drag and drop ease makes symbol insertion easier and faster Add your own custom symbols and libraries
	Find and add plants from a Horticopia Powered Online Plant Database Choose from over 9,000 plants Select plants by name and view full color images and cultural information Search for plants by characteristic, bloom or color Build your own detailed plant material database for labeling
	Add plant photos to your drawings  Insert color photographs of all selected plants into your landscape drawings with the Add Image tools One tool lets you search for an image by name, another matches images to your plant label Both these tools access the Online Plant Database for images Helps you to show the intent of the design and material choices No need to haul books and catalogues to show clients the plants you've selected
	Label every component in your drawings Plants are quickly auto-counted and labeled Key labels allow plant schedules and material lists to be generated automatically Fast labeling routines apply intelligent labels to every piece of the design Customize your own softscape list or search the Online Plant Database for labels
	Build unique Plant Plant Picture Catalogues for your clients Create full color plant picture catalogues in minutes Plants from your material list are matched up with images and cultural information Plant picture catalogues are produced as Adobe PDF documents for easy printing Option to use your own images
	Add product details from leading landscape product companies Unilock patterns and stone catalogue price lists Nightscaping symbols, illumination patterns, fixture catalogue and voltage drop calculator AquaScape Designs pond designs, stream segments, components and product catalogue
	Calculate areas & quantities and add dimensions Clusters figures, groups them into massings and auto-counts them for label quantities Instantly calculates areas that would be time-consuming to calculate by hand Handles unusual shapes with ease Includes easy, quick tools for placing linear and radius dimensions on the drawing
	Create layout/staking plans Quickly create and print a dimension plan for on-site layout without having to redraw Improve communication of your landscape design ideas with the crews on site No more time wasted measuring plans by hand
	Output your landscape designs to multiple formats Print a drawing to any printer type, or send it to a print shop as a plot file *Plot option remains in the software but is not supported Save drawings as JPEG or PDF files Export to AutoCAD as DWG & DXF files Send drawings in PDF or JPEG format via e-mail to clients or printers that don't have DynaSCAPE landscape design software to open them
	Save time Repetitive tasks are made easy Drawing revisions require much less effort Store and reuse concepts and details Make multiple drawing views without having to redraw each time Use of layers allows multiple print-outs without having to redraw Copy scanned lot plans without having to redraw them
	Enjoy all the features of an advanced CAD drawing tool CAD functionality ensures drawing accuracy and speed Drawing tools are specifically tailored for landscape designers Multiple drawing layers can be revealed or hidden as required Makes smooth curved lines Scalable: no limits to the size or scale of the project Can import existing AutoCAD files in DWG & DXF format, such as existing site and floor plans
	Get up to speed quickly with our extensive training resources Learn step-by-step with the many self-paced video tutorials included with the program Follow realistic exercises to understand quickly how the software works Easier to use than Photoshop or Illustrator Printed training materials include a User Guide, Reference cards, Quick Start guides and Tutorial manuals Access the online DynaSCAPE User forums to look up answers to your questions Book special training classes for additional help with the initial learning curve
	Enhance the professionalism of your landscape drawings and your business Line thicknesses are pre-set by layer to industry-standard conventions Proper line hierarchy ensures that all of your output is consistently professional Aligned with green industry leaders Used and recognized by prominent landscape design schools

• Windows XP^® with Service Pack 3 or higher, 32-bit only
• Windows Vista^® 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems with Service Pack 2 and all the latest Windows updates
• Windows 7^® 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems (recommended)
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or later
• Install Windows with the English version or set the language to English (may need to download a language pack)
• 1 gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) of system memory (RAM)
• 512MB video card with support for DirectX 9 graphics
• Minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels
• Microsoft Internet Explorer^® 9 or later
• Internet connection (updates and access to the online plant database)

Microsoft Office Suite 2003^® (or later) software is required for exporting materials to Excel^® and Word^®. Adobe Reader^® software is required for exporting plant picture catalogues.

NOTE: We are currently in the process of testing on Window 8. Although we are not expecting to find any major issues, depending on the result of testing, we will release a Window 8 compatible update if required. At this time, we do not recommend installing DynaSCAPE products on Windows 8 but if you choose to do so anyway, we would appreciate it if you informed DynaSCAPE Support of any issues you encounter. We will update the system requirements pages of our website as soon as we can officially support Window 8.

Running DynaSCAPE on a Mac computer
DS|Design can be run on a Mac computer but not in the native Mac environment. There are several products available that allow you to install a Windows Operating Systems (XP, Vista or Win 7) on a Mac computer. The three best options to consider are Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion.

Click here to read more about running DS|Design on a Mac

New! Settings and Requirements for DS|Design v6

DS|Design v6 now has options to use either your computer's CPU (Default - Software rendering) or using your computer's video card (Hardware rendering) to render the drawing page graphics. If your computer has a good video card you can switch to Hardware rendering through the Performance Options panel found under the Environment menu in DS|Design. (click here to see the release notes for v6)

Windows Themes:

Vista and Windows 7 users will experience the best performance using one of the Windows “Aero Themes”. The “Basic Themes” do not perform as well.

Click here to learn how to change your Windows theme to Aero

Display Settings:

Currently DS|Design v6 works best at the default DPI settings. We plan on providing more flexibility in a future release, but for the time being you will probably find you need to set your DPI settings to the default. To do this, follow the instruction for Windows 7 and Vista below.

Windows 7: Set your Windows Display to Smaller - 100% (Default). DS|Design v6 will not run correctly if you changed your settings to Medium (125%) or larger (150%). If you try to run v6 with your display set to 125 or 150%, DynaSCAPE will warn you to change it to the default

Vista: Set your Windows Display to Default Scale (96 DPI). DS|Design v6 will not run correctly if you changed your settings to Larger Scale (120 DPI) or to a Custom DPI.. If you try to run v6 with your display set to 120 DPI or a custom DPI, DynaSCAPE will warn you to change it to the default (96 DPI).

Click here to learn how to change your Display Settings to Default

Video Cards for Hardware rendering:

Although we cannot guarantee which video cards will result in optimal performance, a 512 MB dedicated video card (separate from the motherboard) with support for DirectX 9 graphics is recommended if you plan to use Hardware rendering. If you are using a lower end computer or laptop with an integrated (onboard) video card, there may be some blurriness in the middle of the drawing window. If your drawing window is noticeably blurry in the middle of the screen, the following suggestions may provide an improvement:

1. Update your video card drivers
2. Upgrade your video card to a mid (or high) range dedicated video card ($50-$100)

Recommended Printers for Design & Color

Canon imagePROGRAF 610 (24" wide)

Canon imagePROGRAF 710 (36" wide)