Forest Garden Sketcher
I used the Processing software to write a little program to make it easier to create a 2D plan for a forest garden. It is pretty simplistic but might be useful to someone. I've developed it a little more since I put together the plans here to make it easier to use, but the results should be the same.
Functionality:
Limitations:
Requirements:
Tips:
Possible future developments:
Functionality:
- reads in a background image file (from "settings/background.jpg")
- plots two layers of the forest garden (called trees and soft fruit but could be anything) with labels
- reads in locations and names from a comma separated variable (csv) file ("settings/trees.csv" and "settings/softfruit.csv")
- draws a boundary from a list of X,Y coordinate pairs from a csv file ("settings/boundary.csv")
- allows interactive drawing of plant locations on the plan by clicking and dragging
- drawn plant locations can be saved ("settings/drawnplants.csv")
- by editing the file the names and varieties of plants can be added before copying to permanent input files ("settings/trees.csv" and "settings/softfruit.csv")
- exports an image file ("settings/plan.png")
Limitations:
- lots!
- only tested on Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows XP
- plant names cannot be entered directly, you have to edit the csv file in a text editor or spreadsheet
Requirements:
- Windows, Mac OS X or Linux
- Java virtual machine
Tips:
- see readme.txt for more information
- files for editing are in settings directory
- you can change the scale in the configuration file so that the locations and size of the plants is in metres
- run from a console for coordinates and more feedback
Possible future developments:
- On screen text entry
- Scaling tool - draw a 5m length on the plan so that don't need to set scaling in advance
- Guide sizes for trees (requires scaling)
- Templates for trees - possibly drag and drop
- Use Processing.js to use created plans to make interactive web based plan
Screenshot
A sample of the interface showing some pre-defined plants, some recently drawn plants in blue and some newly drawn ones in green. Simple instructions are top left. Trees have labels shown on them whilst smaller soft fruit have letters and a key to the side.
Downloads
Download and extract zip file for either Windows, Mac or Linux below:
| fgs_win.zip |
| fgs_macosx.zip |
| fgs_linux.zip |
For those who want to use it in Processing (smaller download):
| fgs_processing.zip |
