In progress landscape project sketched on paper with no design software.
There is no landscape design software for Mac at any price that I can find and I’ve done some extensive research in hopes of finding it. Punch is mostly a house design package with minimal landscaping capabilities. Basically it helps you design right around the house to tie into your new house design. The minimal database relies on Sketch Up by Google for its database and Sketch Up PRO is expensive at $495.00 for what you have to do to actually make it work for you. It’s a sketch program, not specifically geared to Landscape Design. Check it out here. Who knows… it’s for the Mac and it might work for you.
Window’s based design software exists so if you really want some powerful landscaping software for your Mac then partition your Mac with a Windows OS Mac compatible program like Fusion (you do the research for that) and buy the Windows software that will run the Windows-based landscape software. Your other option is to buy a drafting board, paper, pencils, colored pencils and whatever else it takes to do it the old fashioned way. Apparently there is nothing on the horizon either for Mac.
Punch doesn’t seem to even offer a trial period so you can thoroughly examine their products. That to me is a sketchy way to do business. If you doubt the landscape design capabilities of Punch software… look at the product description. I defy you to find much detail about the landscaping aspect of the program whereas the house design part seems to be well documented. I hate to write this kind of review without having the opportunity to try the software, but as I said. I can’t find where I can actually try out the software before I buy it. That is just not in line with the rest of the software industry. PUNCH may have the landscape design elements you are looking for, but that will be your decision. For a pure landscape designer it is not going to fill the bill.
Early stages of the project.
If you do decide to go the route of partitioning your Mac OS to also run windows, there are some excellent mid range and high end landscape design software packages available. Fusion (we’ve found Fusion to be the best app for running a virtual Windows machine on a Mac) seems to be the best virtual machine and is the one we use on our Macs though I haven’t reinstalled it since upgrading my Mac. My wife runs it and it works great. I’m contemplating, but resisting Windows in hopes that someone will come up with some software. However, on that note… why should they if you can use Fusion to run the Windows-based software? Catch 22 for Mac users I guess. I’ll do a future article on Windows-based landscape programs that can run on your Mac using Fusion.
FUSION IS NOT A LANDSCAPE SOFTWARE PROGRAM. IT IS AN APPLICATION FOR RUNNING A VIRTUAL WINDOWS MACHINE ON THE MAC… JUST TO BE CLEAR!
I hope this helps you save time in your search for landscaping design software for the Macintosh. I’ll keep searching and update this post when someone comes out with software for the creative segment of the Macintosh user community that wants to design beautiful landscapes on the MAC.
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Dynascape, Keyscape and Vector works all work with Apple Mac. Keyscape needs bootcamp to run on mac though.