Coding Landscape: Teaching Computer Programming to Landscape Architects

How to best teach coding to landscape architects? Domain-specific approaches to teaching computer programming are surprisingly rare. Most computer programming curricula teach skills in a generic way, to be broadly relevant to many people. A rapidly increasing number and ways of teaching how to code to a range of skill levels is now available online, usually for free (see Appendix, RICHTEL 2015, GASCA 2014, FRAMPTON 2015, SIMS et al. 2011). Yet in landscape architecture coding is often regarded as too difficult, too resource-intensive, insufficiently relevant to practice, or otherwise peripheral to the core mission of the profession to teach (WESTORT et al. 2013) . As a result, fundamentals of coding logic remain largely un-taught in accredited core curricula in the U.S. This paper has three objectives: 1. Offer a landscape architecture-specific approach to teaching introductory computer programming that combines a) landscape parametrics with b) concepts of computer programming logic and c) basic computer graphics. 2. Present a sequence of exercises intended to impart fundamental skills and peak student interest. 3. Showcase student project results that use the approach. A sequence of short programming exercises asks students to define the geometry of elements from the landscape palette – vegetation, landform, water, weather, lighting – and then to modify them using increasingly more advanced and complex coding principles in a modular fashion. The following criteria for successful landscape design software is offered to students as a guide to structuring their software: Graphically display landscape geometry, such that it is Interactively editable/modifiable/deformable and Analysable with accuracy and some precision Quickly, while being Easy to lear

Use of Automated Machine Guidance within the Transportation Industry

Automated machine guidance (AMG) links sophisticated design software with construction equipment to direct the operations of construction machinery with a high level of precision, and improve the speed and accuracy of the construction process. AMG technology has the potential to improve the overall quality, safety, and efficiency of transportation project construction. This research project was undertaken to study AMG implementation barriers and develop strategies for effective implementation of AMG technology in construction operations. Early in the research effort, an expert contact group was established to obtain perspectives from agencies, contractors, designers, and equipment manufacturers. An AMG workshop was conducted to develop a list of capabilities that must exist and obstacles that must be overcome to facilitate seamless electronic data transfer—from the initial surveying, to the development of digital terrain models (DTMs), through design and construction, to final inspection and verification. The synthesis from the workshop helped provide a framework and content for completing the research. Summarized here are some of the key findings from this research project.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/landscapearchitecture_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Coding Landscape: Teaching Computer Programming to Landscape Architects

How to best teach coding to landscape architects? Domain-specific approaches to teaching computer programming are surprisingly rare. Most computer programming curricula teach skills in a generic way, to be broadly relevant to many people. A rapidly increasing number and ways of teaching how to code to a range of skill levels is now available online, usually for free (see Appendix, RICHTEL 2015, GASCA 2014, FRAMPTON 2015, SIMS et al. 2011). Yet in landscape architecture coding is often regarded as too difficult, too resource-intensive, insufficiently relevant to practice, or otherwise peripheral to the core mission of the profession to teach (WESTORT et al. 2013) . As a result, fundamentals of coding logic remain largely un-taught in accredited core curricula in the U.S. This paper has three objectives: 1. Offer a landscape architecture-specific approach to teaching introductory computer programming that combines a) landscape parametrics with b) concepts of computer programming logic and c) basic computer graphics. 2. Present a sequence of exercises intended to impart fundamental skills and peak student interest. 3. Showcase student project results that use the approach. A sequence of short programming exercises asks students to define the geometry of elements from the landscape palette – vegetation, landform, water, weather, lighting – and then to modify them using increasingly more advanced and complex coding principles in a modular fashion. The following criteria for successful landscape design software is offered to students as a guide to structuring their software: Graphically display landscape geometry, such that it is Interactively editable/modifiable/deformable and Analysable with accuracy and some precision Quickly, while being Easy to learnThis article is published as Westort, Caroline (2016): “Coding Landscape: Teaching Computer Programming to Landscape Architects” (DLA 2016), Digital Landscape Architecture Journal pg.337-345 doi:10.14627/537612038. Posted with permission.</p

Designing Digital Topography: Opportunities for Greater Efficiency with a Primitives and Operators Approach

This paper focuses on characterizing proposed human-built topographic forms and describing them parametrically. Two basic approaches exist for characterizing shape algorithmically: parametric descriptions, which describe discrete geometries, and non-parametric methods, which for the most part work on fields. This paper offers a brief overview of the range of parametric modeling options for topography, a set of criteria that need to be fulfilled for any successful landform design system, and a primitives and operators approach that offers some specific advantages in the AMG context.This is a paper from Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on Autonomous and Robotic Construction of Infrastructure, which can be found in full at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/intrans_reports/141/.</p

Robot in the Garden: Preliminary Experiments Programming an On-site Robot Ball Assistant to the Landscape Architect

The project features preliminary experiments programming a small autonomous robot ball known as the SPRK+ Sphero that explore the utility of an onsite robotic “assistant” to the landscape architect, and ask the following research questions: i. What useful work can an interactive robot ball offer a landscape architect on site? ii. What would an initial prototype implementation look like? First results include exploratory implementations using the OVAL SDK for Sphero for calculations of position, distance, collision, and by extension, slope and area. The project is innovative in three respects: 1) It uses an off-the-shelf handheld, low cost robotic toy as a first experimental implementation, 2) It identifies characteristics of an on-site robotic assistant that would make it useful to the landscape architect, and 3) It defines for implementation key initial starting tasks that the robot ball could perform. Several short demo videos showcasing our first results accompany the paper.The following article was published in Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (2017) pp. 223-234, doi:10.14627/537629023. Posted with permission.</p

Use of Automated Machine Guidance within the Transportation Industry

Automated machine guidance (AMG) links sophisticated design software with construction equipment to direct the operations of construction machinery with a high level of precision, and improve the speed and accuracy of the construction process. AMG technology has the potential to improve the overall quality, safety, and efficiency of transportation project construction. This research project was undertaken to study AMG implementation barriers and develop strategies for effective implementation of AMG technology in construction operations. Early in the research effort, an expert contact group was established to obtain perspectives from agencies, contractors, designers, and equipment manufacturers. An AMG workshop was conducted to develop a list of capabilities that must exist and obstacles that must be overcome to facilitate seamless electronic data transfer—from the initial surveying, to the development of digital terrain models (DTMs), through design and construction, to final inspection and verification. The synthesis from the workshop helped provide a framework and content for completing the research. Summarized here are some of the key findings from this research project.This book is published as National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Use of Automated Machine Guidance within the Transportation Industry. NCHRP Project 10-77, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25084.Posted with permission.</p