Lands Design vs Terragen

Lands Design is landscape design software for creating gardens, green spaces and landscapes in Rhino or AutoCAD. As you draw 2D elements such as contours, plants, paths and walls, the software builds a live 3D model. Terrain can be modeled from contours, meshes or point clouds, or imported from satellite maps, DEM or GIS files. A filterable library covers more than 8,000 plant species, with botanical descriptions and 2D and 3D representations. Planting tools support individual placements, rows and mass groups, with settings for species mix, density and distribution. Parametric walls, fences, ramps and stairs, along with urban furniture, cover hardscape work. Project lists for plants, furniture, terrain and other elements update as the design changes and can be exported to Excel. The Rhino version integrates with Grasshopper and lists compatibility with several renderers. Lands Design runs on Windows as a plugin and requires a matching Rhino or AutoCAD license. A 60-day trial is available; educational and commercial perpetual licenses cost 95.00 EUR and 795.00 EUR once, respectively.

Terragen builds, renders, and animates natural environments for landscape visualization, visual effects, and artistic work. It creates procedural and heightfield terrain, can use real-world terrain data, and adds details such as cliffs and overhangs. Its spherical planetary atmosphere model includes volumetric clouds and fog, multiple scattering, and global illumination. The hybrid renderer combines micropolygon rendering and ray tracing, with support for anti-aliasing, motion blur, depth of field, and render elements. Nearly every project parameter can be animated, and image sequences can be rendered through the interface or command line. Terragen imports 3D objects and camera data, exports terrain as heightfields or geometry in formats including TER, EXR, LWO, OBJ, and FBX, and handles camera data in FBX, Nuke CHAN, and Maya MOV formats. It can also generate HDR environments for lighting in other renderers. Windows and macOS are supported, with Linux render-node support. The free edition is for non-commercial use or 30 days of commercial evaluation, with still renders limited to 1280 × 900. Professional subscriptions start at $10 a month.