Lands Design vs World Machine

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.

World Machine is procedural 3D terrain-generation software for artists creating realistic or stylized landscapes, including game, film, and visualization work. Its node graph offers more than 100 devices for terrain, erosion, rivers, masks, materials, and outputs. Simulations cover flow-based and thermal erosion, snow accumulation, river channels, lakes, and coastal erosion; Dragontail Peak adds terrain with overhangs, cliff faces, and caves. Exports include heightfields, meshes, masks, and PBR textures in standard formats, with listed file types including RAW, EXR, TIFF, PNG, TER, OBJ, glTF, and GLB. Compatible tools named by the maker include Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, Blender, Maya, and Cinema 4D. Professional and higher editions support tiled builds for worlds larger than memory and can resume builds after interruption. The free Basic edition has the Indie toolset but caps each output asset at 1025×1025 pixels and is limited to non-commercial use. Paid plans are Indie at $119 a month, Professional at $299 a month, and Studio Site at $1,999 a month. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.