Editor’s Note: This product has been removed from our side-by-side comparison because it has been discontinued. You can still read our original review below, but Top Ten Reviews is no longer updating this product’s information.
Imagine Pro is an appropriate landscape design program for those who want simplicity. Imagine Pro lets you import a photo of your yard and then helps you make alterations and additions to it using an extensive visual library of flowers, trees, and other landscaping features. The program doesn't, however, offer 3-D features or interior home design tools. Be sure to check out our other reviews on Landscaping Software if you are looking for more advanced features.
Imagine Pro will not require you to relearn everything each time you use it. The tutorials are excellent automatic teachers that appear only when relevant. Without them, navigating this detailed program would be far more challenging.
Saving your finished project to use in another program could be simpler. When we tried to import a project saved in a folder besides the default folder (with a JPG file extension), the program would not open it, so we suggest sticking to the default settings.
To use this software, simply take a digital picture of your home and open it in the program. Built–in tutorials will then show you how to use the features to add landscaping to your photo.
You can browse the Image Library to choose plants by growth rate, size, bloom season, sun and moisture needs and other criteria. If you can’t find the images you want through the library, you can copy any image from the Internet—such as a unique front door—to incorporate into your plan.
After you enter a scale of reference—such as your front door height—textures (such as brick) are auto–scaled to fit, but you can also resize any objects (plants, outdoor furniture) to your liking. You can also tweak your finished view by adding details like shadows and editing lighting effects, like brightness, contrast and hue.
This program doesn’t offer 3–D features, so you can’t move around your finished landscape to view. To see your landscaped home from all sides, you’ll have to import and landscape additional photos of all sides.
Image Pro comes with a second disc DeltaCad, a program that produces 2D mechanical drawings for drafting plans in both Metric and English units. We did not evaluate the DeltaCad program in our review.
The software includes several brief tutorials that illustrate basic features. Whenever you use a new feature, a custom tutorial begins automatically. Once you feel confident, you can set the tutorial to not display again.
The program also includes a comprehensive contents search and its Visual Applications website lists FAQs.
Be aware that you may find extra features in the contents section that are not found in Imagine Pro. This is because Visual Applications uses the same help files for each of their landscaping and home design products.
Imagine Pro is a good landscape design program, which is easy to use once you’ve listened to the tutorials and do a bit of experimenting. The program doesn’t have 3D capabilities, but the finished views are photo–realistic, impressive, and offer an accurate preview of your landscape.
