How to Insert Floor Joist between Floors?

[pkayman82]

  I'm new to floor plan, I'm struggling a bit with it so far. I'm trying to draw out the plan of the house I'm renovating. I've drawn up the the walls of the groundfloor, then I drew up the walls of the 2nd floor, but then it left a blank space in between. Now I need to find out how I insert my floor joists between that?

If anyone can help me that would be great.
And if you have any other tips to how to go about the whole drawing up a plan thing.

[Doug.S]

The 1' space between floors is for the joists, ceiling below, and floor above (as well as usually hidden/not shown HVAC ducts, wiring, plumbing, etc.)

Did you tell the program to "show" the joists?  I was recently doing a tray ceiling and did "show" joists but still were not seen...until I selected the ceiling and applied a wood texture to the joists as well as specify their spacing.

TFP best for creating stuff from the 2D floor plan view (one floor seen and operated upon at a time...if you have more than one floor); select which floor from the list, add as many as needed. Then view in 3D....trying to move stuff in 3D is too difficult. Setup view manager to easily jump between 2D and 3D views.

Easiest to drag out general wall locations, then when all in place, adjust as needed to exact dimensions....then add doors and windows....then ceiling and roof (tho exact order is more of your preference and way of working), then textures of floors, walls, etc. Then add furniture and landscaping.  Best to have a general idea/sketch before you start.

Plan ahead for camera views and do test renders as you go.

Search this forum for any key word questions...ask as needed. Best to show a picture or .bld file for specific issues/questions.

TFP used mostly for viewing results as 3D renders and walk/fly thru/by animations....including lighting, sun/shade and landscaping over time.
It is not well suited to make construction plan drawings.

[Allan Chesney]

I drew up the walls of the 2nd floor, but then it left a blank space in between. Now I need to find out how I insert my floor joists between that?

From your discription it sounds as though you are looking at it in 3D and you see a gap between the ground and second floors when viewed from outside - is that the case? If this is the case then it may be that you have used a wall that has the "Drop Face" setto zero.  The Drop Face is on the Properties / Basic tab and should be set to the thickness of the floor. This will then cause the walls of the upper floor to extend down to the walls of the ground floor and close the gap

If the Drop Face is OK then same condition can occur of you have the Floor Level of the Second floor too high in Settings / Building Locations.  The floor level setting is the top surface of the floor above the Terrain, so it should be the thickness of the Ground floor (default 1' or 300mm) plus the height of the Ground Floor walls (default 8' or 2400mm) plus the tickness of the second Floor's floor (default 1' or 300mm). Using the default figures, the Second Floor's Floor Level should be 1' + 8' + 1' = 10'  or 300mm + 2400mm + 300mm  = 3000mm.  If the Second Floors floor level setting is more than that, then you will see the gap.

That will fix the gap (if that is what the problem is) but the joists themselves are actually automatically inserted as part of the floor ,so you do not need to add them as such - if you have a floor inserted on your second floor, then the joists are already there. To actually see them however in 3D, you would have to turn them on (View Filter) and make sure you have actually chosen a suitable joist, as Doug pointed out. They are turned off by default, as joints are normally covered by the ceiling etc and hence would not be visible in 3D, so, unless you haven't got a ceiling and want to see the exposed joists on your Ground Floor, then you do not need to add them.

If the gap between the upper and lower floor is not the problem then post an image.

Welcome to the forum by the way!

Allan

[ACM]

Hi,

Doug.S, regarding your final para, what software would you recommend for construction plan drawings? And could you import those plans into TFP (for example, as a trace) in order to produce the 3D renders, etc.?

Thanks
ACM

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ACM,

I think Doug was referring more to Printing of Construction Drawings. TFP will draw the plans in great detail - it does this to create the 3D model but it is not optimised for printing them as it is intended as a 3D visualisation tool.  It will print the plans in detail but you are limited to what it has on the screen at any one time.  There is no provision to lay out plans, elevations, Sections etc on one page.

It is at this point that the parent program, Envisioneer takes over, as the Envisioneer Construction Suite (NOT Envisioneer Essentials) allows you to layout the plans exactly as you want for submission to builders etc.  It can be done using TFP (See the PDF in this post http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,877.0.html but it is obviously not as easy.

Envisioneer does all the 3D things, rendering etc, that TFP does and they will open each other's files, as long as they are the same version or later (Env 6.1 = TFP V15). They have the same Counter Top bug too! You can create the 3D model in TFP and open in Envisioneer to layout the construction drawings. Unfortunately Envisioneer is nearly 20 times the price, as its sofistication is for commercial use by architects and builders etc. If construction drawings are what you want however, then it is the way to go and easiest in the industry to use.

Allan

[Mike1158]

Or, you could stick with the imsidesign group and use doublecad in pro or xt varieties.  XT is free btw.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ACM,

Mike has a good point there - DoubleCAD is a good (and cheap!) option for doing the 2D plans.  You can export a DXF file from TFP to use as the basis.  It will not do the 3D rendering of course but you have the TFP model to do that.  TurboCAD (also from IMSI) would do the same thing and will do rendering too but at a cost of course, although not as much as Envisioneer.

The advantage of Envisioneer in your case, is that it will open the TFP model you have already made, so you do not have to redo anything. If you alter anything in Envisioneer, then it will still do the rendering anyway or you could re-open it in TFP.  There is no point in doing the latter however as Envisioneer is identical in 3D mode. TFP is actually a cutdown version of Envisioneer (2D plan layout has been removed) and is supplied to IMSI by CADsoft who make Envisioneer.   

The TFP plans are complete in themselves and there is a full set to 2D drawing tools also that you could use to draw the whole plan if you wanted, but the problem is that there is no way to lay them out easily on paper (other than the way I referred to earlier).

Allan

[ACM]

Hi Allan, Mike1158 et al,

I'm not a professional, so I can't really justify expenditure on Envisioneer just to layout the 'hobby' construction drawings. Sounds as though DoubleCAD or TurboCAD might be the way to go if I find Allan's work-around too complicated.

Many thanks for your prompt and helpful comments.

ACM

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ACM.

It is not hard really once you get the idea how it works. Basically all you do is export each plan, elevation or section and save them with a descriptive name. Then you just start a new "Plans Only" project and import each of the exported files and arrange them on the page for printing. the whole process can be done very quickly and absolutely nothing to re-draw.

You can add extra dimensions, lines, text etc if you want and then print professsional looking plans.

Have a look at the PDF and ask if you get stuck.

Allan

[ACM]

Hi Allan,

Tried your pdf with a small test project - with joists (just to keep this thread on track  ). It worked a treat and really is neither complicated or time-consuming - it might not suit a pro with deadlines to meet but its fine for me! Digging around amongst the CDs, I find that I have an old version of TurboCAD, too, so I guess I'm pretty well fixed up for what I envisage doing with the soon-to-be-acquired renovation project.

I must say that IMSI owes your kind self, Doug and others a hell of a debt - the help/tutorials provided with FP simply do not do the program justice and I, probably in common with many other newbies, would have returned this product if it hadn't been for the fantastic and knowledgeable support you guys provide by return of email. If you're ever passing this way (Hampshire, UK) give me a call - I owe you!

kind regards
ACM

[Doug.S]

Not sure what your final prints are to be used for...but likely for either you, or to get building permit approvals.

Be skeptical/cautious as TFP is not an engineering solution, does not calculate loads, and may not do construct the way you would want the joists etc. laid out for best use of lumber, load alignments, bracing,  etc.

But with TCAD you will have final detail control of everything....again, from a drawing aspect only.

TFP does a very good job of being close and tries to meet worldwide bldg codes but of course cannot meet everything...its best suited for accurate layout for size shape and visualizing what the final build will look like....but is not to be fully trusted for creating construction details.

For example, if you do a simple outdoor deck, you can specify lumber sizes and spacing and draw a very weak structure (the defaults are good but not for all designs)....TFP does not know loads, it does not correct for angled decking over the joists....you are responsible for that.  High priced commercial use programs cost so much because they do have a lot of engineering capabilities and flexible formal drawing prints aimed for build approvals and construction details.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ACM,

Doug has a good point about using TFP for plans (or for that matter Envisioneer, TurboCAD or any other program), as the resposibility is certainly yours to to make sure it is drawing what you expect - or more importantly the Council, if that is where the plans are headed.  TFP is really for visualisation and has defaults set that are fine in most situations, but rules and regulations are different in different countries (and even different parts of the same country!!!).

The expensive programs take things further of course but even they can only do so much.  Just out of interest I thought you may like to compare (as an example) the framing options for Loctions between TFP and Enmvisioneer.  Although the basics of the 3D part of the program are the same (for the visualisation requirements of TFP), Envisioneer clearly goes to much more detail in this and many other areas and especially when it comes to producing the construction drawings themselves. Obviously these sort of things explain the extra cost of Envisioneer and similar programs.

All the best with your project.

Allan