Why am I paying to alpha test V14?

[Allan Chesney]

Hi William,

Not sure why the slab cannot have a hole cut in it - just the way it is programmed. The Cut Opening is on the right mouse click along with lots of other things that you can do.  Two of the unwritten rules in TFP are to right click and double click (within dialog boxes) - you will be suprised what opens up!

Generally any imports are large, so if something can be created internally (and almost ANYTHING can), then that is a better way to go.  The blinds should not have been that big as they were just two boxes but it was the dozens of little bits and pieces hanging off one end that caused the main problem. They would increase memory (because of all the extral polygons), render time (as it tries to calculate all the shadows the extra bits would create) and it may have contributed to the crashing, although the awning seemed to fix that problem. 

Have a look at these references for ways to create other elements: http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,763.0.html, http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,793.0.html, http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,793.0.html, http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,315.0.html.

Some of those do involve exporting and re importing again which will contribute to memory but you would only do that if the item is something you want to re-use in future projects.

Allan

[peterbennett]

Just upgraded to V14 TFPlan from Fplan (download from  the IMSI UK agents) 15 minutes in and experienced a total crash (on 1 year old Toshiba Laptop running Vista, no mouse). I was looking at a ground floor plan in 3d at the time, trying to find the pan command, just found the zoom. It didn't seem to have the camera of FP.

As it was a download there was no quickstart guide, so I am on slow start, can it be downloaded as a PDF from anywhere?

Do IMSI have a bugfix /patch page they like they used to have for TCAD, so if my version from Avanquest is not the 'unbugged' one I can patch it up?

In UK we tend to use cavity walls, i.e. outer skin of facing bricks ~102mm thick, cavity ~75mm mostly filled with insulation bats these days, then an inner skin of larger ~100mm thick blockwork. Our non-loadbearing internal walls are often wood studwork covered with outer layers of 12mm gypsum plasterboard finished with final skim of plaster. Can these be added as wall options by the user?

I want to go from TFPlan to TCad and ideally would the option to have both a simple wall in TBFP or a complex one, so that on import to TCAD the detail is there for working drawings.

In FP I photographed typical UK brick walls to get the rendering more realistic, can this be done with TFP, is there a better way to do this? (I assume something similar can be done in TFP?)

Not found it yet but does TFP have an option to tab into text box to give walls an exact length, can't find it yet?

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to TurboFLOORPLAN and the Forum!

You will find TFP has come a long way from FP3D, though I still have fond memories of it.  TFP is much more flexible the walls especially.

Hardware Acceleration is still an issue in TFP on some PCs, as it was in FP3D, but there is a simple way to turn if off without closing the program and rebooting as we used to do. The HA was probably on by default when you installed so that may have been the cause of the crash. Settings/Program Settings /Graphics.  If you have other display or crash issues try turning that off as a first check.

I would suggest reading through all the tabs in Settings/Program Settings as this will give alert you to all the things that are preset so you know where to change the way things work if you want.  Strange that the Quick Start Guide does not come with the download - I will have to suggest that they arrange it for future versions.  The is the User Guide of course.  By the time you read all 150+ pages you will be an expert! There are several Wizards of course and the Tool Tutor that can give you some quick guidance.  Actually if you are familiar with FP3D then you want take long to pick it up. Some of the dialog boxes are identical.

The camera is a bit different - you have to move both the camera and the target point on the mini plan. On the main plan you can add a camera anywhere - similar to the way you moved it on the FP3D mini plan. (3D Camera icon). You can add as many cameras as you like and name them but it seems to have an effect on memory if you set too many - I am still checking that out.

There is a link at the bottom of this Forum to a patch. Version should end with 637. That is the latest. Bugs are generally reported in the Feature Requests section - but check first as sometimes what has been thought of as a big is more often than not just a question of not knowing how something works.  I use TFP every day and there are very few 'bugs' as such. The toolbar in the Help menu is one - it disappears sometimes so there is no Search as a result. There are a few tweaks necessary in the Advanced (Radiosity) Rendering to get Interior/Exterior lighting balanced and one bug with the interior wall surface when used outside the main walls - it renders black, but there is a simple workaround for that.  They are the only things I can think of at present.

The latter point about the walls relates to your cavity wall question.  The wall detail in TFP if greatly advanced on FP3D. It even goes as far as showing wall framing, cavity etc. Not all walls create the outside the cavity - you must choose the right one and even then the outside 'bricks' will not be added unless 4 walls form an enclosed space (a room). It will then detect the outside as an exterior wall and add the brick and cavity. I have added a BIM file that has a cavity wall you may want to add to your catalogue. (Import at File / Catalogs / Import BIM file.)  Unfortunately you cannot set all the individual component details however - that requires the parent program (Envisioneer) at umpteen times the price.

Internal walls automatically have studs (you can set them to whatever size shape of timber, steel etc that you want) and it adds the plaster surface. By default the studs are turned off but you can turn them on for drawing detail in the View Filter (Eye icon).  Attached images shows the detail of the cavity wall in the plan view if you move in close.   

TFP draws all the detail usually needed for plans and unless you have something extremely complex, you may not even need to resort to TurboCAD. It does elevations and sections and the live Cutaway tool is fascinating to use. You may like to read this article and the attached tutorial, about using TFP to print the plans: http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,877.0.html

One unwritten rule about TFP - Double click everything in dialog boxes (you will be amazed at what detail opens up - you can even set the colour and thickness of lines on plans) and check out the right click on model elements and in the catalog list - many other functions are available. You can make your own furniture, add your own photos and textures, turn them around, spread them out, make them shiny, transparent or emit light. You can do almost anything and make almost anything if it does not exist already.

Just for fun I turned off the brick and other wall surfaces and roof in one of my recent models, so you can see the steel channe frames in the inside walls and timber roof structure and a closeup one too.

Have fun and ask if you get stuck.

Allan

[peterbennett]

Thank you very much !!

Sure enough the Avanquest download version version is 624 so I will 'take it 'back' to the newer patched version.

[peterbennett]

Allan,

What should happen at the transfer stage? I have a new tree on the rhs and a similar tree on LHS I press transfer & ok but then I can't find a cavity wall in the insert wall dialogue. Tried shut down and restart but this didn't yield the cavity wall. Should I drill down the RHS and find the particular cavity wall element then transfer? Or do I have to enable a non-standard catalogue?

Thanks

ps can I create my own cavity wall with standard UK facing brick outer leaf. Our brick is 215mm long, 102.5mm wide and 65 mm high we put a 10mm gap between bricks. One of the standard aircrete (lightweight conrete) blocks is 440mm long, 215mm high and 100mm wide, again with a 10mm mortar gap all round. Gap in between the two leafs is 75mm.

so 102.5mm then 75mm then 100mm are the walls

[Allan Chesney]

Peter,

If you just click the + alongside the Elements on the right hand pane it will expand and you should see the cavity walls listed. Select them and click the transfer.  If you have the walls panel open in TFP you should see the walls appears in your catalogue a few seconds later.

You can right click the wall in the catalogue tree and select Add Element. This will create a new one based on the one you have selected. The only setting you can change however in the internal structure as far as the plan drawing is concerned is the thickness of the interior portion of the wall - you cannot set the cavity width or outer brick thickness in this version.  To get the overall thickness correct for the whole wall, you have to adjust this inner wall thickness.  I doubt that any planning people are going to measure the width of the cavity as long as a note on the plan says what it is.

Allan

[peterbennett]

Thanks Allan,

Please can you double check that the BIM file you supplied has the cavity wall included?  I don't appear to see it listed in there when I upload it (import).

BTW Are there other catalogs out there in a database somewhere for use with TFP?

Thanks again,

Peter

Doh !! just seen 'Additional Catalogs' at the top, sorry!

[Allan Chesney]

Peter,

The BIM I attached should have the cavity walls in it. I have just opened it as if to import into my TFP and the image below is what it shows, so you should see the same thing if you click the + beside Elements in the right hand side panel.  The Left is your existing catalog of course.

Be cautious about adding lots of elements to your catalogue from other sources. Add the ones you may use but as the catalog size grows things may slow down. Obviously you can delete things you know you will never use of course to compensate. Make sure you back up your catalog regularly or any customised or added elements or textures could be lost.  If you re-install for any reason the catalog will be replaced, so rename or keep a copy elsewhere so you can connect back to it if necessary.

Let us know how you get on with the stairs.

Allan