Can I Fix A Dimension?

[abrogard]

 This is my first day with Floorplan. It seems a great product. I've looked around but didn't find the answer to this: can I put a dimension in somewhere and have that object remain fixed at that size regardless of any other changes I might make?

  Like I've quickly drawn up my house but all the measurements are wrong, of course.

 then I go round the house measuring up rooms and come back to the computer and input the sizes.

 I found when I changed the size of one room it changed the size of an adjoining room which I'd just correctly adjusted.

 So can I put sizes in and have them remain until ever I release them from the fix so's they can adjust again?

 regards,

 ab

[Allan Chesney]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

Yes TFP is a great product!

First of all, how do you plan to use the program? Its primary job is to create a 3D model so you can visualise and create photorealistic images of it. The plan is incidental to that purpose. I mention that because slight differances in dimensions will not be seen in 3D so you may not need to worry about it.

If you wanted to use the plan itself in some way then I would suggest using the forum Search (for Dimensions) as this has been discussed many times.

Basically you can use right click Lengthen and also the Commander Bar to do what you want - maybe you have not come across these yet. Check the Search on these too.

Have fun!

Allan

[abrogard]

 Hi, thanks for the welcome and the response to my question.

 That's good if we get down to the nitty gritty straightaway.  Perhaps the program isn't suited for what I want.

 It's not photorealistic modelling I'm after at this time - though I'd value the prog for that at some other time. What I want now is scale drawings, plan and elevation.

 If it is simply not suited for that then I'd like to know right up front.

 
 What I'm trying to do is move walls, sideways.  I should have said it like that before.

 Imagine I've got a rectangle (that's the outline of my house). Then I divide it up with interior walls.

 Then I measure a room and find its true size.  I go back to the drawing and click a wall and move it sideways to make the room bigger until the dimensions that I can see there read what I've just measured as being the size of that room in that direction.

 This is a wonderful way of operating. It's terrific. Except that the prog will shrink the adjoing room to compensate. I want it to just make the rectangle bigger in that direction to allow for the larger room.

  Can that be done?

regards,  ab

 

[Allan Chesney]

Hi again,

Scale drawings, plans, elevations, sections and perspective drawings are certainly possible to extreme precision - the limitation is in the print layout, which is essentially one of each per page.

Obviously this is not suitable for any sort of official presentation - again depends on what your needs are. Having said that, I have almost finished doing a tutorial on how this can be done within TFP and produce quite professional results. Rather than rushing off and buying Envisioneer (parent program) or something at 15 times the price you may want to wait a few days to see if my solution is suitable for what you want. It will give you plans, elevations etc on one or more pages - whatever you need.

If a wall runs right across the house and you drag the wall the continuation of the wall will move too. Right click, select Lengthen and pull the connecting wall away from your room walls, move your room wall and then reconnect the wall you disconnected earlier.

Allan

[abrogard]

 Aaah... that's what's happening. 

 Well I tried it. It'd make doing a drawing look like playing with a bunch of matchsticks - all those disconnected walls.

 But it might work.

 A quick look I just took seems to suggest I can't see the dimensions any more. A normal wall I can click on and get dimensions in blue between parallel walls. That's the room dimension that I'll be measuring and coming back to the prog to fix.

 When I move a 'normal' wall the dimensions stay there and change and I can see when they are where I want.

 Or I can click on the blue dimension and a box will open to let me write in the size I want.

 None of this happens with the 'disconnected' wall.

 Is Envisioneer any better at this?

 Envisioneer is the parent? Many years ago I had 'Turbo Cad', I think, was an IMSI product and an excellent one. I was thinking this would be a development of that.

 I like this method of working that I've almost got here.

 Quick sketchup of the house.

 Then drag walls around, delete walls, insert new walls, finally put precise distances in.

  If I can get this to work here it will be wonderful.  All I need.

  If I can't then where does it work like this? Are you aware of any prog that does it that way?  I find AutoCad completely hopeless. Too difficult entirely.  Google Sketchup is too difficult for dimensioning, for me.  And so on...

  That display of blue dimensions between parallel walls is of enormous help.


  As for tech drawing and such - I'm happy to wait and see what you've created.  I'd have to anyway, I just don't know where else to turn right now.

 regards,

 ab 

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ab, 

Stay with it, it will do exactly what you want from what I can see.

TurboCAD is essentially a parallel of AutoCAD - not what you want, huge learning curve. Envisioneer is essentially the same as TFP in its 3D and plan drawing - they LOOK absolutely identical, even files are interchangeable but it has additional CAD and printing features imbedded.

The blue dimensions should appear even with disconnected walls as long as they are not disconnected at BOTH ends. 

Other dimensioning tools are the Tape Measure on the Tools menu and toolbar and auto exterior and auto interior dimensions as well as area, perimeter and cubic measure also on the Tools menutoo. You can also display the dimensions in different styles etc too. Some of these stay on the plan and do not automatically refresh but one click will update them. You can also add manual dimensions too and text too.

Use right click and get into the habit of  double clicking things - you will be surprised how far down you can dig, even just in dimensions - colour, size, style, thickness, type of arrow heads, almost everything is customisable in the whole program.

Unless you are wanting extremely technical plan printing or very complex structural details, I am sure TFP will do probably even more than you want.

By the way - which version do you have?  My comments are based on TFP Pro V14 although I think all I have said is applicable to V12 also.  They would not all apply to Deluxe.

Allan

[abrogard]

 I thought that was it and I'd be off and running... but it's not quite that simple, as it turns out.

 Have we got any control of the blue dimensions?  I find sometimes they ignore my walls completely. Sometimes they start at the wall and go to some strange place, like a nearby corner (end of a wall, too, though) and stop there, won't continue to a further parallel wall.

 Sometimes they just don't appear between a wall I've detached one end of and the parallel wall.



 It occurs to me that I should query the proper way to use the prog. Perhaps I'm pushing against the tide.

 How is it supposed to be used?  How are we supposed to design a house, or record the design of an existing house, with it?

 I can't think of what else you would do but sketch it up and then improve the drawing, moving walls, deleting walls, adding walls, all the stuff I'm trying to do.


 I'll keep trying.

 By the way: it's version 12 I've got here.

 regards,

 ab 

[Allan Chesney]

Hi ab,   

If I was replicating an existing house I would do as you have described, starting with a box and adding rooms upper left to lower right watching the blue dimensions as I drag the walls. If more precise dimensions were required I would then use the arrow keys (Nudge tool - see below) to make the fine adjustment (mm by mm).

The blue measurements will only appear when you select a wall and will give a figure for the distance between the walls connecting to the wall that joins them together. Clicking at the opposite end of the wall may give a distance to a different wall, if the attached walls are further apart. Depending which wall you click on you will probably get measurements to different walls. Just experiment with them for a while and you will get the hang of it. 

Something that may help too is understanding how walls work:  Each wall has 3 markers, Green as the start point, Red as the end point and Blue as the centre. To extend the wall in any direction click and drag the appropriate maker.  To move it sideway use the blue one. From this you know in which direction the wall was created, so you then know which is the left and right side of the wall.  This will be required when you go to the wall Properties and want to change the Trim or Appearance as there are setting options for both, plus a third one - Exterior. Exterior only comes into play if you join 4 walls to make an enclosed room or space - the outside walls will now take on the Exterior properties.  Join another room onto the first one and the joined wall reverts to its left and right interior settings while the total outer perimeter of the two joined rooms now use the Exterior properties.  A single wall sticking out of this two room building, will have interior properties since it is not an enclosed space so an Exterior is not created. To force this single wall to have Exterior properties it needs to have 3 sides attached back to the main building so it become a mini room in effect.  Make it very thin if necessary.

You may use the arrow keys to Nudge the wall (or any object) in small increments. You can set the Nudge distance in Settings/Program Settings/Drawing Aids. It would be good for you to read through all the Program Settings, so you know what can be changed to suit how you want to work. Initially you may change nothing but it is good to know what can be changed if necessary down the track. These settings will help give you a picture of the structure of the program. On the Settings menu, also study Building Locations (critical to understand ,especially for multi-storey buildings) and Dimension Settings

Allan

[Doug.S]

I'll offer an alternate method that I use....

(I alomost never start a TFP .bld drawing until I have a very good handle on the overall design and sizes....unless I'm just doing a room or two for design study, trial/error, concepts)

I start in an outside corner that I know most about or has a key feature that needs to be built upon/added to.  Then I progressively add rooms, one at a time...and get each room size as exact as possible before moving on to the next room...until I reach the other ends of the building.

Then move on to second floor.  Then go back and add doors, windows, details....unless those things help me get sizes exact as I go room by room.

I don't think there is a way to "lock" individual things in place....but you can make some things as "not selectable" and if you use extra "locations" (similar to 'layers') you can avoid selecting things on locations you are not working on. Save often and be careful not to accidentally ruin a part of the design.  If in doubt, save incrementally just before you try something tricky so if it does not work you can easily recover to the last saved file.

Making fine tuning adjustments are possible on later design changes, but you have to plan ahead.  If you want to move half a house, carefully select the half and move all pieces together to keep desired things in place. Grouping things also can save/protect yourself from accidents....as large "objects" show moves or changes more obviously.