Design iterations

syburn

Hi,

I often need to sketch out a few different design options of whatever im working on, to study and seek the best design.

Apart from using layers and groups which I think is an unwieldly process, does anyone know if there is another way or plug in that was created to let us designers work more fluidly.

cheers

Gaieus

Hi Syburn and welcome back to the forums (finally)! I'll go and re-attribute your old (and already transferred) posts to your new account here immediately after posting this.

Well, I'd go along this way for sure. You can have the different versions on different layers (always keep them grouped to separate the geometry - as you know, layers do not separate in SU just control visibility).

Now in addition to assigning the different versions to different layers, you can create separate scenes (or "pages" in SU5) and control the visibility of these layers on the scenes. This way you can just click on scene "Version #1" and that version is seen then "version #2" and then version 1 disappeares but version 2 appears etc.

See attatched file for ideas (as Jean would say) with an example when there is an existing building and you propose two ways of additions to it (notre that I made separate components of the additions here instead of groups - just for the mere purpose to be able to give a name and description to them but they could also be groups since they are different).

Cheers and welcome back again

Syburn.skp

syburn

Thank you for remembering me!
I have been busy working on interior projects that are more FF&E based, so I have not found many situations where SU could help. But now I am designing a directors desk which is essentialy a free standing element(ie: akin to architecture), I find that SU becomes very effective.
Actually one of my grumbles with SU is that it does not do enough to make the designers process easier. I could really do without having to mess about with layers and complicated naming of objects for each design iteration. My idea is that I want to design desgn desgn - then make a sort of snap shot of it, then design some more with modifications - make another snap shot, etc etc. So I might have a series of models that show my design thoughts and evolution. But without taking time out to think about layers etc. Once I have to think about layers its breaking the creative moment and it becomes more of an autoCAD pain! SU already makes it easy to play with models but it falls short in capturing the designers developments, changes of mind and curiosity. Well in my opion anyway...so far!

Anyway I will now study your model - maybe u have already answered my problem haha.

Thanks and I already itching again to see how SU can benifit my work!!

Jim

You might be interested this thread about using TIG's Arvhiver plugin for saving iterations of a model.

pmiller

Or just use SU's "save copy as" as you need. It doesn't interrupt your workflow (unlike "save as") since the original model stays current in your working session.

Gaieus

@pmiller said:

Or just use SU's "save copy as" as you need. It doesn't interrupt your workflow (unlike "save as") since the original model stays current in your working session.

Yeah, that's what I'de've suggested reading your lines...