Wall, Door and Window schedules

cgraham

In my opinion, Sketchup has a long way to go to be a viable construction documentation tool. There are many other products out there that do the job much better that are (nearly) as cheap.

I use the product for conceptual design and easy, quick renderings. So, instead of tweaking the minutae, I would rather see the product perform faster, with smaller file sizes. It is common for file sizes to quickly reach the 55MB range, and all manipulations within the file become a waiting contest, even with shadows off and faces set to monochrome.

It would also be an enormous benefit if files could be "cross referenced" into the current model, instead of importing as dead files. With this feature, the cross referenced file could be modified separately, and then all the references would automatically update.

So, it's like filling a container with multiple-sized balls. Get the big balls in first, and then the smaller balls can easily fit.

peweuk

Chalk and Cheese springs to mind when I follow this thread.

High end construction/architectural programmes such as Revit seem to have been mentioned a few times in this thread now, comparing Sketchup to them from an Arhitetural point of view.

I, personally, am not really concerned with taking models to that level - as I am sure is the case with a large number existing and potential Sketchup users.

I have no experience of Revit and can only compare Sketchup with other 3D programs that I have looked at in an effort to establish what is best suited to the market I operate in - interior design.

The main criteria in identifying a suitable program for the mass market of interior design that I have experience in (specifically the area of Kitchen, Bedroom, Bathroom design) are ;

Ease of use
Speed of design
Cost
Information output
Quality of presentation
(not necessarily in that order)

There are a number of programs aimed specifically at this market and, having had experience of most of them, IMHO Sketchup comes near (if not at) the top.

Having said that, Sketchup has a number of shortcomings which could be overcome with the development of additional tools, either as part of the program or the availability of external extensions, plug-ins or tools such as the one that Al started this thread to discuss.

When I first looked at Sketchup it took me very little time to get to grips with it due to its simplicity of operation. Within a very short space of time I was able to understand it well enough to pass on what I had learnt and teach someone who had no Design software experience how to design a Kitchen in Sketchup spending no more than half an hour doing so. There is no way I could have done that with other interior design programs I have experienced - apart from one which I shall not mention. And Sketchup is far more flexible than all of them for a number of reasons.

Having access to tools such as RPTools make the job even easier and access to additional tools, such as the Wall Tool Al is considering, would simply make the job even easier.

The introduction of Dynamic Components in SU7 also now enables us to produce not only cutting lists, but cost reports and other information to suit our market that previously were missing in Sketchup.

So ignoring full blown Construction/Architectural drawings (in the nicest possible way) I think that potentially Sketchup is more than capable of satisfying the needs of a vast market which could benefit from Sketchup in it's current form, and even more so with further development of both the program and external applications, extensions and plug-ins.

So keep up the good work AL.

Al Hart

@peweuk said:

Chalk and Cheese springs to mind when I follow this thread.

...

So keep up the good work AL.

I did have to look up that phrase:

@unknownuser said:

The earliest citation of the phrase, in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1390 does suggest some dodgy dealing, in which cheese is replaced with chalk:
Lo, how they feignen chalk for chese.
and
And thus ful ofte chalk for chese
He changeth with ful litel cost,
Wherof an other hath the lost
And he the profit schal receive.

@unknownuser said:

By the sixteenth century, the phrase had become a fixed expression. Hugh Latimer wrote rather sarcastically around 1555: “As though I could not discern cheese from chalk.”

I appreciate your comments. Although one of my life-long dreams would be fulfilled if I could edge out both AutoCAD and Revit, a smaller dream will come closer if I am able to do something useful for SketchUp.

peweuk

@unknownuser said:

Although one of my life-long dreams would be fulfilled if I could edge out both AutoCAD and Revit, a smaller dream will come closer if I am able to do something useful for SketchUp.

"From Small Acorns ....."

ashleyjoyce

I appreciate both SAB & CGRAHAM's professional feedback and I agree 100% with there take on the role of both SketchUp and Revit in the area of building design.

My advice to anyone starting out in architecture... is learn Revit for Construction details and onging management of the building. SketchUp should only be used for concept designs, presentation drawings & mass modelling complex components for use in Revit.

richcat

@al hart said:

@unknownuser said:

Another item we have on the back burner - perhaps as part of the Wall project - is second display window for SketchUp which would add 2D CAD items to the SketchUp drawing - but only display them in the 2D CAD window.

This second window sounds very interesting, can you tell us more, is this run inside sketchup, or can it run as a separate instance but connected, like a preview window. Can you control what you view in it etc.

In terms of 2d cad what I would really like to see a set of rubies to go together with RPTools. The polyline is great as it does not auto infill faces, the Richtext input if it had alpha transparent background would be great.I know that I can now draw consistently in one plane, using set camera settings and views, but I would like a dimension tool that did not change text size as you zoomed in a out. An extend arc tool would be great, the extend ruby altered so that there was more control. An offset tool that worked on lines not just faces would be great. A copy properties tool would be very useful with printed line thickness by colour table would make my day, and lots of dashed/dotted lines and last but not least hatches (I suppose these could be materials with alpha backgrounds)
Basically a simple 2d cad package inside sketchup that could then be developed further.

Al Hart

@richcat said:

This second window sounds very interesting, can you tell us more, is this run inside sketchup, or can it run as a separate instance but connected, like a preview window. Can you control what you view in it etc.

It would run as a sub-task of SketchUp (much like IRender does when not in Batch mode).

It would display the SketchUp database, but would have its own display for special items. For instance we put an attribute on edges to set their display width. We cannot display this in SketchUp, but we could in our own OpenGL window. (We apply the width when creating a PDF of SketchUp)

We could create certain custom entities this way - which would have a default display (or no display) in SketchUp but would display in the separate window.

However, this is a somewhat far fetched concept - until we find something which actually needs it.

Dimensioning, Text and Cross-Hatch seem to be the most likely suspects as we move on with them.

Also, we are working on some software for the ARRIS CAD system to embed PDF, Word and Excel documents into a drawing. We could embed documents as low-res Images in SketchUp - but use the original document for PDF printing or a separate display window.

redinhawaii

Any further work on this subject?

Al Hart

@unknownuser said:

Did anything come of this concept,
as I am doing working drawings in SU/LO and to have an embedded pdf for schedules and lists seems a winner towards making this more productive.
thanks

RpWallMaker Free creates walls - each a s group, and lets you cut holes in them. It still has a long way to go as we are waiting for more user response before creating a "Pro" version. Which will allow for inside and outside justification and reports.

SpaceDesign Pro (also not released yet), would create reports from the walls, and windows, and create an embedded PDF report:

RpReports creates these PDF reports now. But it is too complicated (and expensive) for simple wall, door and window schedules. RpWalls Pro or SpaceDesign Pro will be better tools when they are completed.

tomot

I arrived a little late to this thread: I notice the discussion has meandered, which is normal, in forums.

For those reading this thread, I have already donated 2 Ruby scripts to this forum which I wrote:
I didn't claim copyright nor did I obfuscate the code so others could not read it, and anyone is free to use the code and alter it.

Window Tools:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=14394&p=109705&hilit=window+tools#p108868
Door Tool:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=14008&p=105538&hilit=doortools#p105538

My investigation into Ruby coding lead me to believe that it was impossible to cut an opening into a wall, because a SketchUp wall is not actually a wall, its only to planes separated by a given distance, with 4 more planes defining the thickness, unlike a real 3d object which would require a Boolean operation to cut holes into it, or Nurb objects. However my 2 ruby scripts will cut openings into walls as long as the user enters the wall thickness into the dialog box prior to cutting the holes. SketchUp is a surface modeling program NOT a solid modeling program like ArchiCad, Maya, XIS, Max, C4D, or Rhino. Its also one of the main problems facing developers trying to produce workable export plugins from SketchUp to other 3d platforms.

I found schedules the 3rd item on the list, to which not much attention has been paid.

When I was creating AutoCad window and Door schedules many years ago, I could get them to print out via an Excel spreadsheet. So they could be incorporated in 8.5x 11 format into the back of a specification manual(s) I had to create a Dialog box consisting of some 15 attribute tags that needed to by filled out before a door could be inserted onto a AutoCad drawing file. So whats wrong with that!

Nothing except AutoCad would change its menu structure each year. And with each newer version, it became impossible to keep up making changes to the menu structure, and to incorporate those Attribute and Lisp coded functions. And it got even harder, for the Firm, after I left. I heard later that they were making schedules the old fashioned way, which was much faster in the long run.

I've been there just like Atl-Arch describing his attempt to build a stone cap parapet. I recall Working with a $3000.00 program from AutoDesk called Architectural Desktop, which was supposed to be used to draw repetitive floor plans, except they forgot to include an actual floor in the program that you could insert and which had actual thickness.

I hope Revit users wont go through the same dilemma, now that AutoDesk bought them.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to the schedule, good luck, Al