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olh
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Some notes after fist usage

Today I used SweetHome3D-5.7 for the first time. The plan was to get a true-to-scale representation of all rooms in an existing appartment, including dimensioning. I hoped to use a tool that saves me from doing any math.

What I used as a base is a drawed plan with all dimensions, the exact distance from wall to wall.

After some try and error I figured it is required to draw walls. The exact length of a wall can be represented via X/Y coordinates. Later I added dimensions, just to find that all values are wrong.

So here are my thougths:

A) It would be nice if there is a mode to specify the length of a wall as distance from surface to surface. Right now it seems the thickness of a wall plays a vital role. For a human it is natural to measure from surface to surface to get the dimensions of an existing wall, and ignore the thickness during that measuring.

B) It would be nice if there is a mode to operate in "relations of corners" to get the exact geometry. What I mean with that: Assume all surface-to-surface distances are known only after measuring. First one draws all the rooms, based on memory or from photos, to get a first approximation of the overall geometry. And finally one applies the measured distance. Pick some corner (#1) and "lock" it. Then specify the distance/length of a wall from surface-to-surface to the other corner (#2). That value of distance between #1 and #2 is static, the orientation and location is dynamic because it depends on the corners nearby. Next step is to specify the distance between corner #2 and the next corner #3, again a static value. And finally corner #n gets connected to #1 and the room is finished. The exact geometry depends of course on either the distance of, for example, the corner #1 and #3, or the angle of two walls. I think if one angle is known the other points will align, at least for a simple 4-wall room. While the wall property window allows to enter a lenght, its usage was not intuitive. It is not visual obvious what the "base" is. I will play some more with the tool, perhaps it partly does what I described. Also, that locked corner #1 also affects the room on the other side of the wall(s).

C) It would be nice if the applied dimension objects really stick/snap to the wall surface. Right now it seems they are floating objects, if the wall moves because the exact size of the object was specified, the dimension object does not follow.

Some of the dimensions are oddly orientated. Some of the text has to be read from the right, some from the left. It is not obvious why it is that way.

Thanks.
[Jul 1, 2018, 9:31:54 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
okh
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Re: Some notes after fist usage

.. a tool that saves me from doing any math.
Some math, I am afraid, is inevitable...
..mode to specify the length of a wall as distance from surface to surface. Right now it seems the thickness of a wall plays a vital role.
I think we have all struggled with this and it is a recurring topic in the forum. And there are reasons for the centre-to-centre wall dimensions. That said, the math involved is not very difficult once you get used to it. At least if the plan is not too complicated. For instance, in a rectangular room, the inside measurement equals the centre-to-centre measurment minus the wall thickness (half wall thickness on both sides).

Also, do not forget the option of drawing the room first (just inside dimensions), and then double-click with the wall tool to create walls around the room.

BTW, to get measurements right, the AdvancedEditing plugin is very useful.

As for your other comments, some of them have also come up before in the forum.

ok
[Jul 2, 2018, 9:34:18 AM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
okh
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Re: Some notes after fist usage

BTW, see Feature Requests 750/ with regard to your point A. ok
[Jul 2, 2018, 1:04:39 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
olh
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Re: Some notes after fist usage

.. a tool that saves me from doing any math.
Some math, I am afraid, is inevitable...


Well, that means there is room for improvement in the tooling. Why would a human do _that_ sort of math? Only to refresh what one learned a couple of decades ago, or if one loves math.


I tried two apparments to get a better understanding. The first one has all aligned rooms, so not much trouble to create an exact drawing.

The second one has two rooms which require many many small walls to form the shape of the room. While one can draw a room by starting with one corner, then add the distance and a guessed angle to the next corner, the very last part is most likely too long or too short. In my case the wall was off by 100cm.

The mentioned addon has a tool to adjust all aspects of all corners. Changing the distance to the next corner will certainly move that corner, but that means the distance to the following corner is now corrupted and so is the entire shape of the room.

A workflow to adjust the length of the last wall could be like "lock all distances and angles, except the angle of that one corner, then adjust the distance." Now all corners will move/turn around that unlocked corner, the shape of the entire room is preserved.

Hopefully someone finds the time and energy to implement that.
[Jul 7, 2018, 3:08:16 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
olh
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Re: Some notes after fist usage

.. a tool that saves me from doing any math.
Some math, I am afraid, is inevitable...


The tool that did the math for me was FreeCAD. It has the sketcher, which allowed me to draw all walls, applied constraints like distance, angle and certain alignments. Finally it is possible to apply an angle constraint to every corner, but I used the dialog window to just peek at the calculated value.

Now with all the data, it is possible to draw a room and apply the values for length and angle of a wall, using the Enter key.

For some reason some drawn angles are slightly wrong, likely rounding errors. But in the end my figure was almost correct once I corrected the incorrectly calculated values manually, just an offset of 1cm for the last wall.
[Jul 13, 2018, 8:42:00 AM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
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