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Seating Layout Tool - drawing a raised seating block / bleacher


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Hi -

Any tips on drawing a seating block / bleacher using the Seating Layout Tool ?

I've got it so that each row raises by 150mm (or whatever), but any tips on drawing in the base so that it doesn't look like they are floating in mid air ?! Is it a case of drawing it by hand once you've got the seating block drawn ?

Also - can I add aisles ? Can't see an option to do so.

Many thanks all

Andrew

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Carl

The Create Seating Layout tool is very old. I know it was in VW9 in 2001. I haven't noticed any changes in it since VW12.

And for complicated houses it takes a lot of little adjustments.

Many times I've found it easier to create small sections at a time or Distribute Along Path a seat symbol to get a row and then duplicate and move that row.

So you may have ended up drawing the Durban ICC seats the way you did anyway ;-)

(I long time ago I submitted a wish list to make the focus point of the seats able to snap to an object and a way to make seats share arms. Maybe the first one is in SP3, but I can't imagine how to make the second wish work.)

michaelk

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Yes, I have. It's not perfect. The included arm always looks closer to one chair than its neighbor. Especially with a radius layout the first couple rows (with the smallest radius) look goofy.

Maybe it would be better to have armless chairs and a Seating Layout tool that uses two alternating symbols: Arm Chair Arm Chair.........Chair Arm

Where the end arms are anchored to the ends of the rows and the interior arms are placed between each chair.

In the real world rows of theatre seats and backs are not all the same width. There is usually an A, B, and C width. By combining them you can get the rows to meet the aisles correctly and get the seats in one row to line up with the arms in the previous row. I don't know if they use A backs and B seats or whatever to help get a radius layout...

In other words - it would be complicated and (usually unnecessary) to model the seats absolutely correctly. Anybody know how seating vendors/installers do it?

michaelk

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Well I created my own 3Dsymbols and placing them over the 2D layout given to me,

(they were so kind as to supply me with ANY autoCad drawings I needed to draw it up in 3d, which had a seating layout done to indicate where the seats would be. Noticed the A, B, C thing mentioned above. It makes sence yet looks confusing when you start to count.

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I did some looking into it.

Most manufacturers I looked at have 3 seat widths. And of course there are at least 3 basic arms (not counting arms with desks....) - Interior, HL, and HR.

One manufacturer identified a radius point in their drawings.

So by using 4 different symbols and the duplicate along path command with clever offsets you can get pretty good results.

I'm still hoping someone who really does this will chime in.

michaelk

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Guest Frank Brault

Some seating systems now use just one seat size and vary the spacing between seats. The vendor can use just one seat size and still line up the row ends on arc based layouts.

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Frank

I've started paying attention to seats in the last week... I've also noticed that new seating systems seem to have a bracket with a slotted bolt hole or some arrangement that allows for some "play" where the seat connects to the arm... But I have also noticed at least one of those that still have A, B, and C seats...

I have painful memories of the old school seats, which were all about lining up multiple bolt holes for every seat...

michaelk

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Guest Frank Brault

Hi Michael,

Arena seating doesn't often require seating along curves, so aisles are more likely to line up with single sized seating schemes. I would guess that the multi-sized seat system would be on the high end of the bid.

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