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Kitchen drawing strategy


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I do a lot of custom kitchen design for my residential projects. The kitchen cabinet plugins with VW are way too primitive. If I had time I would write my own plugin but....

In the past I made somewhat generic (but better than VW plugin) symbols for 2 types of cabinets. (Too cheap to buy the junkie cabinet addons I reviewed at the time.)

- inset door cabinets with 3/4" sides so that when butted together there is a 1.5" stile. Side finish panels of 3/4" finish exposed sides and make 1.5" sides. Doors are stile & rail with heavier bottom rail.

- flush overlay door cabinets which are much easily to draw and have simple details when used together. Doors as above or slab doors.

Base cabinets are in a cabinet library of widths: 12" through about 42" in 3" increments with 0,1,2,3,4 drawers in different configurations. The base cabinets are drawn with no kick. I just extrude a kick for a whole bank of cabinets so it can be customized with the job. The counter is also separating extruded/customized. Doing the kick and counter is very simple and quick. Kick: draw shape in plan, extrude 4". Counter: draw shape, extrude 1.25", move 3D Z direction 34.75".

Wall cabinets widths of 9" through about 42" in 3" increments and heights of 30" to 42" in 6" increments.

Custom cabinet shape file under bases and wall units. For example 24" deep wall cabinets for over frigs, side panels for frigs, wall units, base units, oven cabinets, etc.

Appliances from free sources and some I drew.

I make more custom shapes with each job.

This is all way too generic for custom cabinetry but is a start. I'm always making a new custom width or height which could take like 10 minutes/cabinet. I like to vary door stile and rail widths, have various cabinet parts recessed or protruding, use many custom depths, cabinet face frame stiles, bottom and/or top cabinet face frames, etc.

Then comes the hard part, how to light the model. The ceiling is always too dark without spots shining up.The textures can so easily look like home depot. The best presentation seems to be hidden line drawings with a few minutes to clean up extra lines.

OK, so say it, the newer kitchen $ plugins available do all this well without looking like the cheesy kitchen store cabinet CAD.

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Henry you should take another look at InteriorCAD. It would suit your needs admirably. It now comes in two versions:

- A design only version Interior XS; and

- A full featured version InteriorCAD.

Download the demo version and try it out. http://www.extragroup.biz/index.php?id=275&L=1

Have a look at these movies:

- http://www.extragroup.biz/index.php?id=beispielvideos&L=1

- http://www.ozcad.com.au/otherproducts/interiorcad.html

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