interiorcad curves

[clint29]

Hi all

This is my first post, so i figure i give a bit of backgroud about myself. I am a interior designer currently working for a cabinet making company here in Perth Australia.

We do alot of bespoke work, which a fair propotion of includes cruved doors and drawers. Currently we are using Autocad then the setout guys reconstruct in cabinbet vision for the CNC's.

Its not the ideal workflow as we only show clients the design in 2D with a few sketch up images if time permits.

About a year i purchase vectorworks with the inteiorcad xs for myself and use it for small jobs where 3d presentations is required, but i can't fugure out how to do curved cabinetry or if interiorcad can do it at all.

Guess i am trying to do it all in one program.

Wondering if anyone has had experience using this program to do curved doors etc and can give me a starting point.

Attached is a sample of a kitchen mass model i knock up in vectorworks traced from my original Autocad plan.

Thanks

[taoist]

clint29,

Good point. According to the video, (2nd one) you can make it match (follow) a polygon. Here is link to the (2) videos.

http://www.interiorcad.us/

I have not had a need to do curved cabinets.....yet.

Send Tom an e-mail regarding your question.

Tom@Coronal.net

Vectorworks & interiorcad Training

Vectorworks & interiorcad Reseller

Edited June 3, 2012 by taoist

[taoist]

clint29,

Just tried a closed polygon and used fillet tool to round the front corners. Then used Develop Cabinet Shape.

Received error message that polygon must be straight lines.

As far as I know, regular polygon or rectangle must be used. No rounded corners.

Sent Tom Pearce at coronal.net an e-mail and interiorcad corporate regarding this issue.

From what I have determined, you need to create the parts in VW and then align.

Case

Face frame (if any)

Doors

Drawers

Shelves

You can create curved shelves in interiorcad.

What a pain!

Edited June 3, 2012 by taoist

[clint29]

Thanks taoist

Figured it might be something along those lines. Shame its so complex the problem for me is not so much the intial design its the construction drawings afterwards once the site is measured as lot of new work it done in conjuction with the builders and architects before the slab is down.

Changing a complex 3d model to suit actually measures can be hmmmmmmm.

Guess for now if it comes to a curved job i will better to stick to a 2d format. Kept the 3d models for the straight stuff.

Hopefully in the future it might change. Find the software really usefull for the standard stuff.

[taoist]

Just received e-mail from Tom Pearce.

Tells me the engineers are working on it at interiorcad.

You can create the "curves" in 2D then extrude or use 3D tools.

Only the faces / shelves would be round from what I see in your floor plan.

Once the "parts" are created, save them as a symbol for future use.

fwiw

[Tom Pearce]

Clint,

Your situation speaks highly of Vectorworks and just how far they have come with the concept of working within one powerful and versatile application to move from initial design concept through to construction of the built world. Our expectations are well beyond that of others, especially in the woodworking industries. For instance, I'm not familiar with this "Sketchup" application that you mention. :-) Vectorworks is truly probably the best application to really facilitate design, rather than just allow the user to draft.

interiorcad has been at the forefront in all this development and is working to remain there. More explanation below?

Cabinetmaker can utilize polygons for editing the cabinet shape as viewed from the top, front or side views. It cannot currently use polylines with curve vertices. I'm not on the engineering team (which is a good thing for everyone :-) ), but based on ongoing conversations with the German software engineers, I know wonderful things are in the works. The extragroup team is working on features just as fast as they can write the code. Whenever I submit a list of capabilities important to our US market, virtually every single one is on their list.

extragroup introduced Custom Parts in version 2012, revealing the focus of the visible move into the future. (You will not currently see them in interior xs.) They have been invisibly laying the groundwork previously. As Custom Parts become fully implemented and then incorporated into the Cabinetmaker, we will have a tremendously powerful tool. This represents a time consuming restructuring of interiorcad from the ground up. I am convinced that it will be worth it.

Let me explain a bit, at least according to my understanding. ? ? extragroup is an extremely capable company. This change was made necessary essentially because of their high competence and demanding standards. The restructuring was required because they were ahead of the Vectorworks curve in rendering texture mapping to more realistically depict our woodworking complexities. I am revealing no secrets here ? convert a cabinet to a group and you see the structure of 3D polygons that were necessary to give us that appropriate texture mapping. We are now in the middle of the conversion to optimize the Parasolids modeler.

Then one might consider the user interface. Look at the sophistication of the editing dialog boxes that enable us to intuitively edit the minutia of detail in cabinet construction. (This might not be quite so obvious the the beginner just beginning the climb up the learning curve.) (And every one of us has run up against the inevitable wall of configurations that cannot be specified parametrically. At least then we are working within Vectorworks!) These guys are working out there at the forefront to build a modern Vectorworks experience for us. I happen to believe that they will continue to lead the way.

Clint, this is by way of saying "No, you can't do it all with interiorcad right now." That doesn't keep Vectorworks interiorcad from being the software of choice to some very pleased woodworkers who very much enjoy using it to do work within its capabilities.