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Cabinet Plug-in-Objects? Why aren't they finished?


MikeN

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I've started using the Base Cabinet PIO and through the object info palette am able to set the style of the counter and the kick but not the most important part: the millwork itself. I want to be able to edit the style of a cabinet door or drawer front as well as the millwork boxes.

You'd think it would be a straight forward feature to implement as you're able to tweak the frame, sash and mullion of door and/or window PIO's. Am I missing something or did NNA release an incomplete PIO? If so, why release it at all when it's missing the most important component?

[ 11-22-2005, 09:08 PM: Message edited by: Runtime Error ]

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What's interesting is that within the Vectorscript of the Base Cabinet PIO, a lot of the paramaters are there to be utilized and a some of the fields are filled-in with this: __NNA_DO_NOT_CHANGE.

Anyone care to explain what the plans are?

[ 11-22-2005, 09:19 PM: Message edited by: Runtime Error ]

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Have you looked at the new cabinet object in VW 12?

There have been quite a few changes to the PIO to allow greater customization of the look of cabinets.

Door Mounting can be changed to surface or flush

Drawer Style can be changed to slab or square

Door style can be changed to slab, square, square multipanel, arch, roman arch, or open

Panel Style can be changed to recessed, raised, or grooved

The edges can be beveled

Door and drawer handles can be automatically added through the PIO and uses default content to choose a style from.

There are a few other changes too, but I think this is a good start to changes made to the cabinet PIOs.

If you have futher suggestions, please feel free to send them to me. I'll be able to pass the info forward as I am part of the research team.

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The new cabinet PIO's are far more robust than what was available in 8.

Personally I can't see a reason to texture a door differently than the case. The development team may see this the same as I do. If you have this need it would be a good idea to explain why and how you would use it in more detail....contrasting door and face-frame perhaps?

As estimator and manager of a cabinet shop, I have different reasons for wanting the fronts in a separate class. It would then be possible to write a script to gather all the 3D info (sizes) of all the fronts. This is a door list. It's then rather simple to calculate the total area of fronts and use this in estimating materials.

I've looked at InteriorCad and while it is extremely capable in this regard it seems overly complicated to me and not flexible enough in how the reports are created and how the estimating is done. It is a very powerful presentation tool however. More powerful in fact than what I need.

I'd have to say that with the advances in 12, V-Works Architect is becoming a viable alternative. If I can figure out how to dovetail my current home-brew estimating system (2D) with the new cabinet objects I'll be moving up to Architect.

Thanks

Charles

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Yes, they are more robust, but what I was saying is that the cabinet object plug-in has existed within VW for many years. The characterization of the original poster was interpreted by me as though they were thinking these were a new addition to the program altogether.

What VW12 ships with is more than enough for most people, and products like InteriorCAD are likely to be a boon to people whose work can justify it (especially in presentation situations like Charles mentioned.)

I have not created any multi-species cabinets lately but can see the point of more classing functionality. Glass doors anyone?

I recently did a custom cabinet for a project that had doors in the center and drawers on the sides within a single frame and with a furniture leg face at the front kick.

The VW plug-in can do something like that with some workarounds (and adding detail manually to the ungrouped object), but it's probably not something that most people would do, and so I don't expect the plug in to be able to do that.

You can render an entire "Home Depot" style cabinet layout with it, and that's probably the threshold it needs to work to. Just like the window and door objects (also improved in VW12) can do most, but not all, combinations out there.

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Paolo Marcuccetti's Barroom Tools from the Vectordepot Market section (US$35) provides quite a lot more cabinetwork modelling functionality for those that need it.

It consists of 18 plug-ins which draw/model barroom and kitchen cabinetwork elements like counters, sinks, cabinet doors and shelveing.

-

[ 11-26-2005, 10:55 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

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With the advent of viewports we've reached a comfort level working and producing complete drawing packages in 3d with Vectorworks and no longer have the desire to create traditional 2d interior millwork elevations. So, I guess this if the first time I've bothered to use the cabinet PIO's for presentation and production rather than just massing studies and thus wanted to tweak particular millwork elements. And yes, there are clients out there who want some variation between color & finish of the doors and bases. As someone mentioned earlier, glass doors would be a prime example (see comments below about Vectorscript).

The question for me would be, throughout the history of the Cabinet PIO, why has NNA neglected to implement the same level of style/class availability as those afforded to the Door and Window PIO's? For example, under the 'View' tab of the Door PIO settings, I can almost infinitely tweak the door elements through style, class and texture application. It just makes sense to me that those same options would carry over to the cabinet objects.

In regards to Vectorscript, when you have a look at the Base Cabinet Vectorscript parameters it would seem as though NNA considered adding these options but for some reason decided not to. For instance I see a Glazing parameter but it?s nowhere to be found in the actual Base Cabinet PIO options.

The Cabinet PIO's are so relatively similar to the Door and Window PIO's that I'm surprised they weren't developed at the same time. What makes me scratch my head even further is the fact that people are relying on picking up third party millwork applications to fill in gaps when NNA has come so close to a relatively complete package with some of great strides in the PIO's now available in 12.

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I wouldn't call the cabinet object in the state that it is as "final". Everything is a work in progress. There's definately work being done to further enhance the PIO and make it similar to the door and window, especially with the interface.

We stride ourselves with building a software program that you, the user want to use. With that information, tools and commands are constantly improving.

To better assist you, would you mind assisting us?

If so, can you send a list of wishes for the changes you would like made to the cabinet pio to me? (email below)

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Charles,

you wrote that there's some room for improvement :-) in interiorCADs ease-of-use and how interiorCAD creates reports and how estimating is done.

Could you please elaborate? I'm the CTO of extragroup, the company developing interiorCAD and would welcome any feedback you may have. You can also contact me via private e-mail at hm.kern@extragroup.de if this forum is not appropriate.

Thanks!

HMK

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  • 2 weeks later...

ccroft wrote:

"Personally I can't see a reason to texture a door differently than the case. The development team may see this the same as I do. If you have this need it would be a good idea to explain why and how you would use it in more detail....contrasting door and face-frame perhaps?"

I have designed (not in CAD) and in the past built kitchens with mixed wood cabinet doors, IE: oak cabinet door frames with maple center panels. This is not uncommon. I am about to start designing another kitchen with this same need of raised panel cabinet doors with oak rail and stile and solid maple panels. In order to achieve this I assumed I would have to custom build each cabinet individually. To achieve the doors I've been experimenting with extruding profiles. A lot of work for each individual door size!

To answer the question of texturing the doors differently than the case, in Euro construction (face-frameless case) it is not uncommon for the cases to be constructed from solid color Melamine and have different options for doors. Very time consuming to have to model each individual component separately to control the textures for rendering.

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