Hello,
I have been drawing plans for 20 years with a simple line drawing tool I bought for $35 and it always did everything I wanted and no more, but it was slow and manual and no 3D. So I took the plunge based on a friend who uses Softplan (he is a basic user and mostly line draws).
My approach in Softplan is to keep all drawings live as much as possible because there are huge time savings there. When clients invariably change their minds you want to be able to make changes fast and without a lot of extra work. Saving an elevation as a drawing and then start drawing lines is like going backwards, isn't that info already in the program?)
Here is what I am looking for in feedback from the experienced users:
- Tell me where I am going wrong on my approach (stated below)
- How should an efficient work flow look? What do you do?
Based on my 8 intense weeks with Softplan: (12 hour days - I am legitimately cross eyed now 
)
I followed the book and I have to say drawing floorplans and seeing the 3D is awesome, now that I understand the object oriented concept (could have been explained somewhere please SP) I can get a plan drawn in a day in 3D. This includes the crawlspace/basement, floorsystems and roof. All in 3D and with the surfaces in the correct textures and colors and some of the interiors for quick effect but not super detailed as that is not necessary yet. I can impress a client with that. Then they can make their initial changes based on these 2D & 3D views. Super!
Here is where I run amock: Now that all the works seems to be done (ha!), yes the walls, the floors, ceilings/roofs are created (look I see them on my screen and Softplan even did a joist layout and framed the roof), it would - to my thinking - make sense that the elevations, structural drawings and building outline for the site plan based on the actual view from above including roof texture would come rolling out of the program ready to be annotated and that these pages remain live, so when a client comes in with further changes I can make them on the floor plans, see them in 3D and they flow to the other pages that are required for construction. The live connection would allow me to have the changes flow to the annotated pages and I could shift those annotations around and adjust them as needed. (Have I told you I am a dreamer?)
That kind of work flow would save a ton of time. Is it currently possible?
However, what I am finding (may be I am wrong and just don't know better yet) is that I should save each page as a drawing and then fix all the errors (missing lines, overlapping lines, etc. as visible lines seems to lose some info) then annotate each page. Should the client come with a change this process has to be repeated entirely for each elevation. The same is true for structurals, even though the program already has all the information in its 3D format and can draw a framing layout (wow how does it do that, it's like magic!) I can't use it to annotate that page because it is a mode not a drawing page.
So currently my workaround is to place a textured elevation in a plan set and annotate the plan set (with it's unintended consequences, ouch) but it does look good and it works if you only need one plan set otherwise you have to do them twice or more for each type of plan set). The structurals I draw on a "save as" copy of the floor plan with some of the visibilities turned off, but the lines I draw for ridges, beams and collar ties are not part of the softplan list this way, neither are the stud packs that we need to carry the point loads, so that's not ideal. (what am I doing wrong here? How do I add those beams to the framing already in Softplan?)
This I why I ask for your input, what is the most efficient way to use Softplan?
Thank you in advance, I hope to make the flow of Softplan get so that it becomes a tool that can save as much time as possible in producing ready to use construction plans. I hope to be using it for the next 20 years when I will be 76 (I might be ready for retirement by then).
If Softplan needs to have a bunch of us in their office to pick our brains on how we use SP, I am game to fly in to make 2020 the best version this world has ever seen.
W.
