31 replies to this topic

[Harlon Suttle]

Ha, you guy are about 60 or so years behind the times. Back in the day, One would have a copy of the Architectural Graphics Standards, Zerox the a detail, use an Exacto kinfe and careful trim it to fit in the space on a detailed ssheet and if ya were really a busy firm, you probably had a Zerox machine that could reduce or enlarge. Then using pen striping tape and the Exacto knife trim the tape to nearly pencil thin so when ya ran the tracing through the Blue LIne machine, the tape just looked like a block that the detail was in....aaah those were the good old days..LOL.... weeks to turn out a set of doc's not hours and the man hours....hundreds instead of so few, it is hard to justify the fees charged today....of course I was only making $0. 75 per hour....OUCH....

[Keith Almond]

My first job in Britain, I earned £13 per week.

[Lane De Muro]

No, but it can be added to a drawing that can be used in a planset.

 

My rule of thumb is NEVER to draw anything directly into a planset. I always add drawings to a planset, and these drawings can be defined in the template. I then call standard details as needed into the relevant project. NEST may even make this redundant. I really should look at moving to 2022 ...

Great advice abou the drawings vs putting things into the plan set sheet.
I just started making the drawing and then adding that to the plan set.  It work great except Softplan has no way to align notes vertically and horizontally.  All of my notes and diagrams are in boxes that are all the same width, but varying heights (according to how much information is in the diagram or note).  This is going to be a real PIA trying to get the notes to align vertically so there is equal spacing in between.  I spoke with technical support and they tell me it is something softplan simply is not programmed to do.
Now I am going to try importing an entire note sheet from Chief Architect (where the vertical alignment of any number of things to be equally spaced is just three clicks...top, bottom, and expanding box for everything inbetween) where they are already properly spaced.

[Sean Tobin]

Ha, you guy are about 60 or so years behind the times. Back in the day, One would have a copy of the Architectural Graphics Standards, Zerox the a detail, use an Exacto kinfe and careful trim it to fit in the space on a detailed ssheet and if ya were really a busy firm, you probably had a Zerox machine that could reduce or enlarge. Then using pen striping tape and the Exacto knife trim the tape to nearly pencil thin so when ya ran the tracing through the Blue LIne machine, the tape just looked like a block that the detail was in....aaah those were the good old days..LOL.... weeks to turn out a set of doc's not hours and the man hours....hundreds instead of so few, it is hard to justify the fees charged today....of course I was only making $0. 75 per hour....OUCH....

I remember doing this.  And adding tone& color to the back of mylars (or front of vellums).  Sometimes I miss those days.  Most of time I don't.

One summer my job was to create a binder with individual pages for each typical detail out of AGS, with title and scale (if there was one).  That way they were all ready to be picked, copied (sometimes onto the sticky clear adhesive) and taped to a sheet.  

[Keith Almond]

... This is going to be a real PIA trying to get the notes to align vertically so there is equal spacing in between ...

 

You know softplan has a GRID and SNAP to GRID? OPTIONS > GRID SETUP

 

Make your grid spacing the same as the line spacing, It will keep your note spacing consistent, the just snap the Insert point of the note to the grid points. If you explode a wrapped note, the lines become independent, and you can snap line to them and measure between the lines to find the exact line spacing. CTRL-C to copy the spacing and CTRL-V to paste it into the grid setup.

[Harlon Suttle]

Just so you guys know, Kansas City has the worlds largest PRIVATE library/Repository of engineering and technical information.  Linda Hall Library.  talk about getting lost with old and new tech and books, research papers, Special govt research etc.....simply overwhelming....a must see id ya like History of Architecture etc....

 

https://www.lindahall.org/

[Lane De Muro]

You know softplan has a GRID and SNAP to GRID? OPTIONS > GRID SETUP

 

Make your grid spacing the same as the line spacing, It will keep your note spacing consistent, the just snap the Insert point of the note to the grid points. If you explode a wrapped note, the lines become independent, and you can snap line to them and measure between the lines to find the exact line spacing. CTRL-C to copy the spacing and CTRL-V to paste it into the grid setup.

Yes, I was aware of that.  But in this case it won't help.
Each note has a box surrounding it, all of the same length, but of varying heights.
My goal is to set the top and bottom boxes where I want them, then to arrange all the text boxes inbetween to exactly the same space between the boxes.
The more I use Softplan, the more I think it runs circles around Chief Architect when it comes to drawing the model, but falls far, far, far behind chief when it comes to the plan set (or Layout in Chief).

[Keith Almond]

... and I thought I had OCD ...

 

Good luck with that! I don't know how you are going to pull that off. If you find something that works, let me know.

 

That's all fine until you edit a note and it word wraps.

[David Zawadzki]

…
The more I use Softplan, the more I think it runs circles around Chief Architect when it comes to drawing the model, but falls far, far, far behind chief when it comes to the plan set (or Layout in Chief).

Have you had a chance to watch the videos on setting up your plan set templates?

 

https://youtu.be/YazHRSJ9Aik

[Lane De Muro]

Have you had a chance to watch the videos on setting up your plan set templates?

 

https://youtu.be/YazHRSJ9Aik

Yes, I watched the video; it was very informative.  Once I get the boiler plate "Notes, Notes-2, Notes-3" set up on the drawing I am working on I'll save it as a plan set template, which is what I did in the other program I was using.
The issue I am having setting up the notes sheets is vertically spacing all of the notes (which are contained in rectangular boxes of varying height) to have an even amount of vertical space between the boxes.  Horizontal alignment is easy since all the outline boxes are a set width, and I can simply set guide lines for the centers and then move the boxes using the cursor snap to snap from the middle of the outline box to align with the center lines.
Thanks for pointing out the video!

[Lane De Muro]

... and I thought I had OCD ...

 

Good luck with that! I don't know how you are going to pull that off. If you find something that works, let me know.

 

That's all fine until you edit a note and it word wraps.

Keith,

  I was hoping Softplan had a "space evenly" command.  It is an easy thing to do in the other program I was using; just open the command, click the top word box, the bottom word box, then a bounding box for all the boxes in between.  Ta Da....all boxes vertically spaced with the same spacing inbetween the boxes.

[David Zawadzki]

Lane, Maybe you could post a sample of what you are trying to do with all your notes and see if anyone can help.

 

Softplan has the capability to equally divide segments and to equally space objects.  And you can also align objects.

 

In fact, I have yet to find something that Chief can do that SoftPlan can’t do… and it’s usually easier to do in SoftPlan… but I do see stuff that SoftPlan can do that Chief users can only dream of someday being able to do.

 

It usually comes down to terminology and technique.  An analogy would be to be fluent in French and then learning to become fluent in Spanish or Italian.