Note that SH3D isn't meant to draw architectural plans of houses.
Waouh Hans, can you precise your answer ? 
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Evil progresses when good people do nothing!
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SH3D 7.1 and nothing else - W11 64b in 4K
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Sweet Home 3D Forum » List all forums » » Forum: Features use and tips » » » Thread: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. |
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| Print at Jan 9, 2026, 1:15:18 AM | |
| Posted by DoubleHP at Mar 2, 2017, 11:17:53 PM |
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Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Hello. Say, I set default wall thinkness to 1cm, and create a square with wall tool, wall length 1m; then, I double click with room tool to obtain the internal room and surface. The internal surface is said to be 0.98m2. Now, set default wall thickness to 50cm, and start again. Surface is 0.25m2. How to build a plan with thick walls, using internall and/or external dimensions of the house ? I am going to measure my whole house precisely, and thought SW3D could be a nice tool to report all values, and draw the schematic. But problems start at the very beginning. SW3D does let me use the real world values in any way. When two ortogonal walls have different thickness, the angle is very strange. The only work around I have found is to draw walls one by one (set both ends of a wall, then escape); this allows to work by external dimensions; but the start of new wall must be manually placed on the edge of the previous one after substratcting half of the thickness by mental calculation. If I start by drawing measurements (dimensions), and try to set two orthogonal lines with one common angle, they are magnetic only in one dimensions; the other dimension may get shifted a few cm. When I draw walls on them, walls are not magnetic at all to dimensions. If I draw walls first, then set dimensions, and move walls, dimensions do not follow wals they had been measured from. I wonder if SW3D can really do what I need: let me draw schematics of the house with detailed scale. Also, under Linux, the shift key does not remove magnetism; shift can enable magnetism when it's disabled in preferences, but does not disables it when set. |
| Posted by Miker777 at Mar 2, 2017, 11:54:16 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. hi DoubleHP I believe all wall measurements are taken from the middle of the wall, to position them accurately, and if you know its start and end points, you could draw each wall and enter the positions in "modify wall". Magnetism does seem to snap to predertermined angles, so some work has to be done with it off. Another thought, totally random, i did try highlighting a wall and then rotating, but it rotated about its centre |
| Posted by hansmex at Mar 2, 2017, 11:58:14 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. This discussion is as old as SH3D. It has been going on in various ways with suggestions for all kinds of solutions. However, none solves all problems, none is as intuitive as the current procedure. Note that SH3D isn't meant to draw architectural plans of houses. There are other programs better suited for that kind of work. As to magnetism and Linux: under Ubuntu use ALT or ALT+SHIFT H ---------------------------------------- Hans new website - under constuction hansdirkse.info |
| Posted by bdfd at Mar 3, 2017, 7:22:06 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Note that SH3D isn't meant to draw architectural plans of houses. Waouh Hans, can you precise your answer ? ---------------------------------------- Evil progresses when good people do nothing! --- SH3D 7.1 and nothing else - W11 64b in 4K |
| Posted by hansmex at Mar 3, 2017, 7:36:08 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Having followed the discussion on this topic for 7-8 years, the answer is twofold: 1 - SH3D is a 2D drawing program, not a 3D drawing program. It just visualizes in 3D what you do in 2D. 2 - The program has always been meant as "a free interior design application". That is still what the description says. H ---------------------------------------- Hans new website - under constuction hansdirkse.info |
| Posted by bdfd at Mar 3, 2017, 8:07:27 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Strongly agree with you ! Except that it seems (to me) that the priority has passed on the side of 3D and renderings and that 2D has become secondary and accessory... A small survey would be welcome on this subject !  What do you think about ? ---------------------------------------- Evil progresses when good people do nothing! --- SH3D 7.1 and nothing else - W11 64b in 4K |
| Posted by okh at Mar 3, 2017, 10:09:54 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Hans is right. And the description is important. SH3D does not promise to be an architect tool with all features. But that is also SH3D's strength, with little or no experience a user can do very much, (actually more than the packaging says ). To me the 2D pane is, at the end of the day, where the actual work is done with all construction details. 3D view is secondary, but a very useful feature to visualise the 2D drawing. Rendering hq images and videos is nice, but in an actual construction process its primary value to me is to study sunlight and light sources. Having completed one relatively large (and several small) construction projects with the help of SH3D, the 2D drawings with all measurements are what described the work - usually different printouts pinned to a wall every morning for masons, carpenters, electricians and plumbers. Somewhat to my surprise, however, everyone involved also very much appreciated getting 3D pictures from different angles when starting their work. And the pictures were often the reason they come back to us discussing different and better approaches to get what we wanted. In short, the 3D visualisation proved more valuable than anticipated during actual construction. A little caveat. Few amateurs can fully grasp the different challenges of a construction project, I certainly cannot. While SH3D is a perfect tool for finding out what you want and design your dreams, it would be pretty foolish not to go through the plans with professionals later: master builders, architects, engineers. A good example is Akalvin's House designed with Sweet Home 3D. If I remember correctly, he first designed his dream house in detail with SH3D and then took the sketches to a professional builder who, in their own software, redrew the design with lots of engineering detail before they built the house. But this construction focus is certainly not the only value of SH3D. Looking at the work of some users like Ceciliabr makes you realise what intelligent design and beautiful rendering can be. So I doubt it is an either/or question. Some will use SH3D for nuts and bolts construction - others will use SH3D to create stunning images and alluring fantasies. ok |
| Posted by DoubleHP at Mar 3, 2017, 11:58:40 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Miker777 Measurement can be done from middle or side of wall. One glitch that crosses me is that there is a huge behaviour difference between setting two walls with common angle, and, setting two walls without pressing ESC; the visual result may be identical, but in the second case, moving the common angle will catch the friend wall. hansmex which other apps can help ? I have to admit that after reading a 20mn tutorial in youtube, I master SW3D pretty well, and fully understand 95% of it after 4h of work. Alt is catched by enlightenment; does not reach user app. Shift alt also seems filtered (E combo to switch desktop) okh I did not complain about the lack of 3D. Re-read my message carefully. I have done some 3D in SW3D, and it was fun, limited, but suffisant. Stacking 6 identical items vertically within the same floor is PITA; but as said, SW3D is not designed for this. I complain about the fact in real life I am going to measure the walls either by outside of the building, or inside of the room, and the software does not let me enter those dimensions correctly; all dimensions are wrong by half wall depth, and all surfaces get wrong because of that. Surfaces are a 2D issue. This thickness problem is uncompatible with my needs; otherwise, I agree SW is easy to use, and gives a very quick clue about how to arrange a house. Helps a lot to visually communicate with relatives. I consider this as a bug, but considering the age of the app, I can not be the first one complaining; I did not come to report a bug, but to find a solution; I was hoping the solution could be within the last 5% I don't master. Otherwise, I have to go for an other app. But, Autocad is expensive and complex to handle, and Sketchup is ... not better than SW3D. Blender could not be installed. Will try a few other apps this WE. I have tried to draw thin walls (two walls 1cm thick, distant by 48cm) but they are not visible on the plan, and things get over complicated when it comes to adding a door (not impossible, but time consuming). Even worst when I wanted to differenciate external brick wall, air slice, glass wool, dry wall ... SW3D obviously not the good tool for this. But mastering Blender or Autocad may be too long for the time I have. |
| Posted by Puybaret at Mar 3, 2017, 12:15:51 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Maybe this tip is part of the 5% you don't master yet: you could draw rooms first, then with the wall creation tool, double-click in each room to create walls around it. If you have to draw more than a room, you'll probably have to refine the walls that might be superimposed, but this shouldn't be to complicate. Finally once all walls are up and doors are placed, if you want correct doorsteps, you'll just have to delete rooms and create them again with double-clicks. ---------------------------------------- Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D creator |
| Posted by DoubleHP at Mar 3, 2017, 1:43:52 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. Puybaret had not tried that, but, does not fix any of my issues. WAlls are not magnetic to rooms in any way (neither middle or sides of wall). It's PITA to draw a thick wall aligned correctly to room borders. Lack of magnetism means huge amount of mistakes every where (several cm wrong per item). Impossible to break the side of a room to add a feature. In short: draw a room, set walls around it, remove the room, create a room with double click, the surface value is different. |
| Posted by okh at Mar 3, 2017, 2:55:24 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. okh I did not complain about the lack of 3D Sorry if I gave that impression. Not the intention and I never thought you did. My comments were of a general nature as a follow-up to the ensuing discussion. As for inside-outside-middle measurements you will find several discussions about this in the forum. For inside measurements one solution is mentioned in Puybaret's reply, just draw the room first and double-click with wall-tool to create walls with correct inside measurements. The Advanced Editing Plugin can be useful to get the room right, but also for connecting walls, moving points etc. Still, doing the calculation between inside/outside/middle is pretty straightforward when you work with straight angles. For instance that in a rectangular house the outside length is the middle length + wall thickness and so forth. Some calculation when drawing is hard to avoid, in any software. Btw, some can find it helpful starting with a solitary first wall in the upper left corner modified to accurate co-ordinates and dimensions and later use Wall-tool-ENTER to insert accurate values (e.g. inside measurement + wall thickness) helps getting subsequent walls accurate. Double clicking inside and outside walls with the Create Dimensions tool occasionally also helps double checking that everything is correct. So while your point is understandable, it may not be something you miss after while. As mentioned, the strength of SH3D is indeed that it only takes minutes to learn the basics. Getting to use it efficiently with shortcuts, key-combinations, plugins and other features, well, in my case that took a while longer. Do not know which video you watched, but the many YouTube SH3D instruction videos vary quite a bit in quality. There are some worth watching, but some of them seem to miss key SH3D features. Which software is better is of course a matter of personal taste. Blender and Sketchup are very different from SH3D, but SH3D is arguably faster and easier for room planning when using a combination of mouse and keyboard. The commercial (architectural) packages are pretty expensive and will be a total overkill for many. ok |
| Posted by okh at Mar 3, 2017, 3:05:59 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. PITA to draw a thick wall aligned correctly to room borders It would be, but you do not have to. Just to clarify, if there is a misunderstanding here:- draw the room with correct measurements, - make sure the new wall thickness is set correctly in preferences, - double-click with the Wall tool inside the walls, - then the walls are created automatically. If there are different thickness walls, you adjust thickness for those walls, change the start/end values and/or SHIFT-move them. It really does not take that many seconds once you are used to the various commands. Several of the YouTube SH3D instruction videos do, surprisingly, not cover the automatic room/wall creation. ok |
| Posted by bdfd at Mar 3, 2017, 5:08:23 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. you could draw rooms first, then with the wall creation tool, double-click in each room to create walls around it... @Manu: Excellent, I didn't know this tip !  ---------------------------------------- Evil progresses when good people do nothing! --- SH3D 7.1 and nothing else - W11 64b in 4K |
| Posted by DoubleHP at Mar 6, 2017, 6:53:33 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. okh I did not take it that bad ... I am going to measure a real house; there will be odds. FreeCAD seem able to handle odds, but at the cost of a hugely longer work time. I will probably draw two plans; one for exact dimensions (FreeCAD), and one with nice 3D look and stuff names (SW). FreeCAD will allow me to be very precise and accurate, by placing reference dots; I can work with triangles (from measurements from real world)): not assuming any square angle, and draw polygones (almost rectangles) based on their diagonals. This will imply the use of many lasers and meters at the same time. In particular, just my ground floor is laying at 5 different heights inside the building; and the garden around it is very slopy. There is no way SW can handle that. SweetHome will be used to draw general shape of things, in a way I can easily select a part of the building to provide to people only the part of the plan they want. Most people may not be interessed by small details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAYHTuqm9M was just perfect for me. Walls set your way around a room may not fit my needs. Rooms never have walls of identical thickness in my case; always at least two different values, sometimes 3 or 4. Adjusting them would take ages in SW. http://www.sweethome3d.com/plugins.jsp installed all 4 plugins from eTeks; ExportToHTML does not appear in any menu (other 3 work fine). AdvancedEditing.sh3p helps a lot. How can I receive email notifications for this forum ? Did not receive email notification for either moderation(publication of thread) or answers received. It's activated, but, no mail in inbox of junk. Thanks. |
| Posted by okh at Mar 7, 2017, 8:37:59 AM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAYHTuqm9M Yes, it is one of the better YouTube videos. However, it shows a (rough, inaccurate) free-hand illustration that does not show working with accurate measurements: does not use Wall/Room-tool+ENTER, Dimensions-double-click, Wall/Room-double-click, multiple-select-modify, Ctrl-move, Shift-move, etc, etc. So therefore that video can also be a bit misleading and does not really show the SH3D features you seem to need: "allow me to be very precise and accurate". Just know that SH3D has many features that makes it easier to work with mm precision not shown in the video.was just perfect for me. I have done two old buildings in SH3D. And yes, of course, it takes some more time when all walls are different and most angles are off by a couple of degrees. But my drawings are accurate with an error margin of a couple of mm. So I disagree with Adjusting them would take ages in SW. Long and short of it is, that equipped with a Laser Measure (forget ultra-sound with laser pointers), a laser level and a piece of paper, it was fairly easy just to enter accurate measures in SH3D afterwards. Do not get me wrong, I also use other software, but in terms of drawing up and editing an accurate house plan, I have yet to come anywhere near the speed and ease of use of SH3D with any other software. Once you learn the tricks, that is. ok |
| Posted by VeroniQ at Mar 7, 2017, 3:58:03 PM |
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Re: Problem with wall thikness and room surfaces. This article of the blog recommends also Seanwasere tutorials among hundreds tested. |
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