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Posted by trogladyte at Mar 3, 2019, 2:49:15 AM
New to Sweet Home 3D
I drew homes for 15 years in New Zealand using Datacad and Spirit.

Now living in Arizona and not having my CAD program anymore, I'm looking for an alternative to shelling out a grand to repurchase Spirit (a great program, but I only need it for one project I need to do).

So here's a few things that have cropped up in my early playing with SH3D.

1. How do I make a wall xx feet long exactly? In both Datacad and Spirit, I's start drawing the wall, nit the space bar and enter the length I wanted.
2. Dimensioning 1. How do I dimension a wall thickness? If I click on the outside corner, then the inside corner, I get an angled dimension, not the wall thickness dimension.
3. Dimensioning 2. Can I do string dimensions? What I mean is start at one corner, then snap or click on various points along that wall (for example, openings, interior walls, etc) to automatically place dimensions?
4. Dimensioning 3. If I draw a wall, then dimension, then stretch the wall, the dimension does not update to the new length.
5. Cleaning up walls. Where do I clean up wall joints - T and L intersections?
6. Magnetic snapping. This seems very inaccurate. It often does not accurately snap to corners.

Posted by hansmex at Mar 3, 2019, 8:05:18 PM
Re: New to Sweet Home 3D
INTRO
Trogladyte
a red neck and/or crack snorting alcoholic who spends most of their time in WalMart buying discount paper towels and eating at the ketchup packets at the McDonalds in the store.
they usually drive an astro van packed with six of their illegitamate love children, none of which wear pants or shoes.
Source: Urban Dictionary

Troglodyte
Troglodyte is a human cave dweller, from the Greek trogle "hole, mouse-hole" and dyein "go in, dive in".
...may also refer to:
1 - Historiography
Troglodytae or Troglodyti, an ancient group of people from the African Red Sea coast
2 - Science
Homo troglodytes, an invalid taxon coined by Carl Linnaeus to refer to a legendary creature
Pan troglodytes, the common chimpanzee
Troglodytes (bird), a genus of small bird
3 - Arts and fiction
etc etc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


ANSWER(S)
0 - Don't compare SH3D with $1000 professional CAD software. It's not CAD software, not intended to be, nor claiming to be. It has clear limitations when used for architectural design (no elevations, no cross-sections).
1 - Exact wall length: click for the first point, then on the keyboard hit ENTER, in the pop-up window you can enter exact length, angle and thickness.
2 - Dim1 - Don't measure the corner, measure the wall? Maybe more explanation is needed...
3 - Dim2 - No
4 - Dim3 - No, dimensions do not auto-update
5+6 - Learn to use the program? The program uses "magnetism" which gives visual clues as to what will happen when you click. You may need to learn what to watch out for. There's several types of cross-hairs and extension lines that indicate that you can connect two wall sections, eliminating the need for time consuming clean-up afterwards.
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Hans

new website - under constuction
hansdirkse.info