Hi Guys, you may know that PlusdesignBuild has a wood frame shop drawing detail function that works inside Sketchup.
Here is the original tutorial I made Wall frame shop drawing tutorial
The purpose of the post is to get feedback on the existing output.
I talk with Australian carpenters and framers who use the tool regularly, and their feedback is that it saves a heap of time, especially with gable walls and sloping/ skillion walls. Yet I can see room for improvement, e.g., adding cut lengths to the shop drawings, where it currently exports a CSV or Excel file.
For those of you who have not used the tool, It’s called the Frame Panelization tool, and it’s represented in the toolbar by this Icon
I was originally a frame carpenter by trade and found it frustrating building walls onsite; chalking wall frames out on the floor and measuring off chalk lines took hours. The goal with the tool was to have a full set of wall-to-page dimensioned wall frames and shop drawings so we could utilise less experienced apprentices and labourers to help build a home.
I have several ideas to improve what we have now, yet it would be good to hear from you as I have been known to create tech that was not utilized Let me know if you have any questions on how to use the tool.
By the way, here is a screenshot of a model I received from an Architect in America. It is great to see architects getting involved in how a project can be built. I will do a tutorial on it as soon as I get some free time.
Multiple strings of dimensions on the bottom of a standard wall are not required, as the stud spacing will be constant. They’re handy with a gable or skillion wall, though so don’t change that.
I’ve used Mitek and Pryda and they have the elevation and plan of a wall on one page, and it dimensions the plan instead of the bottom plate, on the elevation like PlusDesignBuild does. No biggy but will save paper space. Also the stud spacing is plotted to the page ad they only dimension frame length, window and door openings as the stud spacings are repetitive and clutter the important measures.
The frame plan should be a section cut or at least have back edges showing. Also, ideally, each wall panel labell was bold in the plan view to make it easier to see
The line weight should be 20
It would help if the wall labels were on a different layer in layout so they could be isolated and moved around more easily.
It would be amazing if the cut and order list associated with each wall was on the corresponding shop drawing for each framed wall.
All in all the tool is good as it is these improvements would make it better.
I know I’m late, but I have the following ideas / feedback:
The text (on Mac) comes out way too big, making the dimensions overlap each other. I understand people who may print off these sheets for site use, but my guys on site access a pdf exported version on their phones on site so they just zoom in on measurements. They and I much prefer this to A3 paper. So I’d love an option to be able to select the font size of the measurements before generating as I currently use size 6-8, which keeps it clean and allows the guys to actually see the frame behind the measurements. I currently go through and manually reformat each panel’s dimension font sizes after it has been created. 30mins+
Have the wall numbers be generated in a logical order from one side of the house to the other, so it’s easy to follow. Having W34 next to W18 and W63 makes it much harder for the guys on site to track where each wall goes. So I’m now going through and relabelling each wall in the cover page, then renaming each wall page and then reordering each wall page to be in the correct order. 30mins+
I want an ability to not have any measurements on the cover page, just wall numbers, otherwise it’s way too busy and hard to understand what’s what. I currently go through and manually delete all the wall measurements, which is tedious to make sure you don’t accidentally delete a wall number since they’re all on the same layer (on Mac). 15mins+
I want an ability to include all nogging measurements on each frame. The guys on site use them to cut the individual noggings for each wall, as even with standard stud centres you always get uneven noggings with junctions, windows and doors in the wall. I’m now manually adding all the nogging measurements to each panel. With the smaller font size I mentioned above, it doesn’t clutter up the page at all like others suggest. 30mins+
Ability to include the nogging height/s dimension in the wall on each panel. I have a current project where walls range from 2740 up to 4150, which means we had to use different nogging heights for each wall height. Having to manually draw them in. 30mins+
The ability to turn off certain measurements on the panels. The diagonal measurements don’t get used by my guys on site as they just quickly use a tape to square it on the ground, so to be able to turn that off (along with any other measurement) before generating the panels, will really help clean up the panels. 5mins+
I absolutely ditto the cut list (not order list though) on the associated panel, I’m doing that manually now too, and since I’m entering studs, top and bottom plate, etc measurements and quantities myself, it introduces possible human error. 30mins+
This one is a “nice to have” but still takes time for me to do manually. I orient all my walls to be as if you’re looking at them all from the front of the block looking to the back, or the right of the block looking to the left. This allows guys on site to easily visualise what way the frame orients when they build and stand it. So, to be able to select how you would like the frame panels to show up rather than only showing external to internal would be nice. 10mins+
Currently with the 3h+ work I have to do after creating the frame panelisation file, I am not able to just regenerate a new file if I have to change a wall. I need to go back into the file and make the manual adjustments to that individual wall/s. I cannot do any plusspec software wall/door edits as it regenerates the wall making it show up in every other walls’ scene. So if I do use it, I then have to go into each scene and manually hide the wall and update it, so that wall isn’t visible. If I don’t do that it messes up the frame panelisation file when I refresh the connection for the wall change. Way more time.
So having the items listed above be implemented will be a huge time saver for us.
I will say the multiple strings of dimensions on the bottom plate is a must keep for us, even with standard stud centres, it gives my guys a running measurement to follow when marking out their plates, and most importantly prevents them from having to do math, which is basically guaranteed to result in human error
Training will help you a lot, when i get a chance I’ll try and answer.
In layout you have the capacity to turn Layers on and off (dimensions, model, text etc)and you can adjust text size easily in the Default tray.
If you have a preferred Default text size let us know.
You’re probably right about the training, I’ll invest in some.
In the meantime, not sure if you use a Mac, but turning the dimensions layers off on the cover page turns all the dimensions off including the wall numbers since it is a dimension, while nothing is actually stored on the text & annotations layer at all. Based on your response I assume on Windows the wall numbers are on the text & annotations layer, which would certainly be helpful. Is that a bug?
As in you can somehow set a default text that PlusSpec will pick up on when generating the file? On a Mac there is no default tray but there is a font window and I have set the default font to size 6 and it still comes in as size 12 (way too big). If on the other hand you mean you can adjust text sizes easily once it’s already in layout, I am trying to avoid having to make a large number of additional edits once the file is generated, so having options for the things I mentioned be added in the frame panelization window inside SketchUp before it generates the layout file would be excellent.
Let me know if you have any questions on how to use the tool.