The main concept in SketchList 3D cabinet design software is that you design with boards, organizing them into containers.
Containers can be the project that’s the high-level container, or assemblies within the container. Below the assembly level, you have doors or drawers, a door. and hardware.
Process
There are three steps in SketchList 3d, insert, size, and locate. The size is the width of the object from edge to edge. In this case, the distance between the left edge and the right edge is 12. The location is the distance between the left edge of the object and the left edge of its container.
In order to work in any container, you have to be at the proper level, I want to insert a board into this drawer. For example, I double-click that to get into the drawer level. And I’m all set.
Now I can insert a board. And the next step is that of sizing.
See the video.
There are three tools for sizing.
One is the red dots, I can right-click that changes size, like that.
The other tool for sizing is the form. So I could change the width from eight to six and click the button right and that becomes the new value.
Or I can do these on the spreadsheet. Say the height is four and click the top column heading and four inches we’re taking off the top of that board.
There are three tools for locating in SketchList 3D cabinet design software.
The first is the blue dot. I click the blue dot and hold down the shift key, I can drag this object anywhere. Although with the lack of control. I right-click that blue dot, I could set its value for the location exactly. And you’ll see that that’s where it’s located.
I can use the form for location. I wanted to move this six inches up from the bottom type and six. Click top. Put that all the way to the left type zero, click right, and same for the front back. The front is 12 back is located accordingly. There’s another if I go into the assembly level by double-clicking it.
The spreadsheet will also locate an object. When you enter the new value to the corner point and click the column header to change it.
The other way I can use the blue dots is to right-click the blue dots, copy their value. Right-click this blue dot paste its value and you’ll locate those two objects exactly together. Do that again. Copy and Paste. Now, these three containers all but together.
Boards used in cabinet design software.
Now we’ll consider what a board is in SketchList 3D. Insert a board into the assembly. A board can go into the assembly or a door or drawer. IA board can’t go directly into a project.
In the upper left-hand corner, I click the new board icon and give the board a name.
Pick the material. Then enter the width of the board and its height and its depth. The depth is the thickness, in this case, select the grain direction and click Add board. And that’s the board.
Now with these concepts and steps, you can virtually build almost anything in cabinet design software.
The woodworking design process used to be quite complicated. Even after hours of blood, sweat, and tears, it could still turn out to have been a waste of time and money. Nowadays, technology is making it easier and easier for people in the woodworking business to accomplish a lot more with a lot less effort. No woodworking business can afford to ignore software for woodworkers because it offers so many valuable benefits. Are you wondering how 3D woodworking software can revolutionize the way your business operates?
Keep reading to learn about 5 benefits woodworking design brings to your business.
1. Woodworking Design Saves Time and Money
Without software, a woodworker resorts to old-fashioned paper and pencil to draw our plans. However, this method can easily lead to mistakes and a pile of crumpled papers in your wastebasket.
On the other hand, 3D woodworking software not only allows you to ditch the paper and pencil but it also gives you a huge range of other tools to use and other benefits.
For instance, as your digital plans are mapped out, they turn into realistic 3D models. This allows both you and your clients to get a clear idea of what the final product will look like without spending a dime on materials. In addition to saving you time and money, this has the added benefit of increasing customer satisfaction by a lot.
Another way you can save time and money, especially if you’re doing multiple projects that are similar, is by generating and reusing recurring design elements. That way, you can avoid planning out the same specifics over and over again. This allows you to simply focus on the differences between projects.
Best of all, unlike paper, our digital software is environmentally friendly.
2. Woodworking Design Reduces Waste
If things aren’t done exactly right the first time, a woodworking project can result in a lot of waste.
Everything is connected, which means that if your original plans aren’t correct, then you’ll end up buying the wrong amount of materials. Once you get the job into the shop, labor hours pile up. The longer you fail to realize that you’ve made a mistake, the more waste piles up. But with a effective woodworking design software, you can measure twice, or as many times as you want, and it’ll even optimize the materials you need so that your one cut is much more efficient. There are benefits you probably wouldn’t even have thought about.
However, with 3D woodworking software, you can ensure that your plans are correct from the get-go.
3. Woodworking Design Increases Sales
When you’re using a woodworking software to make sure your projects come out perfectly, you’re going to end up with a lot of happy customers.
Even among the internet age, word of mouth is still a powerful force. Happy customers will not only work with your business again but they’ll be recommending you to their friends, family, and colleagues.
If a first-time client is feeling a bit hesitant about working with you, when they see the 3D models that you generate with ease, they’ll know you mean business. All customers want to rest easy knowing that their project is in good hands. They’ll be able to do just that because 3D software proves your business is up to date in the 21st century. Another asset of woodworking software is that you can turn your 3D design into a photo-realistic rendering to show your customers exactly what the project will look like in context, putting you another head above the competition.
Additionally, sometimes a woodworking business needs to bid on a project. With 3D software, you can make accurate bids that won’t be too much or too little. This will allow you to nab more projects without losing out or disappointing customers with more fees.
4. Kitchen, Cabinet, and Furniture Design
Kitchens can be difficult to design because they need to look attractive, be highly functional, and take advantage of every inch of space that’s available.
However, with a 3D model, you can tinker and tailor with ease. After you’ve finished with the first mockup, your customers can have a much better idea of what it will look and feel like. If your customer wants something in the plan changed, you can do it with minimal effort. This is a huge benefit over pen and paper design because changing something on the design will readjust everything else accordingly. Find out more on the many benefits of a custom kitchen design software.
The same goes for cabinets which can be difficult to squeeze into certain spaces and plan out.
Aside from the kitchen, furniture, in general, is what truly makes a home or an office. Whether you want to design bunks beds, fireplace mantels, vanities, or something else, it all becomes much easier and simpler with a woodworking design program.
5. Easy to Learn Asset for Any Woodworker
What good is a design program if you can’t figure out how to use it? Luckily, there are programs out there that are designed with the user in mind, everything is made to benefit you.
When a piece of software is truly user-friendly, you don’t even have to read a manual to figure it out. In fact, you can simply play around with it and discover all the wonderful perks as you go along.
To help you further your progress companies offer tutorial videos that are quick and easy to watch. Individual training is always an option along with free online group training meetings. With these options, you don’t have to guess about how to do something or spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.
After you use woodworking software, you’ll never go back to pencil and paper again.
Ready to Have the Benefits Woodworking Design Can Bring to Your Business?
Now that you know all about 5 benefits woodworking design brings to your business, you can revolutionize the way you get things done. Grow your business. Increase sales. Improve profits.
SketchList 3D is the best software for your woodworking business. Even if you do woodworking as a hobby, our software can save you time, money, and more. That way, the software can pay for itself.
You can try our software for 14 days absolutely free and see for yourself how wonderful it is.
If you have questions about our high-quality products, feel free to contact us. We’re always happy to help you realize the benefits of woodworking design software.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-hiw1CqyA
In this video I build A live edge river table with the most insane piece of walnut I have ever seen. I walk you through how I did it. Check it out!
Cabinet design software – mitered corners and contours
A user emailed me about a problem using our cabinet design software in his project. It’s a great example of clear communication – to the point with a screen shot to show the issue. I sent back a solution and will now make a video to discuss it.
Two boards meet in the corner and both boards have a rounded over contour on top and a miter on the ends. He ran into a limitation in SketchList 3D where cutting a hole can’t overlap other holes. This applies to joinery and contours as well.
You see the gap in the top of the corner. I ‘cut’ a corner piece with a round over contour going both ways and stuck it in the gap.
Watch the video. It contains some cool tips and tricks. Near the end of the videos I make good use of blue dots to connect things.
Thank you for your time. If you have any questions or comments level them below.
“Can’t seem to edit the joinery on the back of gables. Suggestions?”
This is a great user of our free kitchen design software. He communicated clearly. I asked him to export and send me the project which he did promptly. With it I was able to work with his ‘problem’ board and find the issue.
SketchList 3D sometimes has difficulty with overlapping holes. In this case the rabbet and the dado on the board surface were being set to overlap. Sometimes SketchList 3D predicts the problem and will not allow you to apply the rabbet, sometimes it issues a warning error.
The work around is to apply the rabbets to the edging before applying the dado. Then when you specify the dado length make sure it does not overlap the rabbet.
Here is the warning.
I clicked the Edit /Clone Holes button and right clicked the row for Hole1. Then I deleted it. At that point SketchList 3D would accept rabbets on both the back and top of the board.
I clicked the Dado button after selecting the surface of the board that would receive the dado.
With some distance between the rabbet and the dado SketchList 3D is able to cut both on this board.
The same process applies to shaping and contouring board edges. The rule is shape first and contour later. For example if you want to make a triangle shaped table top, select the board at board detail level [double click it]. Next select a surface and click Shape. Then delete one corner point to make the triangle. Exit the shape tool and select an edge. Click the contour button, select bull nose, and select the edges on which you want the contour. Go to assembly level and see your board.
Case Good Design – make sure to leave room on the front for frames and doors.
Next question from a user that might apply to more than this one person who was doing a case good design….
“If I want to add the doors at the end and forgot to leave front space for them I wasn’t able to move the whole assembly with exact 18 mm to the back to leave space for the doors without messing up the whole project – I had to start fresh again with the doors first.
I select assembly, input front 18, click on back for automatic calculation asks me for automatic resize and after it gives me error and dimensions come back to original. Moving with mouse is not exact and I get values with comas and is not that useful.”
I hate when I do this! And I still do – after nearly ten years. This very situation caused us to develop the batch move function. In Adrian’s case he needed to push everything in an assembly back by 18mm.
Normally this means every value of ‘front’ in you case design needs to change from 0 to 18 and MOST of the corresponding ‘back’ values changed to move the board backward. An exception happens when you need to shorten a board – like a side. Then the front goes from 0 to 18 and the ‘width’ changes.
A few other precautions.
The project depth must be large enough to hold the new size of the cabinet.
The assembly depth must be changed to fit the newly located and sized boards.
BUT WAIT. You are much better off using the Batch Move method.
Make the project depth big enough to hold the new depth of the assembly. If may already be big enough but be sure to check.
At project level – select the assembly you want to change and click the Batch Move button.
Cabinet Design Software – using the clone functions to save time
SketchList 3D cabinet design software allows you to make exact copies of any object in your project by using the clone function. The clone function saves time by allowing you not to redesign the same part over and over again. (Somewhat related to this idea is the SketchList standard library where you can create an object design and save it for use in other places.) Imagine making a detailed cabinet with many shells, doors, and drawers and having to re-create that board by board each time. It’s much more efficient to simply select that assembly and clone it.
There are three types of clone within SketchList 3D.
Clone – this makes an exact copy of the object highlighted.
Clone and space – this makes any number of copies of the object. In addition it allows you to space the copies from bottom to top, left to right, or front to back.
Clone and mirror – this allows you to make a copy of an object in mirror it 180° left or right.
There are different ways of initiating the clone command.
There is a clone button on the object form to the right of the SketchList 3D main screen
Right clicking the object opens a menu from which you can select the clone sub-menu. On that sub-menu you can pick any of the three clone techniques.
Right clicking a row in the spreadsheet will open a menu from which you can select the type of clone you desire.
Cloning makes an exact copy of the original object. In the general spreadsheet you’ll notice the row is highlighted with the gold background. This means that an object has been cloned but not yet changed. This highlighting helps you see that there are indeed two objects in exactly the same space. When you change the name of the cloned object the gold highlighting will go away.
Usually the next step is to relocate the cloned object.
Clone and mirror makes a copy of the original object but inverts it left to right. If you had a bookshelf on the left of an assembly and drawers on the right cloning and mirroring would result in the second assembly where the drawers would be on the left and the bookshelf would be on the right.
Clone and space makes one or more copies of the original object. Objects may be clone and space in any of three directions – bottom to top, left to right, front to back.
There are two different ways to do the spacing.
Fixed space between the cloned objects. The space between, for example, the tops of shelves and the bottom of the next shelf are equal for all pairs of shelves in the group. This way you can determine that the spacing between two objects would be a fixed amount, for example 10 units.
Variable space between cloned objects. The space between the objects is calculated over a span you specify. The beginning of the span is the original location of the selected object. You enter the end of the span. The ending of the span is set to the inside edge of the last object. For example if a bookcase height is 100 units and the thickness of the shelf is one unit the ending span would be set to 99. The form provides a calculation to show the top, right, back edge of the last copy of the object.
In fact with the variable spacing option you can clone and space the boards in more than one direction. In the example below the boards were cloned and then spaced in all three directions. This provides a bit of a staircase functionality in SketchList 3D.
Clone and space capability also exists within the round a non-round hole functions of SketchList 3D. In that case you can select a hole and clone and space it. [More later]
Cabinet Design Software – using board definition tab to change grain, orientation and materials.
Creating a new board in SketchList 3D cabinet design software establishes a definition of that board that contains information about the orientation (what it looks like from the front of the assembly), grain direction, material type (for example sheet or dimension lumber), and material (species or appearance).
There are times when you may want to change some aspect of that definition.
To do that click on the board definition tab on the right side of the SketchList 3D cabinet design software main form.
That opens the board definition form. The current values for that board are already set in the form. If you want to change any just click an alternative value.
You may change any or all of four elements of the definition.
Orientation – the way the board looks from the front of the assembly. This is really setting the board thickness so one SketchList 3D runs the Optimizer it knows how to lay this board onto the source material.
Grain direction – the direction of the grain. The option any essentially means you don’t care.
Material type – usually sheet goods or solid lumber, but there are other types of material such as glass, leather, or metal to name a few. There are also objects as a material type. In this category you may have stored an image of a refrigerator for example.
Material – this is the name and the visual appearance (grain image) of the material you’re choosing for this board.
When you’re finished adjusting that board definition move your cursor off of the new board form and it will close.
Watch the video.
Cabinet Design Software – using board definition tab to change grain, orientation and materials.
Creating a new board in SketchList 3D cabinet design software establishes a definition of that board that contains information about the orientation (what it looks like from the front of the assembly), grain direction, material type (for example sheet or dimension lumber), and material (species or appearance).
There are times when you may want to change some aspect of that definition.
To do that click on the board definition tab on the right side of the SketchList 3D main form.
board definition tab
That opens the board definition form. The current values for that board are already set in the form. If you want to change any just click an alternative value.
You may change any or all of four elements of the definition.
Orientation – the way the board looks from the front of the assembly. This is really setting the board thickness so one SketchList 3D runs the Optimizer it knows how to lay this board onto the source material.
Grain direction – the direction of the grain. The option any essentially means you don’t care.
Material type – usually sheet goods or solid lumber, but there are other types of material such as glass, leather, or metal to name a few. There are also objects as a material type. In this category you may have stored an image of a refrigerator for example.
Material – this is the name and the visual appearance (grain image) of the material you’re choosing for this board.
board definition form
When you’re finished adjusting that board definition move your cursor off of the new board form and it will close.
How to add doors and drawers with you cabinet design software.
Lesson – creating and using containers
To enable you to become more proficient SketchList 3D cabinet design software supports multiple level containers for your designs. A container is any object that holds or contains other objects.
The advantage of containers comes from the fact that actions taking with a container are instantly taken on all members of that container. This means you can create groups of objects. These groups may be:
Moved
Deleted
Cloned
Saved as a standard in your library for use in other projects.
There are four types of containers in SketchList 3D.
Assemblies
Doors
Drawers
Hardware
You can have any number of any of these containers in your project. The exception is you must have one assembly.
The relationship between the containers is as follows.
Project contains one or more assemblies. You can only insert assemblies into projects. When an assembly is inserted into a project by default it is made the same size as the project.
Assemblies may contain doors, drawers, or hardware. Assemblies may also contain boards but technically a board is not a container.
Doors may contain hardware and or boards.
Drawers may contain hardware and/or boards.
Hardware may contain boards – although when speaking of hardware we generally think they contain material.
Boards are simply objects. They have different attributes and this will be covered in future lessons.
Any new object in SketchList 3D cabinet design software is inserted at the point of origin of its container. The tasks are to take they object and change its size and location.
In order to insert, locate, size or otherwise modify objects in a container you must be at that level of the container.
You can change the level at which you are working by clicking the level on the Hierarchical levels form, or double left clicking the object on the image area of the screen.
If you start an action, for example insert a board, and SketchList is unclear about which container you intend to receive the board, a form will open. Click the desired container and click OK.
Containers are like any other object in terms of resizing for locating them. If you view the videos on resizing and locating a board and locating boards in relationship to each other you can apply those techniques to containers.
Inserting a new assembly.
To insert a new assembly click on the new assembly icon near the top of the SketchList main form. An assembly equal to the size of the project will open. Double left clicking the assembly will put you at the assembly level and allow you to begin inserting objects into that new assembly.
Inserting a door or drawer.
Doors and drawers are containers that act as sub-assemblies.
Clicking on the door icon or the drawer icon inserts those containers into the assembly. You must be at assembly level.
To create the door or drawer, go to the door or drawer level by double clicking the outline image in the image viewing area. At that point the door or drawer becomes the container for your boards. You drag the new board into one of these containers the steps are exactly the same as they would be for inserting a new board into an assembly.
NOTE: You can use a door as a substitute for a frame or any other subassembly.
Inserting hardware.
Hardware is also container that can be inserted into one assembly. It is different from doors or drawers in that hardware may be inserted into a door or drawer.
To create hardware click on the hardware icon near the top of the screen. Drag that icon into the container where you want to place the hardware. When the small hardware cube appears double click it. Now drag a “board” into that hardware. We use the term board but really mean material. When you create the “board” you want to design. There are materials that are similar to brass or bronze and steel in the database.
NOTE
Every object in SketchList 3D is located relative to the point of origin of its container. Sometimes this may confuse you. For example if an assembly is 48 units to the right, and a board in the assembly has a left value of zero, you might think that that board should have a left value of 48. There is a way to clarify this in the software
.
Little icon with three arrows going in the different directions will change the location values from being based on the point of origin of a container to being a based on the point of the origin of the entire project. In the example above then the left value of the board will be 48 – which is the distance that board is away from the left edge of the project. You can easily go from one mode to another as needed.
