Locating the board in you cabinet design software

How to locate a board in you cabinet design software.

Locating a board

Every new object placed in a  SketchList 3D design is inserted with its distance from the left, distance from the front, and distance from the bottom edge of its holding container equal to zero.

In our example this board is zero units from the left, front, and bottom of the assembly containing it. To locate the board where you want in the assembly you simply change the values of left, front, bottom. You can change one, two, or all three values for any given board.

There are four methods of changing the values.

1. Using the blue dots at the corner of each board. To activate these dots click the blue dot icon the top of the main screen.
   1. The first way to use the blue dot for changing values is to right mouse click on one of the blue dots.
      1. Type in the new value for any or all distances. When you click okay the form close and the board will move to that new location.
      2. You can click the copy button then okay. Go to aid another board click a blue dot on that and click the paste button. Click okay and the two boards will join at that point [more about relative location later].
   2. The other way to locate boards with the blue dot is to hold down the shift key and click the left mouse button with the cursor on the point. Now you can drag that board around in three dimensions. You may find however that the results can be difficult to obtain exactly.
2. You can use the slider bars in the board forms to move objects about in a container. To do this select the object – in this case board – and go to the slider bars in the board form. Normally this form is in the upper right side of the SketchList 3D main form. With your mouse you can slide any one of the three sliders to move the board.

   

3. A third way to move a board within a container is to use the new board form. This section of the new board form that you use for locating boards is titled Location and Size.The location and size section of the form contains nine text boxes with corresponding buttons. These are presented in three groups of three.We call these text boxes and buttons collectively Triplets. Using these nine values you can achieve any combination of size and location in three dimensions.
   1. The top row deals with moving an object from top to bottom. It also changes the height of the object [more about that later].
   2. The middle row deals with moving an object from left to right. It also changes the width of an object [more about that later]
   3. The bottom row deals with moving an object from front to back. It also changes the depth of the object [more about that later].

If you want the top of the board to be 60 inches from the bottom of the assembly type 60 in the text box labeled top and click the button labeled bottom.

Using the triplets you can move the boards in either direction – left to right or right to left – and so on.

4. The final way to locate a board in the assembly is to use the spreadsheet. Generally this is found at the bottom of the main SketchList form.

   The spreadsheet replicates the functionality of the triplets in the board form.

   1. The benefit of using the spreadsheet is that it allows you to see the relationships between other boards in the assembly. This is helpful if you want to, for example, locate two boards so they butt together. To do this you would take the right value of one board and make it equal to the left value of the second board. Because the value of the two adjoining edges is equal those boards would butt.In the example above to butt the shelf against the right edge of the side the left value of shelf must be changed to 21. Because both the right of the side board and the left of the shelf has the same value those boards must but together at that point.
   2. In the case of the spreadsheet the triplets are aligned horizontally on the form. There are still three groups of three but now they are all to the side of each other.To change the value of left
      1. put the cursor on the cell corresponding to the value you want to change – for example the left value of the board called ‘side’ –
      2. type in the new value. You’ll see that text color in both the width and the right turn red. This means that those are the values that may be changed. In this case we’ve edited the value of ‘left’ by typing it in
      3. and click on the column header labeled ‘right’ [which acts as a button] the value of right for that board will change and the board will be moved.

Four methods to locate a board [any object really].

1. Blue dots – drag or use form
2. Slider bars
3. Triplets in form
4. Spreadsheet