Book case sample – Woodworking Design Software

Locating multiple boards within a design.

In your mind you can probably visualize that a basic bookcase has one board on either side and several shelves between them. This lesson will show you how to locate boards relative to each other in your design to ‘make’ that bookcase using our woodworking design software.

Blue dots are probably the easiest way to locate boards.

Turn the blue dot function on by clicking the blue dot icon on top of the SketchList main form.

Right-clicking the blue dot opens the edit corner form.

In this form you can enter the new value for left, bottom, or front. Clicking the okay button will move the board accordingly.  For example if the back value in the first board was 24  and you type in 24  for the front value of the second board and click okay those two boards butt.

You can click the paste button in this form and click okay. Go to another blue dot on another board and right-click. Click paste in this form and click okay. Those boards will be placed together at that second blue dot.

Another method for spacing boards is to use the spreadsheet in SketchList 3D.

The advantage of this approach is you can deal with the values of both boards at once. That is to say you can see both values in the same display.

The technique is what some people call “working the diagonal”. If you look at the sample in the spreadsheet see that the value for right the first board is 10. If you look in the row of the second board you see that the left value of that board is also 10. The boards butt left to right 10 units from the left edge of the assembly. You can also see that the 10 values in the two rows form a bit of a diagonal in the spreadsheet.

To insert a board between two others you are essentially butting the left edge of the board to be inserted the right edge of the first board, and the right edge of the board to be inserted to the left edge of the second board.

In this example inserts the middle board between the first board and the second board.

• The right edge of the first board is five to the left edge of the middle board must become five.
• The left edge of the second board is 15 to the right edge of the middle board must become 15.
• Then the middle board will be inserted between the first and second board.

Notice the “working the diagonals” at work.  NOTE: this means you are not required to know the distance between the two boards. SketchList will calculate and resize the middle board accordingly.

Watch this video.