Cabinet, Drawer and Door Design Software – using Boards

Wanted to go back a bit to an elemental discussion of creating, locating, and sizing boards in a three-dimensional woodworking design.  Just as boards are the basic building blocks of 99.7% of woodworking projects they are the building blocks of three-dimensional models in SketchList 3D.  I’ve been doing some work with SketchList 3D as a door design software process and found that I was pushing around a lot of boards.

From time to time I received emails from people testing out the software. These emails talk about confusion in creating and sizing the board. We speak in many of the videos about the triplets that establish the size and location of an object in three-dimensional space.

The triplet is actually three groups of three-dimensional values.

The first set of three has to do with the vertical aspect of the board.

The three values set:

  • The distance between the bottom of the board and the bottom of the design or assembly.
  • The height of the board.
  • The distance the top edge is from the bottom of the board.

The second group of three values has to do with the horizontal aspect of the board.
These three values set:

  • The distance between the left edge of the board and the left edge of the assembly.
  • The width of the board.
  • The distance between the right edge of the board and the left edge of the assembly.

The third group of three values have to do with the location of the size of the board going into the assembly.

  • The first of these is the distance the front of the board is from the front of the assembly.
  • Second is the depth of the board.
  • The third is the distance between the back edge of the board and the front edge of the assembly.

When creating, sizing, or locating a board (or any object) all you really need to do is enter the size values. That means of the nine values you need only enter three. So if a board is 10 inches deep, 24 inches wide, and 3/4 inch thick, all you need to do is enter these three values. You can locate that board within your design by using the slider bars on the form. We are working on a drag and drop capability and hope to have that available shortly. (While I am using that in test mode, and must admit it's pretty cool, I will stick to my guns saying it's easier and faster to enter a specific value for location or size – for example 23.125 – that it is to try to slide that board to that degree of precision) nonetheless for fast work the drag-and-drop works very well. Getting back to creating boards please watch the video to see how you can speed board creation sizing and location and make it a bit easier on yourself

Logically the bottom and height and top of a board all determine each other. A bottom of two with a height of three determined the top of the board must be five. Top of five minus height of three means the bottom is at 2 inches from the bottom of the assembly. This happens over and over and over again in SketchList 3D.   Sometimes this confuses people.

In thinking about this I guess I can see how people might become confused. So I have put together a video showing an alternative method.  [You Tube has a tool that will focus the video.  Look under tools and select auto for the resolution.

When creating, sizing, or locating a board (or any object) all you really need to do is enter the size values. That means of the nine values you need only enter three.

So if a board is 10 inches deep, 24 inches wide, and 3/4 inch thick, all you need to do is enter these three values. You can locate that board within your design by using the slider bars on the form.

Please watch the video to see how you can speed board creation sizing and location and make it a bit easier on yourself .

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