As a long time draughtsman, I’m currently exploring the possibilities of using SU for creating the model(s), and that’s obviously leading me on to using LO for preparation of construction documents for residential projects. At this point, I’m more than happy with what I can do with SU, but I am more than a little disappointed with what I can achieve with LO.
For example, I’m struggling to find anything to assist with preparing, what I consider to be fundamental documents, like a basic drawing list / register. Similarly, it would be great if I could find something to assist with generating door and window schedules.
Obviously I can create the lists manually, but I had access to that level of functionality in 2D cad software almost 3 decades ago …
So, has anybody out there got any suggestions, or any tips and tricks …
Use the dynamic part to components or groups to attach meaningful data, like window or door index, sizes, type. Place windows on own layer, doors another, so as make selection easy, Use report writer (customized and saved to a template, for schedules for each ) export to spreadsheet, do any extra formatting or sorting, insert into layout.Then use label to access the index attribute of the component in layout.
the label tool has access to exposed component or group attributes (ones that can be seen in the options dialog)
so one could create a template shell for your typical group or component objects, say for doors, and replace the inside component with a downloaded warehouse door or create one. The example is metric, you could confirm your preferred units of measure for further examples door example.skp (29.7 KB)
This DC is a simple retangle component placed inside a wrapper component that has a few attributes exposed in the options dialog, the one layout text is a dropdown that has formulas in the value section, so as to give options for various scenarios you may want to report as a label
being a shell, the inner component can be swapped *right click menu, 3Dwarehouse reload, then search for doors , pick “Flush Door 915 x 2100” will notice that the insert position is different, just move it to shell origin (others may need rotation, depending on how the creator made them) you will note that this download is not dynamic,if the size and scale is an issue, try a search for dynamic door… there are some good ones, depends on your requirements
excel or spread sheet tables can be updated in layout, so a title block may have some of its elements derived from the spread sheet and other elements such as page number, dates as a layout custom auto text
Thanks for the explanations and the links Philip, they’re really useful
As for my preferences for units, I’m based about 2,300 km east of you in New Zealand, so metric works well for me, but I’m old enough and have worked in enough sectors to be comfortable with imperial.
When it comes to tables and auto text in LO, I think I’m beginning to get the picture, thanks.
I do remember when I started using SU I struggled with a few things because I hadn’t developed the right mindset for the software, and because I’ve only just started playing with LO I think that I’m going through the same kind of learning curve to find the appropriate features and how to apply them to achieve the results that I’m looking for.
