Drawing Closet Systems

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Nat Wheatley
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Company Name: Plymouth Custom Closets
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Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Nat Wheatley »

I use Ecabinets daily for cutting parts for closet projects, but have never taken the time to learn how to use the drawing portion of the software. I draw everything in KCD, then enter then manually enter the units into Ecabinets to create a batch file.

I haven't invested the time to learn to draw as I've always relied heavily on dimensioned elevation views for my proposal, and I don't see that I'm able to do this efficiently in the software. More and more though, I'm finding that people aren't so much interested in the elevation views, as they are the 3D views. So, I'm rethinking this.

Is anyone else drawing closet systems effectively with Ecabinets?

I took a quick stab at drawing a project and quickly ran into issues. All the units in my libraries have a left and right side panel. I placed several units on a wall side by side, how then do I delete one of the side panels, where the units meet, as they need to have a shared side? Just trying to figure out if what I'm considering is even feasible.

Thanks
http://www.plymouthcustomclosets.com

Dell Precision 490/ Intel Xeon 3.20 Ghz/3 GB RAM/ Nvidia Quadro FX 3450/ Windows XP, sp 3
tim lucas
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Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by tim lucas »

Good morning Nat,

Yes ecabinets can be used for closet cabinets quickly and easily. Think of your cabinet in this way, I took a standard wall cabinet added partitions and now you have inside sides shared. Just add fixed shelves and adjustable shelves where you want. You can resize it and it will all adjust. Here is my sample. wasn't sure if you use backs or not so I left it in but if you need to remove it just right click, select construction settings, select back and uncheck it. You should try to make just one cabinet exactly the way you want to build it, get it right then you use it as the main cabinet to create more cabinets.

The online training is well worth the money and will give you ideas on creating better cabinets / closets. Hope this helps.
Closet Cab.jpg
Closet Cab.jpg (11.52 KiB) Viewed 7317 times
Closet Cab.hsf
(230.02 KiB) Downloaded 364 times
To use this cabinet just download the picture and the file and put them in your cabinet library.

Tim
Tim Lucas Custom Woodworks LLC
www.TLCW.us
Nat Wheatley
eCabinets Beta Tester
Posts: 491
Joined: Wed, Apr 15 2009, 8:22PM
Company Name: Plymouth Custom Closets
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Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Nat Wheatley »

Tim,

Thanks very much. I was thinking it would be cumbersome to create one custom cabinet for each wall, but I could likely build a library of some of the more popular wall configurations, and resize/customize those as needed. I'll play around with that and see what type of time it's taking.

What do you use to display closet rods?

Nat
http://www.plymouthcustomclosets.com

Dell Precision 490/ Intel Xeon 3.20 Ghz/3 GB RAM/ Nvidia Quadro FX 3450/ Windows XP, sp 3
Ralph Balanik
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Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Ralph Balanik »

Nat,
If you look at the items in display objects you will find several closet rods. If you select one and then right click you will see an option to scale the object which allows you to change some of the parameters. I am guessing that you would size, rotate, and place the display object like any other though I am not sure if it would automatically resize once placed in a cabinet. Another option would be to create a sheet material that you could use to create a stretcher, give it a shiny finish and then use a stretch to illustrate closet rods. Hope this helps. As far as learning the software, the videos are very good and once you gain a bit of familiarity it is really quite quick to design and build what you want.Well worth the effort and very reasonably priced. Hope this helps.
Ralph Balanik
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Joined: Fri, Jul 30 2010, 5:33PM
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Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Ralph Balanik »

Nat,
If you look at the items in display objects you will find several closet rods. If you select one and then right click you will see an option to scale the object which allows you to change some of the parameters. I am guessing that you would size, rotate, and place the display object like any other though I am not sure if it would automatically resize once placed in a cabinet. Another option would be to create a sheet material that you could use to create a stretcher, give it a shiny finish and then use a stretcher to illustrate closet rods. As far as learning the software, the videos are very good and once you gain a bit of familiarity it is really quite quick to design and build what you want.Well worth the effort and very reasonably priced. Hope this helps.
Ralph Balanik
Senior Member
Posts: 198
Joined: Fri, Jul 30 2010, 5:33PM
Company Name: Ralph Balanik
Country: CANADA

Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Ralph Balanik »

Everytime I post I manage to embarass myself so forgive the double display :oops:
Nat Wheatley
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Posts: 491
Joined: Wed, Apr 15 2009, 8:22PM
Company Name: Plymouth Custom Closets
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Re: Drawing Closet Systems

Post by Nat Wheatley »

Ralph Balanik wrote:Everytime I post I manage to embarass myself so forgive the double display :oops:
Well FWIW, I just managed to do the opposite. I typed out a reply to one of your responses, and it somehow disappeared. For now I'll say thanks very much for the info, its very helpful.
http://www.plymouthcustomclosets.com

Dell Precision 490/ Intel Xeon 3.20 Ghz/3 GB RAM/ Nvidia Quadro FX 3450/ Windows XP, sp 3
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