General Concept of eCabinets

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Leon Rudan
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Company Name: Cornermark Design
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General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Leon Rudan »

This may be a silly question but I just want to confirm something before I embark on my first and large project with eCabinets.

Is the general concept of eCabinets that you must create the type of cabinet you want (thickness, material, joinery type & dimensions, edgebanding etc) and then duplicate and alter that cabinet to create more cabinets with the parameters you want, but you cannot, say, suddenly change all of the material on all the cabinets at once? For example, if I created an entire project with all of the cabinet carcasses with 3/4" Walnut Veneer Plywood and later want to change the material on all the cabinets to, say, 3/4" Maple Veneer Particle Board or 5/8", is that possible? And, the same for the door material or pulls. Can I do a global change of them? Or, do I have to change each cabinet individually one-by-one?
Wally Schneeberger
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Wally Schneeberger »

Yes you can change the complete job materials all at once (right click - Change materials ) and save in a different name without losing the first one. Also you can change all the doors and drawer fronts in right sidebar -Adjust cabinet features.
Leon Rudan
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Leon Rudan »

I'm on 6.0 Build 10 and I think I am clicking where you said but when I right click I see what is below. I don't see any 'Change Materials'. Also, the right sidebar does not show 'Adjust Cabinet Features'. Am I clicking in the right place?

(By the way, I have been through the video tutorials twice now and used the program)
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Leon Rudan
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Leon Rudan »

I figured it out. I didn't know you had to be in 'Create a room/custom layout' to see what you mentioned as you did not specify.

Ok, now that I figured that one out, I am designing about 70 cabinets for a a 2 floor home using all the same materials, joinery method, pulls, etc. Do I have to have all of the cabinets in a single custom layout in order to be able to change the materials, joinery method, etc at once for the entire home?
Wally Schneeberger
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Wally Schneeberger »

Yes you do but you can't change the joinery in the room setting. Most people build their different Library's of cabinets and then you have the different cabinets to pull from. This takes some time at first but after you do it pays off.
Daniel Odom
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Daniel Odom »

Alter a default base cabinet, wall cabinet and corner cabinet using the material joinery you want. Then you can either insert them into a custom layout and change the sizes when you drop them in or use the batch editor. I find it easier to just use the batch editor unless you have to make drawings/ renderings for approval; I find the custom layout process too time consuming for production runs.

In the batch editor I find it easier to change quantities and sizes on a whim. You make a core library and then just click on the cabinet and adjust sizes and quantity. Once you have a batch list you can easily swap out materials, doors and drawers using the adjust features bar or click on change materials. You can also click on a cabinet in the list and edit just that individual cabinet. I think you can do the same thing in custom layout, been a while since I've used it, but I find the interface in the batch editor to be much more simple and straightforward to use.

The basic concept of E cabinet Systems is to take a seed cabinet, alter it as you see fit and then save the alterations into a new folder which becomes a library of alike themed cabinets.
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Leon Rudan
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Re: General Concept of eCabinets

Post by Leon Rudan »

Daniel Odom wrote:... I find it easier to just use the batch editor unless you have to make drawings/ renderings for approval; I find the custom layout process too time consuming for production runs...
Thanks so much for that advice, which makes a lot of sense, especially for this size of job. I do have 11 rooms with cabinets in them, most of them being in the kitchen, great room and dining room, with 1-2 each in the foyer, 4 bathrooms, laundry and master bedroom. I already have drawings and renderings in Sketchup that the client has approved as I did them before my firm decided to assume more control of the project and start using Thermwood production outsourcing. As such I don't really need to do any custom layouts really, but I may just do one of the kitchen, after using the batch editor to finalize everything, just to see become more familiar with the power custom layout has to create wall & floor textures, lighting etc in a 3D space. I will be using the custom layout on future projects because for cabinet design eCabinets is a lot easier to use than Sketchup.
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