Faq

What is DigiCad 3D Used For?

DigiCad 3D's Dynamic Attachment Feature

How to eliminate perspective distortion from a building photo

• Import a photo
• Set scale and unit of measure
• Set the four origin attach points on the photo. The bottom-left point first, the top-left point second, after the top-right and the bottom-right. The Attach points are represented with red markers on the screen.
• Open the Destination Attach points dialog from the Trasnfrom menu
• Insert the real coordinates correspondent to the Destination Attach points. The reference system isn't important, it's sufficient that all the coordinates are in the same reference system (ex. the left corner of the building and the ground line). The Destination Attach points are represented with blue markers on the screen.
• Select the picture
• Choose Transform Picture from the Transform menu
• Choose resolution, number of colors and Opaque or Transparent option
• Click the Ok button

Is it possible to eliminate perspective distortion from a photo without any measured point?

How DigiCad 3D's Attach Functions from files Work

In the case of a dam, what is the best way to consider the hydraulic pressure on the upstream face?

Do you use a water bed which is above the ground surface (will this then compute the hydraulic load on the upstream face?) or do you use a trapezoidal load to represent the water?

It is possible to use two different methods depending on the result wanted.

First case:

We have a dam with water on one side (let's suppose on the right side). We want to verify the dam from right to left.

The best method is to consider a water stratum. A water stratum has 0 porosity, O cohesion coefficient, 0 Fi and 0 weight.

The water bed is on the top of this stratum.

The slide surfaces must continue inside the "water stratum" until the surface.

In this case Geo-Tec B considers the weight and the pressure of the water bed correctly.

In this case it isn't possible to apply the first method and it's necessary to consider the water as a triangular or trapezzoidal load on the terrain (to consider the effect of the water on the terrain surface) plus the water bed (to consider the effect of the pressure of the water inside the terrain).

There is a special case to simulate a quick emptying of a lake. It's possible to simulate this case deleting the loads on the surfaces and maintaining the water bed on the top level. This because some time is needed for the water inside of the terrain to come out and in the meantime the internal pressure of the water corresponds to the top level of the water bed.

How does grahic import work in Nonio C? Nonio C imports graphic images in several formats. The PICT import command uses QuickTime and can import all the graphic formats handled by the installed QuickTime Other methods to import an image in Nonio C are Copy and Past and Drag & Drop.

How does DXF import work in Nonio C? Nonio C imports single points,  polygons (in DXF Polyline), faces, which it inserts as points to eventually be united by breaklines. It does not import other elements, such as lines, text, circles, etc. The primary use of DXF importation in Nonio C is to import contour lines from maps and complete 3D models. If you want to import a drawing for other purposes (such as to serve as the base document for a survey project), it's better to import the document first to another program, for example DigiCad 3D, then to Nonio C using Copy and Paste or Drag and Drop.

How can imported images be used? Imported immages can be used for a number of objectives, among which some are listed below: - Digitalization of a map with contour lines - Superimposing a design on the survey - Superimposing a survey drawing on an aerial photo - Use of a design as a guide for infill or excavation - Comparison of the terrain model with the map - Comparison of the terrain model with map of property lines

How does Nonio C calculates the terrain model? Nonio C constructs a mathematical surface connecting points with line segments to construct triangles. The generation of triangles is also regulated by the maximum distance for triangulation entered in the Preferences dialog box, which requires the program to search for and construct triangles only among points falling between the set distance. For any number of points, there are several possibile ways in which they may be joined by triangulation. If the general guidelines given above are followed and a reasonable maximum distance for triangulation set, the generated model should represent closely the actual terrain conditions. When there are certain discontinuities in the surface, a more detailed modeling process is required. In these situations, connections can be somewhat ambiguous, even for a simple case involving only four points. If automatic triangulation is used in situations like the one above, it can cause erratic results. Nonio C offers the user the ability to impose breaklines (representing lines of discontinuity, such as ditches, ridges, or streets) from which the triangulation can then be completed automatically. The user can locally correct the automatic triangulation and Nonio C recalculate the modified model immediately and automatically.

The vaulted roof method turns the slab into an object - How can you edit it, in terms of creating a garret wall to close off a gable end, and then insert a door or window into that garret wall.? The easiest way to do this is to use the same polygon you used to generate the vault and choose the "Generate Arch on Polygon" command to make an arched wall (make sure your wall parameters - width, height, etc - are set at what you want before generating). The generated arch is your garret wall. It seems like you've already done this though. If you need a more complicated garret wall shape you can modify the original polygon and generate an extrusion. As for inserting the window opening, the best thing is to have a garret wall composed of two elements, a top part (the arch itself) and a bottom part (a wall element to fill in the rest...inside which you can easily insert a window). But I imagine that life is not that simple and you want to insert a window right in that top part. This is a bit more difficult. The arch is made up of many vertical wall parts. The best way to do this would probably be to lower the wall height of the parts where you want the opening, then, using a polygon traced over the correct area, generate an extrusion to fill in the missing piece. Place the extrusion at the right ref. ht.

I need help in getting the construction documents together include. 1. generation of 1:50 sections, 1:100 elevations, 1:10 section details, 1:10 plan details, window elevations and details. 2. adding notes and dimensions 3. paging sheets to a printing sheet 4, setting up a printer/plotter - preferably A1 - my engineer has offered the use of his HP printer, which is connected to a PC 5. setting up page titling, numbering etc. Suggestions on where to start first and what I need to change on my drawing to aid the process? thanks for your help There are two different approaches. Some architects prefer the first and some others the second. 1 – Starting drawing construction lines and polygons to define rooms, distances, positions etc. After, adding walls and windows, following the underlying drawing. 2 – Starting tracing directly the walls. Tracing them longer than strictly necessary and delete the extra unnecessary parts after inserting the perpendicular walls in the correct place. Personally, I prefer the second way, because it avoids one step and use better some Domus.Cad features, as wall fusion. The Domus.Cad tutorial follows this method. The various project phases could be as follows: - Design all the 3d parts (walls, windows, slabs, stairs, roofs etc.) and control the model in the 3D view. - Add the 3D objects that you want , they appear in sections and elevations - Generate all the sections and elevations and save them in some free layers - Complete plants, sections and elevations with 2D drawings, text, patterns and dimensions, according to the desired print scale - Copy plan and section parts to free layers to design plan and section details - Paginate all the necessary print tables - If you use an external plotter to print, you can choose to plot to disk. This generates a file in HP-GL/2 format, that can be plotted on any HP ink-jet plotter. You can send it by e-mail. Looking at your drawing I noted a lot of not fused walls. Some of them have a 0 attach. Do you want the walls to be fused or not? Generally, setting an attach distance some longer than walls thickness produces good results. Another suggestion: always set a grid from the beginning, some little value as 50 mm. If needed, raise or lower it, but never disable the grid. If the grid is disabled, your drawing will be inaccurate. If you draw while the grid is disabled, the values shown in the coordinates boxes aren't exact. You can see 1258 mm, while the exact value could be 1258.45876. When you draw the dimensions, the rounding process can generate incongruent dimensions in some parts of the drawing. If you have two 1000.45876 coaxial parts, the relative dimension are rounded to 1000, while the total dimension is round of (1000.45876 + 1000.45876) = 2001 instead of 2000.

I have some lines on my drawing that I just can't cancel. Even if I choose "select all", it's impossible to select them. How can I eliminate these lines? Follow the steps below: - Select, pressing the Command key, the part of the drawing that is correct. - Cut it with the Cut command from the Edit menu or with Command-X. - Delete the Layer with Clear Layer command from the Layers menu. - Press Command-V or chose Paste from the Edit menu to paste in what you cut.

How to insert a rendering in a photo? The first step towards inserting a rendering in a picture is to place the Domus.Cad camera in the same position as the real life camera. Place the observed point in Domus.Cad on the point corresponding to the center of the photo. Set the camera angle parameter the same as the lens of the camera. Set the Domus.Cad light direction parallel to the direction of the light in the picture. The sun light generation tool can help you. Set the 3D view background color to white. After that you should obtain a 3D view that is consistent with the photo perspective. Save the image on a free layer. Select the image and with the PictRot module of the Plug In menu change the image to make the white color transparent. Select the image and group it in an object. Place the object on the top of the photo. Resize the object, with the mouse, so that it is perfectly superimposed on the photo.

After saving a design ready for printing, how can I re-use a .lay document? You can re-open it with the Open button on the page layout window

When I insert a door or window in a wall, it creates a sized opening. this opening can be made transparent or coloured (in 3D view). To have a window or door frame, you need to create separate slab elements- as you have described to me previously. The door element is in essence a coloured vertical plan of minimum thickness. So does this mean that the insertion of a door or window is this in effect the same as the "punching hole in slab" function (and visa versa)? The window and door tools build a window/door without the frame, practically they make holes in the walls and, in this sense, they are similar to the "punching hole in slab" function. The main difference is that they are base elements and it's easier to handle a window then a hole in a slab. You can move, resize, deform, duplicate, copy-and paste etc. windows and doors while the only operation that you can do with a hole in a slab is changing vertixes. The vertical plane inside the windows is useful to give a first idea of the house. The commands Apply Object and Add Frame allow you to automatically add a window frame to the selected window openings. There are many ways to build doors and windows. Some months ago I showed you as draw a 3D window with slabs. This time I want to show you as to built simple frames with walls and windows. Follow the steps below. Let suppose we need a 170 x 170 cm window frame. - Draw a wall with l = 170 cm and h = 170 cm - Set a window with Sill = 10 and Height = 150 - Trace two windows in the wall   Select and group all in an object. You have the window frame.

I have created a single pitched roof for a rectangular 3-level building, but cannot find the right method for connecting the walls to the roof.  To make the walls match exactly the bottom part of the roof you must select all the walls and the roof and execute the command Adjust Walls on Roof from the Process menu. Follow the steps below:

• Click on the arrow and on the wall icons on palette #1
• Trace a selection rectangle including all the walls
• Click on the Floor/Slab/Roof icon
• Press the shift key and click on one of the edges of the roof. This extends the previous selection, so you have selected all the walls and one roof.
• Execute the command above

You have selected 2 or more roofs. Only one roof can be selected. The bottom of a wall is higher than the bottom of the roof. In this case it is geometrically impossible to complete the command.

How are objects, as in the library of object provide get made -ie so I can custom make an objects, such as wood fired heater, or louvred windows panel. The easiest way: 1) on a clean layer, create the object using the appropriate 2D and/or 3D tools (assigning whatever materials, etc.) 2) choose the Save Active Layer as Object from the Layers menu I usually find using extrusions and slab elements the easiest way to model objects, but it depends. For example, your louvred window: the frame is just a wall element with a window cut into it and the louvres are a simple inclined slab duplicated changing the z component. That's how all those shutters in the library were made. or 1) create the object on any layer 2) select the involved elements (if you hold down the Command key while you select, it selects ALL elements inside the rectangle, not only those of the activated type) 3) choose the Save Selection as Object command from the Edit menu

How to configure the photo to have it in scale when used? I have a similar problem with a vehicle that I managed to download - can't get it to scale...so it's unusable! You can select it and rescale with the Deformation command from the Process menu.

Is it possible to paste a 3D perspective onto a photo of landscape, in order to show the project's integration into its environment? There are several interesting dxf and dwg models that you can import in Domus.Cad. To superimpose a Domus.Cad rendering onto a photo in Domus.Cad follow the steps below:

• Import the photo in Domus.Cad
• Generate the rendering with a white background
• Save the rendering to a free layer
• Select the rendering image and choose the PictRot command from the Modules menu
• Set 0 rotation, million of colors, 72 dpi and white transparent. Confirm
• Now you can move the rendering onto the photo because the background is transparent.