TurboCad v12 Deluxe

[acf828]

I am trying to make Mullion Doors within my version of TurboCad. When I create my door and group all the vectors, I go to resize my door either bigger or smaller. When I do this, the values of my stile widths change when I need them to stay the same. I only want the height and width of the door to change. What can I do to solve this problem?

[dirk]

Turbocad is supposed to offer some parametric features since ver 11. Might be what your looking for.

[srwtlc]

If you have v11 or v12, take a look at "Help/Help Topics/Editing and Modifying 2D Objects/Constraining Geometry". Or "Help/Tutorials/Constraints". I haven't used it much myself, but if you apply the right combination of constraints to the entities in your drawing, it should work. It could be a bit frustrating until you get the hang of it though!

[patricktoomey]

Adam, I do similar things in TurboCad 11. Ass Scott said, constraints are the key. If you look in the manual or in the help system you should find info on auto constraints and auto dimensions.

The easiest way is to draw your master door with all the components and geometry you want. Now apply auto constraints to the whole thing, this will tie the parts with coincident points together. Make sure auto add constraints is checked in the inspector bar (lower left corner). Now apply auto dimensions to the whole drawing and open up the calculator pallette. You should see dimensions of all the parts on your drawing and you will see variables labeled something like Var1, Var2, Var3, etc. in the calculator pallette. If you click on a dimension in the drawing, lets say the length of a stile, you will see that variable highlighted in the calculator pallette. You can then change that variable's name to something like Stile Length. Once you have your variables named for clarity the real magic can begin. Those variables can be set to fixed numbers or they can be formulas using other variables.

Now what you would do is create some of your own variables by just typing a new name in an empty slot on the calculator pallette. Enter "Door Height" and "Door Width" to start with. Finally, edit the values of the other variables to be formulas based on door height and door width. For example, you can set "Stile Length" to "Door Height" and "Rail Length" to "Door Width - 2 * Stile Width" or whatever you called your variables.

When you want to resize the door now, you don't drag anything on the screen. You just change the values in the calculator pallette for Door Height and Door Width and everything else is calculated for you. There are some pitfalls in there and it will take some trial and error and some manual studying to get it exactly right but it does work.

Also, you can apply this to much more complex designs. For example, you could do radius or multi radius tops and bottoms and then base the radius on a formula that takes into account door with, rail width, etc.

Hopefully that at least gives you a push in the right direction. If what I did there from memory isn't exactly right it should get you close enough to search for the terminology in the help system or the manual to get the exact details.

[dna1964dna]

Patrick, I'm in partnership with Adam and we're both new to V12 we appreciate the in depth information. This is exactly what we're looking to do. Unfortunately we looked in the manual under auto constraints. we found the page, and it said to go to the menu, to format, constraints and then auto constraint. This is not in either of our programs. you referenced to the inspector bar, but we're no seeing the icon. Your help is greatly appreciated
David

[scottcox]

David,

The constraints are in the Pro versions. If you can get a good upgrade price for the Pro version, I would recommend it.

Scott

[patricktoomey]

Scott brings up a good point, I was confused as to why you wouldn't have seen the constraints but I forgot all about there being multiple versions. I was going to try to whip up a quick tutorial showing the process of building parametric doors but if you don't have the pro version then none of it would work. If you do have standard I second Scott's recommendation of upgrading, it's well worth it. IMSI has a habit of lowering the price the longer you wait and eventually the prices are REALLY low. When I first bought V11, I got the pro version, the CAM addon, all the demos, a bunch of extra stuff like the parametric furniture maker, etc. for $450 and change I think. This was a fraction of what it would have cost to buy it from the website originally. I got the demo and then just kept stalling. They sent me a lower price offer and after a month or so a sales rep called me and offered an outrageously low price so I jumped on it. I have heard this same story from lots of other people so it must be their standard practice.

[acf828]

Thanks gentlemen for all the help. It is greatly appreciated. I guess we'll just have to spend the extra money for the pro upgrade to make our lives much easier.