25. September 2008 by admin.

I bought a plan for a breakfront cabinet to see what ‘professionally’ drawn plans look like.  I decided to re-create the project using SketchList 3D.  Three things happened.

First I found the plan and its parts list to be confusing.   It looks very nice and is well drawn, but the elements of the project are not tied together very well.

Second I found errors - which surprised me given the source of this plan.  There is a disclaimer “For guidance only” — but still I’m glad I didn’t but materials according to the cut list.  Some dimensions didn’t add up and some material was not on the parts list.

Third I began to develop a sense of flow in analyzing the project (which I had seen built on the video).  There is an order of creating parts (virtual ones) that makes more sense.  Within SketchList 3D I see the real value for the project standards.  (You set defaults for things like the way a door is constructed and each time you insert a draw that default is used.)  Not only do standards save time, but they are the first exposure or insight into the project.  Questions asked and answered in this stage save time later.

And finally I needed to back off the goal of absolutely re-creating the project as on paper.  Just like in my shop, each time I make another such and such, I take what I learned from the last one and improve on it.  That’s what I decided to do with this kitchen unit.   While keeping largely true to the design, I’ll tweak it as I feel  I should.  This is part of woodworking for me anyway!

The project has several shaped boards and we’re re-writing the shaped board interface in SketchList 3D.  So I’ll wait until the week end to finished the project.  Then I’ll post it on www.sketchlist.com.

Keep cutting….

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12. August 2008 by admin.

There is a feature of SketchList 3D that allows you to create shaped boards and display them in 2D and 3D. After some user feedback we’ve decided to re-do the user interface to make it easier to understand and more point and click oriented. Funny I’ve used it so long that it seems OK to me, but hearing the input I can see it needs work. We’re putting together ideas and will begin programming when we all agree on what it should work like. Keep you posted.

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8. August 2008 by admin.

Well SketchList 3D has several users outside of US - South Africa, the Philippines, Belgium and Canada so far. We’ve pent up demand in Australia as soon as our support for the metric system is fully tested. It was interesting to go through the process — many things are different and affect software design.   We thought the challenge was to be the metric system but found things like dates and currency all needed to be addressed.

Hopefully we’ll have people using our furniture design software all across the world by the end of the year.

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7. August 2008 by admin.

Ease of use is a non-defined term really. It depends on what you already know how to use and what your working and learning style is. While it’s one of those things that ‘you know it when you see it’ - everyone sees differently. Woodworking is filled with this type of thing. Someone hand cuts dovetails, another person uses a jig, the third person chooses biscutts and the next will cut a dado. And they all think they’re method is easy to use!

I’ve been following a discussion of SketchUp and ease of use. It’s funny. There are quotes like “steep learning curve”, “watch all the vidoes once or twice”, “get on the SketchUp blogs”, “make sure you buy a digitizing tablets ($100)” and so on. “Does SketchUp let you generate parts lists?” Well there is Ruby code online that you can get and put into your software which will do this. (I think Ruby is a programming language but she might be a programmer!.) One person wrote “Remember the goal of SketchUp is to allow you to design things. Then you export to CAD to finish them.” Speaking of export another wrote that he does a ‘manual takeoff’ from SketchUp and inputs the parts into a cutting layout program.

SketchList users say things like “I have already done three projects and have not really even looked at the manual. This software is doing just what I was hoping it would do.” and “It only took me a couple hours to install SketchList, watch some of the video demonstrations and layout a simple set of shelves. The user interface is will organized and easy to use. ” and one more “After an evening “playing” with the software and watching a few video tutorials, I was able to effectively use the program. The User Interface is basically intuitive and easy to use.”

As one article reviewing CAD systems put it this way: “I should be able to draw a line. If I can’t pretty straight forward draw a line, well that’s no good for me.”  Ease of use should be good for you.

If you are trying software and can’t ‘pretty straight forward’ get results, try another package. Ease of use is in the eye, experience, and ability of the beholder.

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1. August 2008 by admin.

We have fixed an issue with our install /trial functions and are preparing an update to be placed online. It seems our date codes didn’t work in certain countries.

We’ve also finished coding on the ability to design in metrics. Some more testing and that will be ready to go soon. In that same update the 3D window size will be adjustable.

We’ve added some functionality in the user interface that provides more information about components when designing in 2D or 3D.

There are over 100 SketchList users literally around the world. Those who’ve reported have good things to say about the software.

I’ll get back to this blog more frequently.

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26. July 2008 by admin.

After three years of developing our product we are very close to the release. SketchList 3D is furniture design software that allows you to work with ‘virtual boards’ to model in both 2D and 3D.  We have about a hundred users. Recognizing the potential for early errors, we are offering $25.00 off the sale price of $200. We are getting excellent feedback and people are finding themselves productive in very short time periods. I hope to keep this blog up with comments by myself and by our users.

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